Thursday, June 30, 2011

the second of the last days away; a reflection from this mountain



sure
i remember meeting her
befriending her
courting . seeking . chasing . dancing
and etc

but i loved her first 
i felt it
it was
honest . immediate . sudden . perminent 
and etc

if forced at butter knife point while having my fruit and coffee on the top of this mountain i would describe it as solar, her light

it's funny
people
spreading joy and love and light
disappointing
flying in 
flying out
and etc
she won't dissapoint
she won't fly out 

she has made that quite clear

many great people have said many great things about love
i want to use all of those words in one sound
a song i will share with the short life span having birds
the mountains 
the newly begining dream inspired universe
and the oceans and moons to come
from the hope in my soul 
and the spirit of my love

i sing




Self portrait by Sadie Myers.  Self reflection by Dustin Whitehead.

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

prelude to a bachelor party weekend



one hundred what and don't let this view go away!  that's what i would say to life if it sent me this real life still life of everything dull and beautiful and dumb and thought provoking because that is how we artists roll up and down the pants of society neglecting what was fashionable in nineteen seventy and so and so says is coming back in style with gusto like when i rode my first bike although i now forget the color which is of course the point we all say with our beers in the air staring at the sunset and the trees and the humming of the short life span having birds who don't mind so much our yelling which much like theirs is pure and abundant and necessary.



Image by Steve Brian.  Words by Dustin Whitehead.

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

"A Kiss From Thee"


A kiss from thee is heaven in the flesh
That Angels look on thee in jealousy
As life requires beating in the chest
So doth thy lips exist to breathe for me
No measure of this world will understand
No scientific reason can explain
The shunt that stabs the heart of every man
While longing for that gentle kiss again
There's peril in the eyes stained orange with envy
There's chaos in the hours spent apart
For since the spark from lip to lip shot through me
I cannot rid the hole within this heart
Like Gulls need wings to glide across the air
So I find need to miss this love affair
Sonnet by Ryan Roets.  Photo response by Fred Watford.

Monday, June 27, 2011

Eggzistentialism


i am confused by it 

why do people 
 eat 
eggs

am i strange
the texture is of the gross 

am i wrong
the flavor is of the nasty

we grow them
breed them 
check for them mornings
their spawning creators clucking around our backyards

at least, that is
in the cities where it is legal for them to range
(some cities know better)
i love chicago 

am i alone
maybe in my dietary future they will make tastical sense
maybe not

egg free = radness

this is by no means a political statement:
i will subscribe to nothing egg

the egg 
is
something that is better suited to be floating in a wine glass 
than eaten along side bacon at the breakfast table

and i don't drink wine

no egg
final answer.

but thank you so much for offering
you are a wonderful host






Photo by Amanda Grupp.  Words by Dustin Whitehead.



Sunday, June 26, 2011

The Quilter

The Quilter
She is the fabric
of stitched sleeves,
triangles quilted
needle to thimble,
frayed knots
doubled over threads
stretching stitch
hole to hole
patch to  patch
methodically, slowly
uniting colors
shapes, sizes.
Body
momentarily separates:
by shoulders containers of stress
by breast donors of nourishment
by belly consumer of consumption.
When she reerects herself
from picking up
fumbled tools
they will be woven together
her masterpiece.
Sketch by Caroline Näslund. Words by Ciara Brewer.
 

Saturday, June 25, 2011

"Down to Earth"



A boy beneath the gulls wears one at his waist, or rather just below. It must be a symbol for something, the bird, it has just got to be.

Six people receive credit for writing this single, a song based on the performing artist's real-life parents' divorce, but Mr. Raymond isn't one of them. Mr. Raymond didn't find for himself, but met, and arranged further meetings with music executives and vouched for, and eventually signed a lucrative contract and collaborated musically on more than one occasion with, the boy, and is often said to have "discovered" him. The artist himself -the boy- popularly Mr. Raymond's discovery and recipient of subsequent fame and adoration, does indeed receive credit for writing this, the single.

An ingenue, an actress, a playwright, and a writer walk into a bar. Slowly, and successively.

Or rather, it's an outline, a silhouette of the thing it represents. Not a seagull per se exactly, but based on the cover of Dick Bach's very short, bestselling, spiritual 1970s' self-help novella, the one in which Jonathan Livingston learns he's not like other birds. In it, Mr. Livingston feels out of place in a world where everyone else (that is, other gulls) find perfect contentment cruising parks for popcorn, dive-bombing live food just below the lake's surface, shitting on sidewalks, etc. Mr. Livingston wants to soar like his proverbial brethren idiomatically known to do so (i.e., eagles). And he does. He meets others more like him, more than the other gulls that is, and transcends space and time, and contacts multidimensional beings, but ultimately ends up back among the first group of unmotivated seagulls, and the whole thing's just really fundamentally about forgiveness. Or something.

