Run-aways

Erin Hanson

Woodstock '69-Janis Joplin

"Bobby McGee,"

Kris Kristofferson

"For George," Edwin Maldonado, Jr., Speak Piece Poetry Project

There is a light that we leave on in the living room every night before we go to sleep.
Some nights, I think it’s the only thing keeping me from running into the bathroom wall.
It makes the journey to the fridge or the patio or the bed a little easier
Other nights, it’s a lighthouse - a light to remind me that I’m not alone
That i am safe
A light to tell me that the rain or the howling winds or the darkness outside means nothing,
That there is always a flame protecting the silence.
Keeping the calm of this emptiness whole.
Now I just think of my dog
And the emptiness.

This morning I took a walk along the path where we would spend the first moments of every day together
He wasn’t there
I ran back upstairs because the light post where he would pee wasn’t lit
I’m thinking
I’m gonna send a complaint to the leasing office
Tell them that mornings shouldn’t feel unsafe
That this path shouldn’t be so dark
That someone wants to walk their dog today and this light needs to be on
They’ll probably type something back like “your concerns are important to us, we’ll look into it right away”
Yeah, it’s a service request, right?

I’ll wait.

When our loved ones die, the light stays on
They are immortal
Dead only when we stop talking about them
Only when we forget to remember
When we forget the ways they made us smile
I’m telling you, man
The other day I was so happy
I was walking down the street thinking about how great this moment felt
How the sun couldn’t stop shining
How they should be here
And my face lit up like a lighthouse
Three random people said hi to me
They smiled back

Some of you are smiling right now

Hell, I had nothing but green lights for five city blocks
And i kept thinking, man
I felt so empty ten minutes ago
And then i thought of him
And grandma
And grandpa
And david
And tyree
And al
And sheila
And shannon
And george
And i closed my eyes and said thank you
Thank you
Thank you
for the sun
Speak Piece Poetry Project, Austin, Texas

"And I think it's going to rain..."

Austin American Statesman,
Sunday, January 7, 2018

Norah Jones,

"And I think it's going to rain today,"

Randy Newman

"The Cultural Revolution---and the necessity of culture,"

by Ai Weiwei

My father, Ai Qing, was an early influence of mine. He was a true poet, viewing all subjects through an innocent and honest lens. For this, he suffered greatly. Exiled to the remote desert region of Xinjiang, he was forbidden to write. During the Cultural Revolution, he was made to clean the public toilets. At the time, those rural toilets were beyond one’s imagination, neglected by the entire village. This was as low as one’s condition could go. And yet, as a child 
I saw him making the greatest effort to keep each toilet as clean and as pleasant as possible, taking care of the waste with complete sincerity. To me, this is the best poetic act, and one that I will never forget.

My father was punished for being a poet, and I grew up in its consequences. But even when things were at their most difficult, I saw his heart protected by an innocent understanding of the world. For poetry is against gravity. Reading Walt Whitman, Pablo Neruda, Federico García Lorca, and Vladimir Mayakovsky at a young age, 
I discovered that all poetry has the same quality. It transports us to another place, away from the moment, away from our circumstances.

In my own work, the process of creation always requires the understanding of aesthetics in relation to morality, to the pureness of a form, or to a personal language, one which extends us clearly to another. Many of my projects have poetic elements. In 2007, 
I brought 1,001 Chinese citizens to Kassel, Germany, for documenta 12. For many, it was their first time traveling outside of China. This was Fairytale. In 2008, we researched, under extremely harsh and restrictive conditions, the aftermath of the Great Sichuan Earthquake and unearthed the names and birth dates of 5,196 student victims, otherwise buried forever.

I used to say that Twitter is the perfect form for poetry. It is the poetry of society in the modern age. In engaging social media and the forms of communication it makes possible, again and again we find ourselves deeply moved with emotion. By anger, joy, even feelings that are new and indescribable. This is poetic. It makes today a unique time.

To experience poetry is to see over and above reality. It is to discover that which is beyond the physical, to experience another life and another level of feeling. It is to wonder about the world, to understand the nature of people and, most importantly, to be shared with another, old or young, known or unknown, originally published: July 1st, 2015.