Church of the Light by Tadao Ando

Church of the Light by Tadao Ando

Friday, June 1, 2007

Poetry or performance?

We're all going,

but never knowing … each other.

I've seen a thousand faces
know about a hundred names or so,
rarely do I say more than hi to them.
Can't seem to catch some time
to read into their soul.
Guess fear reminds me
of the pain that cost too much.

My friends are always changing,
while I'm here standing
wondering
where everyone went

Things start to feel right,
but it only becomes temporary.
What once bonds humanity together
seems to be the reason I'm arguing.
Using the love I have for people
as my dagger and as my defense!
While I read on how we must cease life
I question in why I must exist.

What's going through your minds?
while I'm trying hard to confine
in my own space
in this own little world of mine

Don't say you know me.
My reality can not be inhabited on this earth.
Too many willing to kill a dreamer.
I know, because I watch the death
to some of my hopes
even poisoned some of my own wishes.
My thoughts are looked with opens eyes
with pupils that contain no light.

I am undefined
and my soul still

yearns to be written.

I'm always going
never knowing
things about you.

I’m always going
never knowing you.

I’m going
not knowing you.

Stop!

Let me inhale your presence.
Let me exhale my being.


__________________________
The reason I post this is to ask whether or not this is poetry. I admit to have pieces just for performances. Just recently I've been working on seeing if I could translate some over to what I myself am "satisfied" (at the moment) in calling it poetry. I had a conversation, a couple years ago, with a local San Jose poet, Dandiggity, about spoken word and how it holds by itself on paper. At the time, we both agree how when we see some of our works (performance ones) that they do not feel like poetry on paper. We both did have pieces we thought worked well on both ends.
When I read Gil Scott Heron's works 11 years ago, I was reading it off a LP. I read his "lyrics" before I played that record (well except for "The Revolution Will Not be Televised"). I love the words; I felt the music of the lines before the needle touched those vinyl lines. This was one of the first times I felt how the power of voice highlighted for me the power of words.
Poems to me, always have a voice that I'm itching to feel and hear. That has always what I felt my job as a reader of poetry was, to find that voice, feel the poets musical rhythm or syncopated chaos.
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3 comments:

Scott Bentley said...

Lorenz,

seeing this "actually" performed with a "crowd" and music and the lights; the elegant gestures, the costuming, I think it's fascinating, grand, a noble text. Having said that, I still think the lines, the diction can be "tighted up" (and I say that like James Brown). I think it's too easy, too prosaic in its present form. It worries, I suppose, too much about the audience. But I think one does well to remember Spicer and bring the audience "...to the mirror."

June 1, 2007 at 10:14 AM
Lisa said...

I understand what you mean about poetry being musical. We've discussed this somewhat in class. I think that part of poetry (at least good poetry) has a musical quality-- something that sparks an emotion or drama in people; some kind of melody or harmony that we react to. I think that when a poem finds this musicality, it has started to find itself.

June 4, 2007 at 6:17 PM
Scott Bentley said...

I'm not certain I said that, Lisa, but "Sure, I agree. Right."

June 7, 2007 at 5:42 AM

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