And why spend so much time rephrasing a familiar line, which requires some grinding of the cognitive gears, and should lead and build up to an amusing or clever punch, only to reveal the joke parenthetically, and immediately?

The actress's son, that is, plus also her lover. Who is not the same person, the lover, as the son. So the actress's son, and another man, who happens to be the actress's lover -and is also a writer (the actress's son is a writer as well)- join the actress in question, who is a matriarch, and aging, and who will lose her son by the end of Act IV. All of whom walk into a bar with an ingenue, who is also a performing artist of sorts, of course, and female, and complicates the whole lurid ternion.

Perhaps a reference to Seal would have been more appropriate, or to his cover of Steve Miller's '76 single anyway, or to Steve Miller, the band, per se.

Two actresses of vastly different age and experience walk into a bar, together with two full-grown males. One of the men is the older actress's son. He is also a playwright. The other man is a novelist, and the older actress's lover. This gets thorny the way any reference to Queen Gertrude's reclamation from Claudius does. (This is what they call "the intertext," that is, what's "between" or "within" texts.) Plus the less experienced actress is supposed to function as a symbol in the build-up of this increasingly less tangential aside, which, fundamentally, reiterates the first act of a well-known play, the important players anyway, those players whose roles I thought easier to isolate and define, as the first line of what's supposed to be something funny. A joke, that is.

Mr. Raymond "ushered" in the young male performing artist's popularity, some say.

The sudden introduction of multiple persons, the second -or first- for example, often signals a privileging of textual content. Or narrative ineptitude. Or, possibly, the splitting of one into multiple.

The actress is related to the playwright and the writer in ways that are difficult to describe without making explicit the underlying, or "hidden" relations intended on purpose to function beneath or "below" immediate apprehension. This I guess is what they call "subtext," what's beneath the text, or below it; underneath the superficial surfaces [red] (surfaces "above, or added to" "the face" [which, as the storyteller or speaking instrument here, you can by now probably tell I've added at least one or two. Full Disclaimer: I'm using a laptop I bought with my recent winnings to type this -all of which I'd written out longhand- sitting at the Executive Desk I recently had delivered to my newly furnished condo, and realized, sitting here, in the leather Executive Chair I ordered {along with the Desk and Sigmund Divan from an expensive Dutch retailer via international shipping} that most of this piece has just totally failed, for reasons related directly to my real life relations; a lot of this is simply a way for Yours Truly to work through some recently emergent issues regarding this thing they call "love" {I awoke from a dream last night, on the small cot I keep next to the guest bedroom's window here on the 83rd floor of the Trump International Hotel and Tower, a dream in which I'd begun to tell a dream version of my real life partner and lover of almost a year now, that, quote, "I think I love you," you of course here being her (whereby "you" doesn't indicate in a metaficitonal way [or, "in a way that comments on the relationship between reader and writer, and reminds constantly the reader she's reading writing" {but which feminine pronoun gets problematic, depending who's doing the reading}, an unfortunately widespread and erroneous affixation in many disciplines and sciences, esp. in the academic argot of lit crit and performance studies, fields to which she and I, respectively, belong] anyone other than her somnial representation as my unconscious mind imagines her). But before I could finish, she'd cut me off with the nasally, extended "N" sound anyone who doesn't want to hear something makes.}, and that up here, above the city, I can see way out to the edges of LSD, vacant beaches and harbors, the evening traffic as it wanes -and that the drop from 83 floors isn't enough for a body even to begin to approach the terminal velocity of a human being through space, let alone enough to ignore or forestall certain incessant accessories to heterosexual romance] like stage make-up or costume jewelry) there's more text, more to be read, and interpreted, unpacked and performed -enacted- enjoyed, used up, diminished, eventually discarded and, always, brushed aside like so much detritus.

The male and female ingenues received universal acclaim from critics, and lost a child, respectively. (And so at least in that way the roles of the two fictional actresses resonate, in their exemption from maternal concern.) But they were supposed to serve as something central, (And isn't she, too, a fiction?) the pubescent artists' performance, as symbol, something concrete, and tangible, in place of abstract narratology.

