Are you getting tired?

Maybe restless?

Having repetitive shades of depression starting to insidiously seep into the nooks, crannies and safe places of your spirit – a place that is normally reserved for joy and living life in the manner you want to, when you want to? Well…you are not alone.

Our normal has been erased.

A new normal is coming.

Or maybe, if we look closer, we will realize that it has already arrived. Our brain and pleasure centers will now have to be recalibrated. Life will be inherently different. And yet…

How we see, experience and capture creative ideas and our respect for the diversity of other folks may stay the same.

Regardless of where your comfort level rests, poets and other creatives will continue to bring joyfulness to your life.

They will challenge your way of thinking that may be averse to your social equity truths but basic to the graciousness of the human spirit.

They will try to empower diverse socio-economic/political tribes to embrace universal themes and ideas that have the potential to embolden a sense of well-being.

They will articulate embracing a one community concept where access to opportunities are the same for everyone regardless of background or any other perceived societal trait.

They may even instill a conscientious demand for equity for those folks who have been and continue to be denied a fair shake at attaining the best in life because of who they are.

Here is a poet who may help lead the way to a new normal….a better normal…a more equitable normal.

Stephen Mead [Photo provided]

Stephen Mead
Albany, NY
mead815@yahoo.com
The Chroma Museum

Stephen Mead is an Outsider multi-media artist and writer. Since the 1990s he’s been grateful to many editors for publishing his work in print zines and eventually online. He is also grateful to have managed to keep various day jobs for the Health Insurance. Currently he is resident artist/curator for The Chroma Museum, artistic renderings of LGBTQI historical figures, organizations and allies predominantly before Stonewall, https://thestephenmeadchromamuseum.weebly.com/


Where Poetry Becomes Therapy

Hedge resentment with the bile rising behind the political politeness:
that back turned and stabbed.

Pure fumigating anger burns futility's face, motivates sadness,
then throws a Frisbee, takes walks; wrath being a tumor,
that poked, pried-off pod, seed burst, sowing... what? 

Truth? Malignancy?

Something ripe, real, feeding ideas, the ink as a blood beat,
a growth known as Will.

* * *

The Poem

is a thread, un-
spooling line by line,
a popular image, Whitman's
spider or that brave gothic heroine
making her way through the maze...

Is the path going out the same one coming back?
                                                                     Back
                                                        Coming
                                               Out...

Suddenly the line breaks or gets blown,
tenuous wisp, into an ocean & it's dark.

Lost again, just as before, following instinct
willful despite hysteria's abrupt obstruction
of bricks, an abyss...

Eyes squint for light.  Breath catches,
then grows calm, resourceful,
confronting forces.  Can't

                        be.  Stop.  Do not.
                        Maybe

you think that, but the poem, a salmon,
                        pushes ahead.

* * *

New Orleans continues to be in our hearts and minds. Remember its vibrancy. And as an unified community, we can make sure that City comes back from the ravages of COVID-19 stronger and better prepared, as well as its fellow cities, NYC, Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee and other urban areas…and those still unnamed rural areas that are not necessarily immune from “19.”

We remember:

Stay safe.  Be well.

bill

* * * * *

aaduna - an online adventure with words and images - a globally read, multi-cultural, and diverse online literary and visual arts journal established in 2010.  Visit us at www.aaduna.org where we put measurable actions to our words.

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