|
CED offers this page to artists from various disciplines who wish to retain full copyright while making a constructive contribution to the evolution of democratic culture. Art published here may or may not reflect the tastes and values of CED and/or its members.
|
Independent Artists' Page
|
This prize-winning poem was sent to CED by Ionel Onet:
dear reader
my lame gait
on this
-as some say-round
earth
happens because
I have two legs
and while one is hanging
the other one cannot support
the hump I carry
and which I received
as a reward
for the work done
by the two hands
that can not act
independently
for I have only
one thinking head
which from its central position
doesn't know
which way to turn:
left right left right...
-Ionel Onet
copyright © 1995 Ionel Onet
This poem, written especially for "the Net," is by Will Foreman:
To Don Williams
In clean beds
they peacefully cross into other minds.
We can press their eyelids shut,
sit with them in respectful silence,
dream the sweet words they may have spoken...
the subtle turns their lives may have taken
before their stories are finally told...
Here lies...the problem of other minds:
When we walk in the shadow of war,
where the eyes of the dead don't close,
where their faces don't say goodby,
where dreams are frozen in time....
When we pause too long
before the eyes that draw us in...
we feel our minds dissolving
into the delicate network
that separates us from those who die
still full of dreams...
In that forever disappearing world we fall
into an endless search...for the feeling of death...
for friends...family...
for the lover whose smile now eludes us...
And we begin to understand
the meaning of other...
yes...we are born of one mother,
but we pass through races and cultures
where it is written that other minds
will kill...
And a few of us do...
though we shrivel inside
faster than the brains of our victims.
The rest of us wither slowly,
our pages recording,
along with the Earth,
fragments of the one great book...
until our all-forgiving Earth
gathers us in a final,
unifying passage,
written in the dust...
from each
to each other...
Before that day we pretend
that there's a chance...
that hurried plans,
and the little notes we write,
could come together
like a living mind
to conjure a new trick
against the forces
that leave other eyes open...
gazing at the vanishing world.
In a city park
I was beguiled into thinking
I was in that other world...
People were lying around...
fresh, clean faces,
enjoying the warm sunlight.
I walked over
to a young woman,
turned her body over with my toe,
saw her face
frozen in time,
her dreams alive only in the soul
of someone who loved her...
She screamed,
"What are you doing?"
Alarmed, everyone turned.
Others
rushed to her side.
Only then did I know
I hadn't moved...
She was there,
happy with her friends,
with her moment in the sun...
and I was alone
with my friends...
engraved,
like their still-staring eyes,
on a page
somewhere in the net
...between life and death...
-Will Foreman
copyright © 1996 Will Foreman
Material may be submitted by a variety of means. A few hints: Printed hard copy, photos, tapes, and 3 1/2 inch disks (Mac or DOS only should be sent to CED's post office address as listed above. The fax number may also be useful, or text may be attached to an email message. Please write or send email requesting more information about sending your material. Allow 1-2 weeks for review and processing submitted materials. N.B. Copyright protection remains the full responsibility of each author/artist.