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| The Humanities: No Escape Celestial music from afar jars discordantly upon a countenance whose ears, now deaf through fear, hold an unwavering, solitary flag - a memory of a temple prayer. A heart laden heavy with stones of guilt through wrong interpretation - indoctrination from a book purported as God's command: Thou shalt, thou shalt not, or thou shalt wilt'. The lyre echoes the celestial refrain, 'You judge yourself, you know. Face it ! No God is judging you that's just laying blame!' Ah, Bacchus, fermented balm, opiate and killer of pain. Alas, a false release. I did not die. Now needst return, continuing on 'til all fear is calm'd. Suzanne Donald, New Zealand, (Project contribution from Footsteps to Oxford) Dumb: The Humanities the deafening scream i thought i threw, no one could possibly not hear... the silence of my own song, i have muted myself, with fear. Saskia Ozols, (Poet, Painter) New Orleans, Louisiana (Project contribution from Footsteps to Oxford) The Humanities Outside surrender implosion of enduring laughter slave stashing dancing inner madness chicken scratch broken bottle hoe down detached electric senses playing fire water Blues acoustic keys and tightened strings stretched upon hair laden dwindling forests attached to dusty pasts of loosened wires walked by sorrow From afar a stone hard monster close enough it knows no mind can find a cluster of lives here after Muffled thoughts amplified horrors stuck to vacuous symbols blind soothsayer digs inside earths layers sings of art beyond the rafters Odin Waters, Providence, Rhode Island (Project contribution from Footsteps to Oxford) Tooting One’s Own Horn: The Humanities I can shimmy these maracas, make a piano scream and shout, dance a jig on loud bottles, sing whatever words comes out. I can feed the funky chicken chicken while I play this mandolin, my ears will wave my banner, baby my song, it knows no end. K.L. Monahan, Waco, Texas (Project contribution from Footsteps to Oxford) |
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The Humanities The Humanities Scream Again: The Humanities The Humanities: Unseen Song The Humanities Song of Illusion: The Humanities The Humanities The Minstrel: The Humanities The Humanities Worried Mind and Light Heart: The Humanities Isabella finally relented, accepting my dinner invitation: The
Humanities The Humanities The Humanities The Humanities: What do you think? |
| The Humanities My song is a scream in your ears My footsteps, dancing, seem to appear Only in the night, among the ocean Of bottles. The drink, this crazy notion Of sanity, bringing me closer to you. Doing the things I think you want me to Singing the words that you want to hear Dancing closer, bringing me near But it’s all a fantasy created by lust My upside down thoughts about to bust My head open, my body feeling strange Everything about me rearranged Into the perfect image, but you can’t see This world, a place created by me. To you I’m a monster, and this path I choose Will only lead me on to lose You, and everything else that I need. And inside my heart breaks, begins to bleed I go on with my dance, my manic smile Hides that I’m dying inside all the while Kaleigh Fultz, USA (Project contribution from Footsteps to Oxford) Folly and Absence: The Humanities Something unimaginable has stirred me from time to time, while the clock yields a hidden face. A dream and not a dream, but nothing so lovely as that. Chained, unrelenting thirst with no solace and no end in sight, this creature steps so some might hear and lie still in trembling paralysis. And so I move, that I may mock, with words suggesting disdain, disgust. Poking fun at his malevolence as I whisper hatefully, "come on, come on" and then reach for every expletive I can find. Like tears to a sadist, this mouthing of mine sustains him, for he mirrors me and then some, though his arrogance is genuine, and mine a frightened mask. In fury I clench my teeth without having wept and seek the true antidote. I make no further plea, no following imperative and wait. Beyond and beneath the hovering mist I find the my Whisperer, the hand who restrains the grinning, darkened tar scraping edifice walls and lining the walls within. The unnamed, unimaginable element flees into his watery abscess; not even a specter remains. Just the omnipresent Absence is there, not grinning, but embracing through an unshadowed smile. And sleep finally comes. The questions rise with the sun. John Bird, Houston, Texas (Project contribution from Footsteps to Oxford) The Humanities Don't read too much into this. Don't read at all. Just close your eyes and listen. To