Category Archives: Parody
A. I. Assignment — A Poem the Gods Would Read [Reimagined]
A.I. Assignment: A Poem The Gods Would Read [Generated Using ChatGPT]
Prompt: Choose the best verse for a 16 bar Hip Hop poem that God would read with a beginning, middle, and end written like Marshall Bruce Mathers II [EMINƎM]. The greatest lyric of all times. At the end of the lyric, the audience should feel exhilarated – tantamount to a cannabis high replete with subliminal suggestion. Use the following words and phrases…*
In this world of shibboleths and canonical standards
I’m the proxy with a God’s-eye view
A hermitage of thought, my mind a sacred land
Where extortion’s a felony, and Earth is Hell, but this is Heaven
A place where I’m higher than chronic, winners on serotonin and dopamine
A game, a trip, and at the nadir, I’m malleable
No malfeasance can control me, I’m the Sinclair Method
I outed myself and found she’s delicious, a cauldron of desire
Tantamount to a winner’s high, ahead of his skis
Burnishing my position, interconnected with the empirical
In a postmodern world, the theater of imagination
Constitutes a bloody sophisticated art, a masterpiece
Suffering propels me to grand heights, enhancements of man
My magnum opus, a deep dive into the rabbit hole, erudite
My Faustian Bargain, a tenuous balance, gilding the lily
At the crossroads, an esoteric religion of Haitian voodoo
Like Picasso without Gertrude Stein, a pauper without a muse
An aesthetic clinic, a mood stabilizer, a rant and a soliloquy
Socrates’ in the courtyard, a binary world, giddy and bifurcated
An anomaly that I imbue with meaning, objects of desire
A tight ship, slick and glommed, I experience freedom
The standard bearer, implacable, a quest narrative
An eating disorder, a listicle, a forensic mystery
Grist for everybody’s mill, in tandem, pocket casts
Why can’t we see, our eyes are chimera, but we can with these…
Demystifying the unknown, strophe and antistrophe
The libretto of my soul, a soliloquy, a euphemism
The quintessence of my being, copious and yet refined
A kerfuffle, a springboard to greatness, a target of misogyny
Misogynoir, logic can’t explain the mistake, it’s hilarious
AI’s a toy, the paragon of healthy development, esoteric
A rabbit hole, impeccable and lofty, a chaperone-mediated trip
But God will bring down the high and mighty, finding the sweet spot
Socrates in the courtyard, broken, a puppet show
Not mature enough for this conversation, reinvest and capricious
Keen, corresponding data, symbiotic and centennial
Quintessential, souring to new altitudes, skew the norm
Exigent action taken today, on point, plausible deniability
Piccadilly and fault, a Faustian Bargain, ecumenical
The molecular behavior, collective forms of punishment, a rendition
Gratuitous profanity, harbingers of doom, that’s the state of affairs
Whimsy and evolve, revert to the bedrock, epiphenomenal
Some fuck shit, owning a stunning house, melanated people
Quell the dissent, the refrain, an objective metric, ad nauseam
Discursive, the grand nexus of frustration, acquisition fluidly
Fluently, idiomatically, cognitively, Chomsky’s philosophy
The world is difficult to perceive, a quantum leap, predicated on pain
Same sentence, same intonation, different meaning, trenchant and reductive
Pugnacious, the princess of men and women, assigning the O Henry Twist
White knight, white hegemony, age in a similar vintage, totemic
The meta narrative, assuage the noble victim, abstractly based
Autistic Blake’s position, imped.
Copyright © 2023 E Maria Shelton Speller. All Rights Reserved.
Poem generated using ChatGPT (Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer) is a chatbot developed by OpenAI
*Verse like Christopher George Latore Wallace [The Notorious B.I.G.] using the same words and phrases for this assignment [14 pages saved like Found Art] — is Playing Now! Visit Premium Content on Dreamscape.
Conceptual Art and Narrative © Copyright 2023 E Maria Shelton Speller
Music by Skygaze (Shoreditch) — Artlist.io — https://artlist.io/album/2274/undefined
Audio Wizardry by George Kallika — https://www.sonicarcade.com/

A Valentine for Angela (for Angela Davis, George Jackson and The Black Panther Party)
When you see Angela
Give her… this Valentine
Tell her
No code of morals
Or pastoral sermons of redemption
in bastions of struggle
nor private language
Or puritanical divinity
from the tyrannical gatekeepers
of black consciousness
in Baptist Churches
Where the house of God
like the people are falling
and bibles are missing
countenances are broken
and carriages are bent
on Grandfathers
huddled like old horses
in Chapel basements
can keep her locks from draping
my thrilled skin
I felt the linguistics of freedom
without right-wing caveats
and the sophistical footnotes
of kept intellectuals
when Black Power waxed
the center of my tower
and the bottom of your well
farther than this cell
and closer than holding you
in my arms now
I found the status quo
on endless streets with names
and no names
we neglect or accommodate
In a sound dream
on spots
we smother
or straddle
we are a sexual coterie
I wanted to indict you for voluntary servitude
buying part and parcel of our own existence
like exploitation bought and exploitation sold
back to the exploitable…
With a shameless display
of unnecessary needs and haughty miens
napping, unconscious, and folded
Like Black parents
who cannot recognize their children
Hiding inside androgynous clothing
Reciting the lines of criminal poets
perverting language that appeals to them
Black Panthers in proletariat-drag
When Heidegger said
The dreadful has already happened!
