Hailing originally from the Helderberg Mountains Avery has been in and out of the poetry scene for over a decade. His college days saw him venture deeply into the wilds of poetry and he has been lost there ever since, escaping from time to time to perform in front of audiences and then vanishing back into the nether realms of run on sentences, flowery metaphors and convoluted analogies.
POEMS
DROWNING IN POPULAR CULTURE
I have lost my esotericism…
I now float directly down the center of the stream, my sail-less boat completely plastered with abandoned dreams, imagined appreciations and feigned self assurances held together with lashes of sarcastic criticism and snarkish attitudes.
I travel only where neon arrows light the way: where the path is heavily trodden by the numb, mindless peons of mass culture and servants of the lords of advertising: my individuality has been bleached by the abrasive grains of suggested fears, rubbed raw by amalgamated ideas and beaten senseless by oversimplified expectations.
I shamble forward, a dim shadow of what once was, experiencing the world through a re-aligned perspective, an adjusted and convoluted mindset infused with kaleidoscopic technicolor visions and indoctrinated by the pulsing echoes of popular culture.
I have been washed, rinsed and hung out to dry in the bitter winds of technological assimilation and frantic integration of what other people say you should think.
I twist…
I twist…
until:
“Pop!“ A binding lash keeping the narrow boards of my boat together breaks, unwinding itself as I drift: my boat begins to disintegrate…
my feet now wet with anticipated restrictions and absolute definitions I can do nothing but laugh…
The buffeting currents of a culture that is more concerned about an upcoming TV premier than the state of the country it lives in, a culture that can not eat whole grains unless they are drenched with savory caramel flavorings, a culture that seeks psychological counseling over what the Resources Development Administration does to the Na’vi in an imaginative movie yet continues to drive oversized fuel guzzling monstrosities and toss Big Mac wrappers out of their windows while traveling 85 miles an hour down the highway, a culture so wrapped up in the lives of its icons that the suffering of people with real humanitarian needs goes un-noticed, washes over my knees as I sink…
sink into what I am told to believe…
what I am told to think…
what I am told is acceptable…
what I am told…
what I am told….
I gasp for that last breathe of esotericism just as the waters close over my head, and am rewarded with a brief spark of creativity and inspiration just as my vision fades to black.
ON EQUALITY
It starts with interest…
A charismatic political leader
A talented performer
The woman you always see at Starbucks on your way home from work
The man you watch jog by your kitchen window every 7:15am
Interest leads to attraction leads to longing leads to love
It is when those feelings are reciprocated that it begins to grow into something even more… appreciation, admiration, a desire to please that now intimately special other person.
a need to honor and uphold their thoughts, their beliefs, their perception of the world
and make them your own
Whether it is Man loving Woman
Or
Woman loving Man
Or
Man loving Man
Or
Woman loving Woman
It makes no difference
It all comes down to
People loving each other –
One person loving another person
Let it be! Let it blossom! Let it bloom!
Why does it always have to wind up in a battle between the haves and the have nots when this magical thing happens?
This flower that is an interpersonal relationship is watered, fertilized and tended to by two individuals, and yet there are weeds that encroach on these gardens of love: weeds that attest that some choices are wrong: weeds that attempt to choke out certain fully thriving plots.
It’s always been this way…
Prejudice runs deep among humanity
and people the world over fear change
Now here’s where I get a bit preachy:
How can one say that allowing same sex couples the freedom to marry will degrade the high moral standard to which the grand institution of marriage now is held?
Relationships all have their issues; a change to expand the meaning of marriage will not harm the concept of uniting two people as one.
As it stands the current divorce rate for American Married couples in their first marriage is nearly 50%! Second and third marriages have up to an 80% chance of ending in divorce!
Divorced for so many reasons:
Divorced for not producing children
Divorced for working too much
Divorced for not working enough
Divorced for playing video games
Divorced because it just isn’t working out
There is also ample adultery and abuse that goes unchecked and doesn’t lead to divorce as well:
Wives meeting boyfriends for coffee and sex while husbands work
Husbands sexting complete strangers contacted online
Partners having extra-marital friends to meet their sexual needs
Couples going to swing parties
And then there are the married people living together just as friends: no intimacy, no sharing of secrets, no holding hands… just sort of existing… isn’t that a form of abuse too…
Knowing that all these issues exist, between all types of relationships, I say it is HIGH TIME we allow each individual equal rights to choose to take their relationship to that next level,
To take the risk of marriage
To take the chance to unite with another person, no matter their race, beliefs, or sexual orientation
End discrimination Now!!
I applaud those New York senators for standing up for what is right:
for equality at the risk of their political careers
for redefining longstanding conceptions
for valuing the intent of two people to enter into a legally binding commitment to uphold and maintain each other’s dreams, views, needs
for standing up
for love
AND THEN THERE WAS TEA
The urgent call echoes from the kitchen, a soft scream awakening my desire, my need, and bringing a half smile to my lips. In brief, unhurried steps I reach the stove and grasp the source of the cry. I uncap the spout and tilt the heated urn, encouraging the pure nectar held within to escape, to flow free into the waiting chalice. The small bag swirls in the boiling liquid as it is poured from pot to cup; it whirls as the water envelopes it, caresses it, and encloses it in its heated embrace.
Slowly, ever so slowly the tea infuses the water with its essence… bleeds out its soul, spreading, combining, unifying…
The steam rising from the cup wafts fresh enticing scents through the air, permeating the mind, driving me wild with the anticipation of tasty liquid refreshment to come.
I wait.
The heated ambrosia seeps the life out of the tiny porous satchel, sapping its hidden flavor, drawing its being out.
And yet the tea freely releases itself, merges with the solution, spreading its taste to all the reaches of the porcelain goblet.
The clear water darkens as it draws the tea in, drinks the tea in, accepts the tea into itself:
tea and water become one.
I thirst,
so I drink.
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