the Music and not the words. -Nathan Johnson, Spokane, Washington The Humanities I remain silent Listening in helplessness I want to speak up I want to sing out I have a song in my heart That goes no further I maintain silence Drinking my only escape I am a coward Karen Seeley Toronto, Ontario, Canada (Project contribution from Footsteps to Oxford) Birth: The Humanities I have surrendered my outer ear To the glories of the inner ear No longer am I blind Even though my eyes are shut My mind has capitulated To the ivory and ebony keys Of my teething soul Where perfect harmony And the fruits of balance Guide my fingers to pluck A finely tuned life I’ve learned to dance without the synthetic happiness That toxic liquidity creates In this, the morning of my life. Nick Bitzas, Quebec, Canada (Project contribution from Footsteps to Oxford) The Humanities Disjointed body, Fragmented by the jug, Yet complete in the drink of my soul, I am whole in the sound. No ear to hear my inner pleas, But membranes resonate for joyous harmony, No lips to speak, nor beg, nor plead, But for healing tongue and teeth become the keys, Bone weary fingers pluck my life, Out from within this leaden body, So are found death in disjointment and disconnect, But life in the joy of the wine and the step. -Audrey Amir (Project contribution from Footsteps to Oxford) The Humanities cut off from the rest the rest of the world, myself, the ground beneath me freedom in sections not as a whole fighting the good fight sense does it make no of course not who needs cents art has died creativity has left us all alone liberation is upon who the other side of the tracks i wait to see one day joined again with my long lost self. Jeremiah M Smith (Project contribution from Footsteps to Oxford) |
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The Humanities The Humanities: Half a Man Band Alone he stands. The voice in his mind plays a whimsical song of goals and dreams, Placing them in a delusioned state of attainability. Choosing song over insanity, hope over failure, He is stuck with a flag of success, To be someday planted on the surface of his moon. Wonderment strikes him like deafness, Why he is falling apart to the tune of his own song, And yet he cannot move, Nor does he wish to stay In a field of dying dreams As he decays From the curse that is knowledge that he should succeed, The wear of survival without living, And the fear of leaving part of himself behind, Encompassed by frail and brittle clay jars, Only longing to be easily shattered, Like the dreams he once was certain would grace his gentle flowing fingers As they strum a final song of vindication, And the chill of autumn evening air That would flow through his hair Like freedom That it seems he will never know. For this the chicken mocks him, His beady eyes glazed over with ignorance Of the wind through his feathers, And of the curse of half a man. -Amy Piccinino, St. Louis, Mo The Humanities Screaming to Liberate I cry out as the torture runs endlessly through my head. This pain is my own, I keep it locked up inside so that no one can see. I am numb to my own suffering. However, there is redemption and healing through the music my torture has composed. No one can hear, because no one is allowed to hear. I own my pain. Silent suffering sealed by my lips, trapped in these jars I call myself. This companion of mine, confusion~ is kept within the confines of my own mind so that it can be protected. I am a slave to this thing you may call monstrous. To me this beauty of morbid form is the antidote to the poison of the mores, taboos and stigmas that society has forced upon us. In love with this eloquent pain you call horrid grief. My scream is my liberation. My music is the testament of independence, which many of you will never know. Out of the ashes I rise, only to fly. From pain freedom is borne. -Rosemary Porter Goodyear, AZ, (Project contribution from Footsteps to Oxford) The Humanities: What do you think? My mind is screaming to be heard As I play my sad song Wishing with fool's pride for peace I crave to be free as a bird The empty bottles and empty dreams are reminders of days gone wrong Plugs shut me off from myself.. I wish I could fly Keeping my ears as a hostage The flag whispers of peace near by Detached with eyes closed. I feel no hope left to salvage And yet I can't stop my sad music Afraid of myself and the contents of my screaming mind I don't want to face my false gimmick Wish I wasn't so chicken and could rewind Wish for full bottles at my feet Wish I could stand tall and play a different song Wish peace was more than a flag of defeat Wish I was together as one With rocks in my