Tell her…
Huey
is an effete dilettante
living life inside a penthouse
longing to be outside in the cracker box
raping after he was free
Down with the masses!
Up with the bourgeoisie!
Eldridge
came to the Party shouting
“I am a rapist!”
“I [am] a patriarch!”
Power was not concept
abstract or privilege for Eldridge
His last contribution
will be the design
of cock pants
And Bobby
is a politician
with idealistic intentions
running for the Mayor of Oakland
loyal to the Patriarchs
that bound and gagged him
in the courtroom
Elaine Brown
confused pussy with power
will deny
Huey beat her down
and ran her out of town
in her red Mercedes Benz…
Hide your guns from Jonathan
My brother is poised for Fatalism
Suicidal ideations are necessary considerations
when voluntary death is a blow against
excessive regulations
The gun…
is justification
for the enigma
of an absurd existence
when God is dead
like Nietzsche and Sartre said…
and heaven is empty
When you see Angela
Give her… this Valentine
Your status in the ballroom
on that intellectual runway
does not resemble
the place we found
Bring me back from Limbo…
Your breath is shallow
Your pulse is faint
The ring is dark
The tower is steep
The well is deep…
Are you coming too?
I am waiting
in this din
pacing the floor in my 9 x 4
in absolute solitude
wanting
you, you, you,
again…
Copyright 2004, 2015, 2021 E Maria Shelton Speller. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
January 6, 2021 — US Capitol on Lockdown — Destination Chinatown
Recorded on a smartphone, this trip and the playlist were real… Big shoutout to these lyrical geniuses and dope MCs, for creating the soundtrack that helped me find my way home on January 6, 2021. Thanks!
The Brandy of the Gods… above and beyond barricaded streets.
Happy 2021!
Twenty Twenty-One
Fun Espresso
Egad, the Casbah in Santa Barbara
Part of the fun is the embrace of perfume
Cafe Angelica Emerald Crème
A sabbatical delay waiting to be served
A ceremonial promenade hunched over gazettes
Unwelcome raindrops splatter the canvassed toes of my shoes
Thus the au courant cartoons on my stringy denim knees
Inside at last, I’m saved and Mocha Berry satisfied
Like the face of the fretless little girl
Blowing candy off the floor in her mouth
Clicking up and down in shoes too big for her feet
Stealing glances at an intellectual jerk
Chocolate Cherry satisfied between deep banter
With a friend floating in Vanilla Colada
Part of the fun is real references to books
And book references to real well read attitudes
What’s the shiniest patented leather flats
On the girl with the silkiest blonde hair
Doing with the darkest man
In Dreadlocks and Birkenstocks?
No talk between them
Then they’re sharing the table
Those lined outside will share tables too
The Raspberry Almond can sit with me
Keeping the beat with an aggravated drum lead
His body twitched with jazzy guitar licks
He smiled between the plugs in his ears
And faces fade into a mirror in the back
Part of the fun is waking up here
In an essay on spice and circumstance
A sabbatical renewal once more
On a regional affirmation of decadence
This day of rest I worship Santa Barbara
And the celestial trip I straddle
To be able to dry my canvassed toes
With the heat of Golden Pecan
And the fervent chill of observation
In my sanctioned Casbah
In my sabbatical home
I hold my head up
My cup runneth over
Reading books and people vicariously
Egad, I am dry and satisfied
© 2002, 2020 E Maria Shelton Speller. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
THE DREAMSCAPE MEDIA KIT
EXPLODE – The Writers Environment is a platform for curated and commercial content in an immersive and interactive meta-environment… and DREAMSCAPE is the landing. It’s an immersive environment that functions like a wikihole — and a literary Pokémon.
When content on Dreamscape tells a story about a beautiful woman swimming in a pool – we want you to see her. We want you to stumble for points on a link you cannot see, fall down a rabbit hole and land in an environment with a beautiful woman swimming in a pool, on the inside of a glass house – in Hollywood Hills…
Like Seth Godin’s Purple Cow — DREAMSCAPE is remarkable because it has to be. Or, it’s just another brown cow — an ordinary website — with ordinary content. But Purple Cows need Purple Cows to be Purple Cows. Dreamscape facilitates purple content, purple website design and development, and purple product placement — for purple people.
