My Poem ‘Retro’

Since I was a kid
I have been exposed and interested
in every decade of the 20th Century,
and I have always been fascinated
by the phenomenon of things created in different decades
that were a staple and an example of their time
that come back into fashion, and the touch of the influence
and the art of them continues to inform the present
in many different and brilliant ways.

I feel like a collage of styles,
likes, lessons, morals, and trends;
I love the fact that I am not stuck or constrained
in any particular way of dressing, thinking about,
or seeing the world, and I never have-
I have always loved individuality and originality,
uniqueness and specialness,
and the things about life and people that never
detract and always enhance.

There is a reason why things repeat;
there is a reason why ideas, designs, and concepts
come back into peoples consciousness time after time;
there is a reason why a good thing never dies;
there is a reason why hearts, minds, and souls meet.

The music of the 1980s,
the ideas of the 1970s,
the style of the 1960s,
the art of the 1950s,
are loved every day and are still all around us
and they can be heard, thought, seen, and enjoyed,
in any and every one of the worlds cities,
and knowing that everything that used to be considered
every-day and ‘run of the mill’ is now truly special,
treasured, and cherished, by people who were
not even born when they were new, unheard, and unseen,
gives them a quintessential, classic, vintage feel,
and ambiance, that some things of the modern age
will not have when they too become replaced
by something that resembles a change of ways,
or a refreshed screen.

I love the look, the feel, the sound, the crackle, of vinyl;
I love seeing and being inside a “classic car”;
I love something that doesn’t ever lose it’s charm,
because it was made to be a one-off,
but has transcended, endured, and lasted,
and will enrich peoples lives forever
and make them smile.
I love as story, a person, that is, and who is,
so special and unique, but also ubiquitous-
but not because they were forced on other to be
who and what they are now considered to be from their genesis,
but because no one took them for granted,
and love them because they will always be as singular as a star.

Seeing an iconic invention and expression of a time gone by
that still exists in some way, is like being in a tunnel
and hearing the distinctive voice of someone in an echo;
seeing the source of a revolution,
and also going back and learning about something of importance’s
origin, is always the best thing in the world-
and that is why I love to rediscover things,
and make a part of my life and me many of the things
that people call and consider nostalgic and retro.

Advertisement

My Poem ‘Language’

To me, language is the single greatest invention of all time.
To me, the ability to be able to communicate on multiple-levels,
in many great and wonderful ways, is life at its prime.

The power of language, what it can do, what it has done,
has given rise to everything on Earth-
from the creation of all life on our planet,
to the next steps in human evolution as we know it, and beyond;
language will go on forever, its journey will never end;
language is in a perpetual state of rebirth.

The reason why language will never die
is because it is always re-inventing itself-
it never stops, it never tires;
language reverberates through the air like a shockwave,
and travels at the speed of light between peoples, cultures,
instinct, and consciousness, every nanosecond of every day,
transmitting on every frequency through the atmosphere, and back again,
and down incalculable lengths of cables and wires.

Language fills our world, language built our world,
language maintains our world, and is the source
of our collective well-being.
Humanity is absolutely besotted, obsessed,
and could not live without language-
we love to find new ways of saying things
that have already been written about and said countless times;
sometimes we like things spelled-out perfectly for us
so that there is no confusion,
and at other times we like to simplify things as much as we can
by abbreviating.

Music has been heralded as the “universal language”,
because of how it makes us feel
and because of how it can communicate,
sometimes centuries after it was first written, created, sung, and played,
an expression, a feeling, a message, a moment in time,
of a musician, a singer, a song-writer, or an artist,
that has been captured to out-live and endure beyond it’s inception.
When you hear a song or a piece of music being played
again and again, over and over;
when you hear a song when you are a child
and people are still playing that same song on the radio
when you have children of your own,
you know that that song, whatever it is, is special-
it has a life-span and a longevity and a power to it
that stays and will stay with our children and their children to come
as they grow older.

Language is everything.
Language is on every billboard, on every sign,
on every TV show, on every street.
Language is the reason for every letter, for every email,
for every message, for every text, for every tweet.
Language is every face, every person,
every piece of clothing, every style.
Language is every look, every thought,
every tear, every smile.

Language is constantly evolving.
Language is not in decline, language is not dying.
Language is asking questions of itself and the world, everyday,
and it is perpetually problem-solving.
Language is the foundation of every pattern,
the needle that guides and sews the thread of every stitch.
There is nothing more amazing in the entire universe
than the magic that is language.