chest My heart is stone I have stopped breathing and feel the grip of the hex Mute and breathless I can barely stand alone The song comes from my head But I only play from my fingers.a song without a word With no breath left.Am I dead? My mind is screaming to be heard Sheri Phillips Canada (Project contribution from Footsteps to Oxford) Oh, The Humanities! Things would be easier, now, had there been some kind of event. Had it happened on a Sunday afternoon in a four-poster bed with the TV on in the background; or even if it had been a mistake. A mistake is a thing you can point to. There would have been evidence: a stain on the upholstery, a broken prophylactic. We would say somebody came inside somebody else and drama ensued. Stories like that make sense. They happen all the time. But things were more complicated (of course they were complicated) and whatever happened happened in the dark. Who can say, now, who spoke first? Who dove in? Who watched from the sidelines with night-vision goggles, timid and wrapped in a sweater? And now, a period of gestation. What are we waiting for? Fruit or a monster? A monster, for sure. Some ancient-looking thing. Some freakish amalgam of parts, born with a full set of teeth and two or three types of privates. Kathryn Rose Siegel Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada (Project contribution from Footsteps to Oxford) Humanities! There is pain. Isolation and oblivion which removes all else. Exploding like a joy rattling in the chest. Lost in between the staggering moments of categorized tears. Classify. Cauterise. Stagger without walls unreached, nodding to voices unheard as you shut the world in: No. I was. No. I... am. No. What? No. I was.... No. I... am... No. No. I... am... No. What? Please. Please. No. I am... No. ... thinking. Reymund Nei, London, United Kingdom (Project contribution from Footsteps to Oxford) Humanities: I Hang Out With a Bad Crowd Mom always tells me that I don't listen. She says I hear, but I don't listen. But she doesn't know that when she talks eighteen other people start to talk. Then, interestingly enough I begin to sing. I feel like I'm floating in a sea of balloons when suddenly a flock of freakishly large geese tear through. They pop all of the balloons in their track while laughing hysterically. Eight voices start ordering me to dance like a drunken chicken. I oblidge. I start singing Marilyn Manson's rendidtion of Sweet Dreams. I hear my mother's clouded voice questioning my actions. But I can't respond because four other people are telling me that I really need to pick up the pace and two more are requesting new songs. I scream at them and tell them to take a number and they scream back at me in a language that I can't comprehend. At this point I have little control over my body. I feel separated from my senses. I wake up fourteen hours later with a guitar under my arm and a slew of empty bottles by my side. My mother says that I'm too young to be acting in such a manner. She grounds me for a week. Little does she know that when she grounds me she grounds eighteen other people. And those eighteen other people act out when they are grounded. Sarah Lawrence Ontario, Canada (Project contribution from Footsteps to Oxford) The Humanities: Search For Significance Searching for meaning, searching for position Along the way deteriorating my condition My love for music is strong indeed Can it withstand a growing need? Need for status, need for fame More and more feeling lame. My hearing is off, my sight growing weak Who’s really capable of giving the right critique? What makes a person is more than appearance … Deep inside I’ll find my significance. -Heather L. Gambrell, Belton, South Carolina (Project contribution from Footsteps to Oxford) The Humanities Sound resign, sound designed from the mind, Watch where you walk, you'll trip over tongues Or feel blind apples huddled in an infinite throat. Quantify senses--which one could you live without? Across a longitude there was a girl who couldn't Touch, but still had a libido--she could blow Blood into the most electrified designs, and Boy, how she plastered her walls with bacon. She could smell space, tell you the flavor Of the strings. She saw her eyes refined Design, but her family was all irises--like Broken, headless eighth notes, while She fancied herself a clef of G or F, she Hadn't quite decided yet. Too busy-- better To lust in an ear--to and through and over archived Sound waves, hot with fever, bottled in a jar. Jason Moore, Raleigh, North Carolina (Project contribution from Footsteps to Oxford) These are the moments of your life
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