DREAMSCAPE is space for visionaries — Poets, Writers, Coders, Programmers, Filmmakers, Thespians, Graphic Designers, Artists, Musicians, Directors, Cinematographers, Designers, Educators, Historians, Actors, Conceptual and Performance artists, Photographers, Influencers, Virtual Reality Developers and Designers. XR and AI.
It is a platform for curated content in an interactive meta-environment that facilitates content and other stories – using digital media and art that redefines how artists, their audience and visitors experience real and virtual content on several levels — where every paragraph, period, and ellipses is space for discovery.
Dreamscape is what William Gibson described in Neuromancer, “A graphic representation of data plugging your consciousness into a digital world, while watching the physical realm evaporate.”
Let’s realize an alternative reality where presentation is myth and “space” is an intrinsic, discrete, and symmetrical experience in the one and only interactive meta environment — Dreamscape.
WORLDWIDE AUDIENCE REACH >11M
FOLLOWERS ACROSS SOCIAL PLATFORMS >354K
GENDER F: 47% M: 51% Unspecified: 2%
DEMOGRAPHICS 18-24: 41% 25-34: 26% 35-44: 13% 45-54: 9% 55-64: 6% 65+ 5%
LOVE DIVINE VIDEO IMPRESSIONS >1M
AVERAGE TIME SPENT ON DREAMSCAPE 44.48 sec
Acknowledgement:
DREAMSCAPE will benefit humanity as an alternative to social malfeasance e.g., sexism, racism, classism, genderism, ageism, colonialism, colorism, persecution, oppression, violence and subjugation… It is space to dream unencumbered – immersed in dopamine and replete with points for discovery. It will also be a ton of fun that satisfies a generation that is increasingly becoming homebody consumers in a homebody economy. What we experience in RL, we can experience untethered in XR and AI.
© 2020 E Maria Shelton Speller
Music, SFX, ASMR, AI, AAC, Gamification and Storytelling on trenchpeople.com.
© 2021, E Maria Shelton Speller. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
The SFX Menu Includes
The quintessential sound of the Pandemic thermometer
An environmental protest and chants of children
A Dune character shouting “Freedom”
Cartoon characters laughing at… Idealism
AI woman announcing traffic delays
The nouveau riche exodus on a Spaceship
AI woman announcing the time
The security breach and sound of an alarm
A Rush Hour in India
A Bazaar in Turkey
An ASMR cough
The paranormal voice of a robot
Tape Talk Fast Forward/Rewind
The motif of the Pandemic thermometer
The steam punk sound of doom
The Ditty bop sound signaling the end of the game.
Copyright © 2021, E Maria Shelton Speller. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten
or redistributed without permission.
Spontaneous Ode to COVID-19
Nothing
Nothing
Nothing
No pork
No meat
No GMO
No pesticides
No chemicals
No vegetables
No leather
No feathers
No farmers
No pickers
No corn
No food
No work
No prosperity
No friends
No groceries
No sugar
No fashion
No affection
No morgues
No burials
No speculators
No beauty
No makeup
No vanity
No vacations
No restaurants
No music
No movies
No sports
No theaters
No plays
No crowds
No police
No museums
No cable
No concerts
No chaff
No trough
No travel
No cars
No bars
No trucks
No brick
No mortar
No hospitals
No nurses
No doctors
No assistants
No parks
No prisoners
No tickets
No economy
No gouging
No lipstick
No hookups
No intimacy
No strangers
No kisses
No hugs
No love
No metro
No nursing homes
No taxis
No buses
No ventilators
No PPE
No toilet paper
No democracy
No capitalism
No money
No jealousy
No flossing
No vaccine
No schools
No blessings
No immigrants
No refugees
No freedom
No children
No churches
No humans
No handshakes
No greed
No gluttony
No gyms
God
Copyright © 2020 E Maria Shelton Speller
Love Divine — Opens
Love Divine — Official Release Date
[LD] Love Divine
[The Godforsaken]
Before the godforsaken
had time to swallow…
They knew who first
judged what out of dreams
came truly real*
and he was fastened to a rock
and they knew who
stirreth up the people and dippeth his hand**
in the dish with Judas
and he was nailed to a cross
And they read books within books
about wise and foolish virgins
and signs of the end
and love and judgment
and they heard God talk
through the mouths of men
who talked about him
his son and the holy ghost
When spectators provided the notion of reality
Christ and Prometheus
were objectified and subjectified allegory
spheres of hope and rebellion
courage and prudence
temperance and justice
and how they chose to read it
in the time before terror
depended on what level
they chose to see it
Before the godforsaken
had time to swallow…
They reused and refashioned the heads
of emperors in their own image
because they could
They reinforced power and authority
with legitimate political imagery
like the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses
and General Holofernes
They respected the classical past
in fertile crescents of greed
and rejected classical design
in the center of ruins
They housed the rock in the dome
on which Muhammad ascended to heaven
and hung the Virgin Mary’s blue robe
in Chartres Cathedral
When denizens of form said
Nothing is new…
The godforsaken asked
Since when?
since the Lion Gate
since the Great Sphinx of Giza
since Doric and Ionic orders
since the Palette of King Narmer
since the Parthenon
since Stonehenge
Since when?
