Saturday, February 6, 2010

Making Connections: The Tower is Haunted




Painting above is another from the most recent series. The poem below is one I wrote as part of an art based research dialogue on educational reform. The painting came first but is about the broader scope of interest to me as it has been expressed in cfAaP House of Cards diagram and installation concept..but as the thread connecting the frames shows some systemic elements link all the others. One of the major challenges is that most people are overwhelmed by the big picture but "solutions" made without this level of understanding often do more harm than good...and by the time that is obvious the damage is done. What is the alternative?

Warning: The Tower is Haunted
Ghosts of the plantations and overseers
loom and creak until
replaced
by Research Studios and the vision of Source Artists
Life
no longer outsourced

Birthed above shark infested waters
Tamed by the slyness of Red Riding Hood's Wolf
gnashing teeth
swallowing greed
devours
deny
redemption
reform
in transformation

Institutional
healing
internal

Rotten to the core
ingesting proves fatal
exposure a hazard deterring
revelation
shared
once burned, twice shy

One love,
One world
blooming ideals in a flower garden
should =
no fear of poisoned decoys
skull f***k
waiting to render pregnant winged ones flightless
Warning: Keep away from gardens in alabaster towers

Their basement bellies
in screaming silence
conceal bloody pulps
would be-s
ripped from the womb
time after time
blood trails and smudged prints
are not definitive evidence of robbery
our abortions are rebranded
Selective Birthing (TM)
sanctioned by Alabaster Towers Inc.

Clipped crimson buds
poorly cloned
and implanted into suitably branded uteruses
birthed by less suspecting
blind
ethereal extremities
who regurgitate
life sustaining after birth
into shark infested waters