The smallest details of perfection.
That make the body stop and take in,
Divine Design and Connection.
But my heart is sunken to my feet,
Exhausted from Parisian panic,
Though I know Angels rushed to the scene,
To sing, to the bloodied and traumatic.
I'm sickened at present by my birthright,
Warmed by this privileged fire,
To be burdened
With myriad choices,
To follow every whim of desire.
But now, I'm compelled to use my freedom,
To speak to every misdirected man,
Who replaces love, with fear and terror,
Who destroys life, by cowardly hand.
You Cannot Desecrate Our Spirit!
This is the Ballad of the Bold.
In Unity, we'll chant this Rebellion,
This will be the history told:
'We Will Not Stop, Seeking Our Truths!
We Will Not Stop, Speaking Our Peace!
We Will Rally Together in Generous Command!
We Will Not Succumb to Your Beast!
We Thank-you for helping us
Remember the Credo,
That's buried down deep in our Guts.
We're a Nation of Idiots,
A Nation of Intellects,
A Nation of Gun Owners,
A Nation of "Sluts!"
We're Striving Artists.
We're Anarchists.
We're Soldiers Who Cry
and Mothers Who Work.
We're Relentless Republicans and Bleeding Democrats,
Homosexuals, Truck Drivers,
Do-Gooders and Jerks!
We're a Nation of Activists, we're Pro-Living,
Who Will Hold Hands Together
In Spite of Our Past.
We're a Nation of Immigrants,
With God or without,
A Fusion of Races,
The Rich and Downcast.
We Will Not Retreat, Though We May Be Afraid.
We Will Not Lose Faith,
We Won't Change Our Ideals!
We Will Harden Our Hearts!
We Will Fall to our Knees
We Will Fight Until Every Last Terrorist Yields!'
Now I'm faced with the choice
of Compassion or Hate,
As I boldly renounce disunity,
But with God as my Guide
I surrender my pride,
As I gaze at the
Global Community.
And I'm instantly reduced
To simply one voice,
And simply one incapable perspective.
My absolute truths melt entirely to gray,
And the Ballad seems quite ineffective.
It's not about the Fight, it's about the Relief,
From the embrace of "The Other." The Enemy.
The armor will fall, when we gaze in their eyes,
Truly loving "The Other," as Family.
JESS COFFMAN
I honestly had a really tough time finishing this poem. I began writing it in front of a fire in Sonoma, CA, after the terrorist attacks in Paris, but I didn't finish it then. I was shocked by the violence and didn't quite have the words that I wanted to communicate. When the attacks in Brussels happened last week, I remembered and revisited it. Full disclosure, I keep myself fairly shielded from negativity, violence and "evil" in the media, and in my personal entertainment. So much so, that I stopped watching "House of Cards," and begun watching the whole series of "Friends" over again. I just want to laugh and feel unfettered after an exhaustive New York day, not be weighted by negativity. I'm also just not very political, because I've always seen it as a game where nobody really wins. And...I've never really been competitive with other people anyway. So, in conclusion, "House of Cards," is just not the show for me. The End.
This poem was tough because it seeks to establish a line drawn by passionate emotion, and then calmly asks that line to disappear. My perspective on "good" and "evil," is experiencing a peculiar and unprecedented shift at the moment, and this poem reflects that. I'm absolutely and gratefully bias, when it comes to my feelings on "good" and "evil," in that I have been blessed and lucky within my life up to this point. Not so much "evil" has infiltrated it, but I also choose not to see experiences through that lens either. This is one of those poems, where I feel like I could get a lot of people relating with the words at first, and then lose them by the end, or the exact opposite could happen. All I can say, is thank-you for reading. As always, I am open to new information that could cause my life perspective to shift, so if you have some information for me regarding this wrestle of "good" and "evil," I welcome it. For me personally, swimming in the gray area, is the way in which I am able to stay afloat in the world. It is the way that I feel the most personally responsible. I seek to find solutions by having an open heart and mind, even though I know I will fail because my perspective is never large enough. After a period of rumination regarding my small mindedness, and uncomfortable acceptance of that, I am ready to stretch again. That process is essentially the theme of this poem and the absolute truths, I seek to never lose sight of which are acceptance and love.
I accept and love you.
Peace, Buoyancy and Joy,
Jess
This large, emotionally charged piece is called HEADCOUNT, and is currently on display within the Shin Gallery in NYC. The piece was created by artist Hyon Gyon, who states, "We are living in a society where we've become apathetic to the cruelty inflicted upon others as seen in the media, yet we've begun to treat instances like a mundane and repeated occurrence in everyday life." HEADCOUNT is quite sickening and meant to be so. There is a large aggressive painting of a naked woman, and completely surrounding her are canvas bags that have heads and faces painted on them. The expressions on the faces are horrifying, and with eyes open are meant to confront the viewer of the suffering and lives lost, due to war and terrorism. I have never in my life experienced a sickening feeling simply by looking at paint and fabric. But as the Shin describes it, Hyon Gyon was able to create the paint on the canvas to look like the disembodied "decaying flesh of the deceased."
It's quite magnificent in its horror.
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