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Western culture sees art as some
separate thing from life..
i.e. we separate ourselves
into the seclusion of the
studio or the garret if you
are a poet and you make
art ABOUT life
but art tries to BE life with
my Lined paper
as I move through the
world with its shopping
lists I want art to fall
onto that page as I
move
the lined paper is
what I move around
with
it does not demand a
separation from the
now
it is the now
I don’t have to do studies
on it then move to the
unlined paper; to the
studio
the art is the life is the
lined paper
I heard on the radio once
that aboriginal culture
could not quite understand
why we separate music
from life
people play music while
moving about their life
‘they do not formally
Learn a musical instrument
and Thomas Moore said:
“about spirituality, art
and the everyday sacred…
in Care of the Soul
‘… and thus in a small but significant way can make the everyday sacred. This kind of spirituality, so ordinary and close to home, is especially nourishing to the soul. Without this lowly incorporation of the sacred into life, religion can become so far removed from the human situation as to be irrelevant. “
when I was in Hyderabad..
in the middle of the festival of Barkri ‘Id..
a festival where the Muslims celebrate Ibrahim’s willingness to sacrifice Ishmael..
but he doesn’t..
Allah intervenes and a goat is slaughtered
instead.. in Hyderabad..
there were goats everywhere
… 100 000 of them.. lining the street..
seamlessly with people.. all over…
.. in/on laps just all over.. and it was
a beautiful visceral thing
humanity was seamless with the animal..
all aspects happened in front of your eyes..
the slaughter..
the herding..
the boy leading
the goat.. sharing
a seat on an overloaded truck.. there was a goat…
not like here.. where the animals that serve us
for food.. don’t really exist
they are far away …
we see
them as neatly wrapped up things on supermarket shelves…
safely away
from our children.. we grow up
detached..
safe..
and it is not safe…
we need to know our animals again…
we are part them.. we are not
some separate thing .. …
and we need to share space and intimacy with them again..
so we can learn how to feel..
it often amazes me how I will write something completely..
well.. what seems to me.. to be completely
arbitrary.. only to discover a day or two later
that it is in fact a poem.. It reminds me that sitting down to write..
just to write.. when I may not have anything to say
is a form of acknowledging
the moment
that I am
in…
acknowledging that all moments are like any other moments..
just beautiful and mysterious..
and just because the
dull
thud of my
brain is
conjuring up dissonant thoughts does not
take away from the mystery in that moment..
and by picking up
a pen and writing
a little tap into that
beautiful gentle world is
opened up.
close too close I’m lying here in bed waiting
for not much at all… just a good
moment to grab my book and start
writing and escape for
the relentless to relent just a
break.. and then the new day
with the stiff neck still sitting
stiff on top of my shoulders
for the poetry waiting for that
strange structure which allows
the words to escape their cages
for a while.. that would be
good
