Arte Soy

Dear Josh Weiss,
This is dedicated to you
And all our namesakes
Throughout time and space.
Greetings and good graces
We are one with many faces
Emblazoned as it were
With a name, swift and pure
Like snow
But what lies below?
The will to grow
Like the lotus
Out of the muck
We truck
Called to the light
From the dark night
We shall not fright
Our future bright
Let us take flight
Be thou knight
No need for bark and bite
When we have heArt and write

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How would you feel if I all of a sudden burst out into a song?
Would you think I was kinda crazy or maybe even lazy
Or something with me was wrong?

I want to know
I want to know

Would it be unkind if I were of the mind to be myself and just let go?
Do you think we could get along and should we be that strong
Oh, the places we could go

I want to know
I want to know

Who, who
Who am I?

Staring at the ground, feeling unsound like I wish I could fly away
Now I am circling back around, was lost but now I’m found
Would you like to come out and play?

I want to know
I want to know

© Joshua Mapp Weiss 2009

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I read that you were in a tailspin.
That your life had shattered, so to speak.
And that in the solitude of nature you pulled yourself together.
That, in the refuge of a wood cabin, you rendered a masterpiece.

Whether it’s a simile or a metaphor, I’m not sure.
But I’d like to be as the wind and the rain, and the shelter from the two;
At one with our blessed Earth, her sacred fruit, and the nourishment and delight derived therefrom.

Song bursting out, voices free in the silence.  The listening.  The voices.  Soaring crosswise and playfully about.

A reckoning.

The soul and the man, and one’s time on Earth.

The coming together and the breaking apart.

The breakdown.

A wretched wailing, followed by silence.

Solace and surrender.

A time of peace.

A sanctuary in the eye of the storm.

There, with the rudiments – my mind, my hands, my will, a few instruments, and the good graces, I commune with my heart and soul, and the spirit moves me to this.

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Today everyone has asked about you,
How you’ve been, and where you were…
I didn’t know.
I remember faces, smiling and laughing.
I remember your eyes…
Oh those lovely eyes of yours.
I was a fool.
Beautiful women have lay down with my books.
Over my poems they would let down their hair.
But they were hardly aware of me.
Where have they all gone to?
The country road is nice and inviting, but it is not for me, not anymore…
Constantly, I think of you, you who left behind your guitar and your beautiful self
Engraved in my mind.
But the evil men have now set their eyes on you, all of you.
The evil men are after you, and this is beyond my control.
Without effort, I realize that a man constantly suffers
That his heart is as fragile as the feelings of a baby
That when involved with a woman he loves
His mind gets confused, he feels insecure
And he becomes more of a man
When he conquers the heart of a different lady.
Considering the fact that a man, in confrontation with another
Like an animal, he shows his teeth, brings out his nails, bites, screams
And combs his hair.
Realizing also that a man can get extremely sad
That he can become quiet, as if about to cry
Especially when he discovers that the women he loves
Are no longer mine.

(Oscar Fuentes contributed this.)

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A poem, simple yet grand
Like seeing a world in a grain of sand
The reading of which invokes a master plan
The awakening of man – mankind, that is
Discovering and recovering its primordial biz
To know thyself and All That Is

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I’ll pen you a song and it won’t take long
(it could take all night if you’d sing along)
It’s a little ditty and it goes like this
just scoot on over and I’ll give you a kiss

My time flies as the day’s demise
is the night’s opening eyes
See me and you, you and I
go bye bye, baby, bye bye

The train rolls on and on we go
another stage and another show
Reaching high from down below
revealing truth as best we know

When the curtain’s closed and the self unveiled
let us take a deep inhale
And lay together and together wail
and together sail for distant shores
Though we know not what’s in store
and the waters may at times be rough
like rhyming off one’s very cuff…

My mind stalled, my bluff called
I do not wish to bore
So with these words I bid ado
and to you I do implore
Let us be, do, and have, dear one,
for and from the core
Love, harmony, and bliss
GALORE!!!

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The morning’s cool praise
I sing to thee
as I look through windows at frost in the grass
Lizards basking in the sunlight,
spread like shirts on a line,
a beautiful woman walks by
and a message from a friend comes unwrapped

You are by far the most glorious of highnesses
a beatific morning,
oh parting fog
how I sing with my socks on
and stretch in the light
humming the prayers so innately
stitched to the insides of my mouth

Mint water and honey roll down my throat
cooling my heart,
decreasing its pressure,
lightening its weight
so that it may float up in my chest
A soft white thing,
a moth in my ribcage,
fixed yet floating,
seeking fragile light

I stretch outside my window
and hear drums within my joints.
the beat beneath my feet,
the tide’s incessant beckoning,

reeling me back in

(Sergio Mora contributed this poem.)

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I’m aching to awaken what’s at stake
Yet the pains I’ve been unwilling to take
To hold the reins and rein in the sin
I long to win yet my wheels do spin
In a mediocre hand at poker
Yet life’s more than a game and I a joker

It’s time these rhymes evoke a power divine
Of a beautiful and benevolent kind
And where there is darkness, a light to shine
That soothes the soul and elevates the mind
So with these words I draw the line
For what’s been lost, I now shall find

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Quisiera ser impecable.
Empezaria con ser estable
Y poder quitarme este antifaz.
Sere capaz de despertarme?
De abrirme los ojos,
Y mirar de frentre?
De ver claramente?
De amar, y no ocultar?
Que hacer con el miedo, el deseo, y el enojo?
Los mios, y del projimo?
Si creo, soy un creyente?
Las repuestas yo percibo
A medida que recibo
La gracia, y yo me muevo
Hacia un mundo nuevo,
Antiguo y eterno.
Ahora, atinar!

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