Cf. "i.e." supra.

But every universal devolves to family drama.

A boy under the gulls has one just below his hip, the juvenile firmness of it a testament to something, I'm sure.

"For Konstantin has just killed himself."



Photo by Amanda Grupp.  Words by Diego Báez.

Friday, June 24, 2011

Two Poems For Your Wedding



Weave your lives into one
One colorful rich fabric
Woven tightly, close and strong.

Stitch your hearts to one another
With strong threads of conversation and love
That none may rip asunder.

Mend the holes. Patch the rough spots.
And wear your love
In peace and comfort
For all your days


Her hands snipped threads
Her needle soared
Seaming together
The smooth soft silk.

Piece by piece
A form evolved
As piece by piece
Their lives were joined.

A form to match the contours of her body
A life melded to hers
Enfolding her in comfort:
His arms and white silk



Photo by Sadie Myers.  Words by Stephanie Peters.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

& Beautiful is Life



Dancing stones followed 
Saturday afternoon's favorite song
Down a long dirt glory trek

That was my favorite part
At least out of the moments when I was paying attention
 Which were few

It was lazy necessary
Like watching all three of the Godfather movies in succession

The fields in Kansas will do that to you
A run 
Turns into an extended self inspired fairy tale

Long was the day
Short is this recalling of it
&
Beautiful is life



Photo by Sadie Myers.  Words by Dustin Whitehead.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

The Two Girls on the Beach



The sun and the sky
Provide the perfect backdrop
For a happy scream


Photo by Angela Shields.  Haiku by Randy Conner.

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Forgotten



I remembered the cake,
but I forgot the knife.

I remembered the tickets,
but I forgot my mit and hat.

I remembered the date,
but I forgot the time.

I remembered the poem,
but I forgot the lines.



Photo by Fred Watford.  Words by Shannon Wilson.

Monday, June 20, 2011

tall are the colors following the mystery




tall are the colors
out of season
and violet
unlike rain-showers
which claim no season
and certainly no color

however

remember when the secrets were shared
when someone told us that water made the earth
that the earth is mostly water
and that water makes the grass grow and the birds sing and everything awesome
everything common
everything consistent
everything taken for granted now that we have well surpassed our golden birthdays
everything at all

the water falls from the leaf
it drips
and we search for reasons to remain interested
but the years pass
and the drip seems the same

how can we follow the mystery
how can we rediscover the unknown
there is so much that we don't know, brother
yet we find ourselves forgetting
we get complacent

fuck that

will you help me follow the mystery
will you help me rediscover the unknown

i'll do that for you
i'll do my best to make you feel new
if you promise to always hold my hand and remind me that I am lost
and that I will always be lost






Photo by Sadie Myers.  Words by Dustin Whitehead.

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Teach me the try




I tried to change the world for awhile,
but after all the noise I made echoed away
the world looked the same.

How do you do it?
Please help me, I want to change this place,
but no matter how much I stick my hands in it
meddle with its shape and distort its look
the world returns back and I never existed.

I've got a big heart and earnest hands
my mind races and I want everyone to like me.
I am built to change this place.
I love the dirt and the light.
I want big and small
I fight for the margins and champion for the meager.
I curse evil and hate only hate. (which is wrong, I know)
I have the arms to hold people up and put them to bed
I give beyond my means.
I am trying. I am trying. I am trying. I am trying. I am trying. I am trying. I am trying. I am trying. I am trying. I am trying. I am trying. I am trying. I am trying. I am trying. I am trying. I am trying. I am trying. I am trying. I am trying. I am trying. I am trying. I am trying. I am trying. I am trying. I am trying. I am trying. I am trying. I am trying. I am trying. I am trying. I am trying. I am trying. I am trying. I am trying. I am trying. I am trying. I am trying. I am trying. I am trying. I am trying. I am trying. I am trying. I am trying. I am trying. I am trying. I am trying. I am trying. I am trying. I am trying. I am trying. I am trying.

I cradle the crater in my chest with my trying arms.
I want to be something to this place.
At the end of all my bills and jobs and money issues and girl issues and love issues
and faith issues and friend issues and insecure issues
I want the world and I know it wants me
It wants me to change it
I feel it.
When I dip my hands into its cool
I feel it drip off me. It clings to me.
The world wants me and I want the world.
So please tell me how to change it permanently

because being me isn't enough.
Not today.



Photo by Sadie Myers.  Words by Jordan Lane Shappell.

