Please note that the poems and essays on this site are copyright and may not be reproduced without the author's permission.


Wednesday 20 November 2013

State of Emergency


.

taghoot: photo by Joshua Perez (StrangeGoodness), 25 May 2013


as if the colored bulbs
strung upon
last year's discarded
Christmas tree
lit up miraculously
in the city
dump
in black and white
and shades of gray

 




Untitled: photo by Joshua Perez (StrangeGoodness), 28 October 2012


Untitled: photo by Joshua Perez (StrangeGoodness), 28 December 2012
 


Untitled: photo by Joshua Perez (StrangeGoodness), 31 October 2012



Untitled: photo by Joshua Perez (StrangeGoodness), 18 October 2013
 


Untitled: photo by Joshua Perez (StrangeGoodness), 7 July 2013



Untitled: photo by Joshua Perez (StrangeGoodness), 7 July 2013



Untitled: photo by Joshua Perez (StrangeGoodness), 15 November 2013


Untitled: photo by Joshua Perez (StrangeGoodness), 15 November 2013
 

Untitled: photo by Joshua Perez (StrangeGoodness), 9 June 2013



Untitled: photo by Joshua Perez (StrangeGoodness), 30 October 2013
 

Untitled: photo by Joshua Perez (StrangeGoodness), 11 June 2013
 

Untitled: photo by Joshua Perez (StrangeGoodness), 14 August 2013
 

Untitled: photo by Joshua Perez (StrangeGoodness), 24 August 2013
 


Untitled: photo by Joshua Perez (StrangeGoodness), 24 August 2013


Untitled: photo by Joshua Perez (StrangeGoodness), 6 April 2013
 
 
Untitled: photo by Joshua Perez (StrangeGoodness), 3 August 2013

8 comments:

TC said...

Gil Scott-Heron (1949-2011): Winter in America (1974), live performance, 1982


And now it's winter
Winter in America
Yes and all of the healers have been killed
Or sent away, yeah
But the people know, the people know
It's winter
Winter in America
And ain't nobody fighting
'Cause nobody knows what to save
Save your soul, Lord knows
From Winter in America

Ed Baker said...

very nice rhythm to the line
"black and white and shades of gray"

Perez has a "good" eye ... only via his attitude towards
color
does one get into (towards) essences ?

there is nothing
at all
quite like a
black-and-white-and-shades-of grey
image

I'm partial to a bit of blue in the black (ink)
when printing (my) words) on white paper

nice post ....

TC said...

Thanks, Ed. I like this artist's work a lot. Swift and subtle and accurate in its delicate capture of the elusive urban moment. Those terrific bus stop photos were taken late last week. I like seeing life as it's lived now. The milieu here feels like the East Coast equivalent of the East Bay locales we've seen in the work of Efo.

Black and white suits the tone.

That becomes apparent when these same locations are seen in color.

(Here's that station in the bottom shot in color.)

And too I like the understatement. The nonspecific photo captions induce an anonymity. The second photo succeeds in many ways, not least in concealing the essential information we are left to deduce from what we see and from the date in the caption line. The moment of the double-take is the epiphany.

Mose23 said...

Even the warning signs are detritus. The poem's dropped in my head like a seed.

The weary waiting faces are something to see.

"...the peace signs that vanished in our dreams."

Unknown said...

Great Poem (yours). Yes that's what it will be like (is). Perez fotos reveal the people, places, yes "essences" --bring them over thousands of miles and time and it is like it is. Good morning. Wake up to the state of the "land of the Free." Gil Scott Heron, great poet singer. But he was wrong about television. Everything will be televised until the power goes off.

Harris

vazambam (Vassilis Zambaras) said...

For some reason, your poem and the accompanying photos remind me of Raworth's Tottering State.

Be the BQE said...

Beautiful poetry-photo essay. Waiting is a state of emergency.
Thanks, Tom.
-David

TC said...

We're all waiting on that bus that never seems to come. That's what friends are for -- wind protection.

Rain blowing sideways at the night bus stop, two soaked denizens sloshing down the street with coats pulled up over heads, one forming a black cape -- "Batman!"

Medicare cane helps with the tottering. The emergency is endless.

David, I had thought of you when putting this one together. The Garden State. Not too far from your own neck of the Expressway.

And oh, Gil, the man suffered a lot, over a long time, until finally his life became a kind of parable, a demonstration of the truth that Winter in America is not so much a season or a place as a kind of slow stain spreading, a crippling, enervating, demoralizing state of mind.