Saturday, June 18, 2011

this is what I want to say about that daisy filled afternoon




we caught - you - were laughing
alone
in the moment that yesterday glare met the tomorrow sun

next was a conversation between the trees 
twins
born out of necessity twenty seven years ago

they were young and weak when you entered the world
elated
they knew your parents well - they and the grass

the hope of landscape is repetition for survival
individuality
is often the death of natures spirit 

if you breathe big or hold the frame they will kill you 
those 
who know nothing of life love - which is many

there are two kinds of wind flowing through the scapes and scrapers
one
is beautiful and gentle and blows your hair as your hair wishes to be blown

the other speaks only fierce dialogue and does not hear your heart
angry
it takes away those and that which we require for continuance

so if the bad wind blows - hold tight to the trees and the grass and the sky
try
because along with the seeds away will fly your smile



Photo by Sadie Myers.  Words by Dustin Whitehead.

Friday, June 17, 2011

Japanese Gift Shop



At first, I would resist going to Colorado with my Grandparents. Days structured:
planned meals, fifteen mile mountain bike trails, summer reading lists, and prompt
bed times. On Rainy days, go to town and spend hours in gift shops, perusing souvenirs
for middle school peers, an attempt to relate the essence of summer vacation. A Japanese shop in Frisco received my rummaging hands, wanderlust eyes and smiles of curiosity-- the owner noticed-- she picked up a black stone and explained the trifecta of the smoothly carved caricature: a rice patty, a house, a companion. It means happiness.


Photo by Sadie Myers.  Words by Ciara Brewer.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

go get em birthday boy


the sand is an anti ice sculpture and you are wolverine madness replacing marbles with confidence beyond the hibernating winter finally letting us see how to live once again we crawl out with good reason twenty three times three hundred and sixty high five hommie you did it again dance magic wonder full moment of truth and connection found only within those true and connected friendship is happening all the time and we shouldn't forget the dust should never settle on the plane for necessary adventures to come that welcome the awesome which is us today this power this might this hope this future this feeling and this light



smiling on us from above waking this summer this day and this write

  
 

Photo by Sadie Myers.  Words by Dustin Whitehead.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

man at work


i <3 u baby

:) miss u. dinner n oven.

thx huni muffn



Photo by Dustin Whitehead.  Conversational Haiku by Sadie Myers.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Beyond golden shoulders





behind her all is nothingbut goldenand through the tipof my nostrilsI can only sense as much.
what it is with her I cannever know
everything simply a
secretbehind her shoulder.
behind her all is everythingbut goldenand we can wispthrough colorsand nightslike thunderlike lightningand never knowthe differences thatexistbetween one another.
behind her all is relativebehind her all is retained
behind her all is simplebut complicatedand drowningin the golden burnsof reality.
a haze which doesn'twash offin the rain.


Painting by Christina Steele. Words by Joshua Robert Long.

Monday, June 13, 2011

Dirty Bird


 
I see,
through the chain-linked fence of my old stomping grounds:
A dirty, grayish-white bird with a black beak and pencil legs.
Dried gum scattered around.
Some of it black from the sun.
Grass growing through cracks.
Not black at all, but green.
There are ripples in the water where the dirty birdy stands, reflecting his image.
For himself?
Or for the world to see?
The dirty bird can fly. He can do whatever he wants with his life. So can I.  Well, not fly, but, you know...
Tell stories,
Love moments,
Create memories, 
Treasure relationships,
Follow impulses,
Listen to my instinct,
Take risks...
or
I can do nothing.
I can live a life of passion, or I dream of living a life of passion. Only dreams, but no action.
I reflect on the bird's reflection which has inspired my reflecting. I weigh my options.  I make a choice.  I am an actor. I act.  All dreams must become actions.
I hope you will join me.
From this day forward, let our dreams become actions.
Let us all act out.
Thank you, dirty bird.



Photo by Amanda Grupp.  Words by Steve Brian.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

"Don't drink the Kool Aid" or "A judgemental tune"


La la la.
Judgment from Jesus, judgement from God,
judgement from Mohammed to Allah,
extremists keep ruining God for us all.
judgement from us to a woman teaching what she's been taught,
but hey we judge because we are right and she is not.
whatever the case none of God's "judgement" will change me.
but thank GOD my parents aren't that fucking crazy. 
la la la.




Photo by Fred Watford. Words by Chris Hess.

Saturday, June 11, 2011

The day has yet to begin




Colorful cups
Confectionery kitchenette
A salad of opportunity
The day has yet to begin
The day has yet to begin
Tasty tupperware
Delectable dining
Inviting a delicious day
The day has yet to begin
The day has yet to begin
Sipped sweetly in preparation
Sour past gets slurped
Meditatively marinating plans
The day has yet to begin
The day has yet to begin



Photo by Sadie Myers.  Words by Rashaad Hall.

Friday, June 10, 2011

We're All Friends Here



First thoughts first Mr. Blue:
No one asked you to this bowl
So get the freak out...  Syke!



Photo by Sadie Myers.  Haiku by Dustin Whitehead.

Thursday, June 9, 2011

"Snow, Man"



I have a feeling that every
body is full of TV static,
the "snow channel"

Or else they are channel 6,
the evening news,
a car crash made love to an eel 

Sometimes I'm the nature channel
I've got a mouthful of lungs
I pause at the lip of a deep green pond…

I am an animal.
I am an animal.

Photo by Amanda Grupp. Words by Randy Conner.

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

The Crying Lion


when a lion cries
the wind changes direction
so the tear can fly




Photo by Fred Watford.  Haiku by Dustin Whitehead.

Monday, June 6, 2011

car horns are mostly the devil


living in the past
can't keep up with the digital clocks
pastel like eggshell
on the beach
lost under foot
out of reach and fused
a con
green screen
never to be seen or heard by a live audience
we will be dead

'that's what she said'

bro jokes hold no weight in an honest debate
that's why they are fun
done
are the agricultural faux pas
lufas in the shower
and hot dog lunch hour
up with the sun
the loaded part of the gun
and the afternoon cinnabon mall excursion

'we bought the big tv'

we can't all live in the burbs
nothing unfair about that
brutal torture
trapping raccoons in the fan belts of our lexuses
babies crying
grandpas dying
and the barbecue is out of sporks
who will invent a solution
the sky is grey
and the oceans are crashing
it sounds like heaven inside the circle
and it smells like a smile

'get off the road you freaking Bike'

car horns are mostly the devil
we can never know who or what is right
who we can dislike
what is okay
but we write about honesty
and the everyday
and we ask the questions
we answer what we can
leaving the rest for the world to solve
evolving as we breathe
sans leave-

'the show is just getting started'



Photo by Fred Watford.  Words by Dustin Whitehead.

Sunday, June 5, 2011

what do we love ...



What do we love ...

we love bikes
we love cities
we love people
we love conversation
we love hope
life
determination
ambition
fire
wind
drumming
singing dancing
flying

we love those that came before and those that will come later
we love posterity
we love honor
truth
we love being ourselves
we love bright colors and solid answers
we love smiles from strangers at bus stops
we love children laughing
we love our families
we love culture
we love communication
we love love

what do we love

go ahead

    it's your turn ...

        what do we love

                                            ?

Photo by Chris Sullivan.  Words by Dustin Whitehead.

Saturday, June 4, 2011

woman



thoughts exude
her energy; a prelude
to the grace that exceeds
any and all
of her many curves

shaping me to her liking
i find my place
she is everything
any and all
i could ever need

another intervenes
i share not
she holds to me
any and all
that i am capable of giving

her thoughts undecipherable
that's okay
her spirit; undeniable
any and all
woman




Painting by Christina Steele.  Words by Dustin Whitehead.

Friday, June 3, 2011

Impeccable bulbs



is there always light
beyond
the hinges
beyond the beaks
of the cowbird
that rests inside
my weary hands?

maybe if you
want a maybe
out of life

or

maybe not
if you know
how to turn
on
the light.

for me the hope
springs
from chance
situations
and the art
of the revolving
door.

something that
hinges on itself
in a circular motion,
something that doesn't know the
definition of “stop”.

Photo by Dustin Whitehead.  Words by Joshua Long.

Thursday, June 2, 2011

toys



….
it's halloween again i suppose
he said happy day
i birthed it
she thought

and who's fault was that

….
sacrificial lam-post next to nuclear divide we found a promise from a man
political
follow my banter
or don't

i'll listen to jessi j radio on pandora

….
next to smelly afternoon emo haircut (woman?)
girl
lady
sillyafterthoughttoolong

moving on

….
friday night is twenty four hours away
i can promise you that
me:
busy smelling flowers

this is a chicago summer


Photo by Fred Watford.  Words by Dustin Whitehead.

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

"Fashion"




Everybody's got 
a peacock's moronic pride
'cause their clothes are hip
 
 Painting by Christina Steele.  Haiku by Randy Conner.