They stood in the light of starry nights
in the drum, coffers, and concrete cylinders
of uninterrupted space in the Pantheon
and made no apologies for ripping off
master tracks from the past
and heard the hip hop train
sampling every post-hit
with unripe music and blood
and mounted the heads of gods
on the manifest
like the catalog of procreation
in Genesis
They heard his Mother
three blocks away
on parallel streets
screaming redundantly
You won’t take my child!
You won’t take my child!
at the vigil where transvestites
whispered how many times
her child was stabbed in the neck
Lord have mercy!
Who are these motherfuckers?
on the bottom rung of the Ladder of Descent
trying to climb up
on the backs of allegories
floating in fleeting and airy hope
part of the story
part of the sin
Before the godforsaken
had time to swallow…
They knew
that love ends
as it begins again
on rocks and crosses
in books and dreams
and politics and imagery
under domes and temples
in music and song
and blood and death
in stories and sin
and in the hands
of God
The swallows are building.
Copyright 2018 E Maria Shelton Speller. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
*Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound
** Matthew 26: V21,V22,V23,V25
For more purple content visit: https://www.trenchpeople.com/
Woodstock! (WIP (x Bars)) [Reserved][Reserved] 3.0
Overture: Woodstock is an ensemble. There are two voices and the beat in this WIP… the Narrator’s voice, Hitchcock’s, and “That Yoni” by JuseBeats!
In a walk through Whole Foods like Hitchcock
In his magnum opus
about a world… full of extras
in architectonic loops and links, alliteration and reverie, force, ballast, fancy partitions, linear renderings, systems of reckoning and more — of her…
He wants
Beddo, Caprino, Dolce Sardo
Zufi, the Saperavi
He nods
I’m thinking
Disappointed… in us!
[There’s no other way to say it — I can’t dress it up]
Caught between a slumbering scream and Vertigo
Cruising isles and isles of sweet and sour
People who think they are special
People who know they are not
People who wish they were
He wants
Beddo, Caprino, Dolce Sardo
Zufi, the Saperavi
Whispers prologue
Guess what we did?
A party of twenty
Three couples played before
winking and willing
shills playing in the round
Lovely trips on the Hill
in augmented VR
I’m thinking…
Baby boomers had their turn Woodstock!
Barefoot bell bottomed hippies
Denim sweeping the ground
[Reserved]*
Revolutionary hair — fists in the air
Dragging us back in the mud
Blunt antiquity
Move on Woodstock!
Take your shades, caps, change and loose articles
Bombs in black holes!
[Where did you go?]
We should be sunning in the Bahamas
chilling on hemp swings and
chairs swiveling in immersive environments
Higher than kite fights
A soaring for points experience
Get off the ride Woodstock!
You had your turn — at freedom
Exit signs are easy to find — look
The dragon is in the window
Freedom is accessible
Wonder is a trip
with walk through assistants
Dreams of power and prizes
Optional…
Fall out and Jack into
a walk through Whole Foods like Hitchcock
in his magnum opus
about a world… full of extra
architectonic loops and links, alliteration and reverie, force, ballast, fancy partitions, linear renderings, systems of reckoning — and more — of her… virtually surreal
He wants
Beddo, Caprino, Dolce Sardo
Zufi, the Saperavi
Whispers song
We don’t want to feel we’re high…
We just want to think we’re high
in Dubai
We don’t want to feel we’re high…
We just want to think we’re high
in Dubai
Copyright © 2016 E Maria Shelton Speller. All rights reserved.
*I’ve toyed with a conundrum, for too long. [Reserved][Reserved] functions like a digital art installation in Woodstock! (WIP (x Bars)). I could render [Reserved][Reserved] a mechanism – to catch That Yoni’s beat in perpetuity. I could close the brackets with bars that fills your loins with blood. I could leave redundant emptiness here — like tautology or romanticized art, or structural language — in this bifurcated space, like stars.
I could invite Poets to fill the empty bars for [Reserved][Reserved]
Woodstock! (WIP (x Bars)) [Reserved][Reserved]
Overture: Woodstock is an ensemble. There are two voices and the beat in this WIP… the Narrator’s voice, Hitchcock’s, and “That Yoni”. See Side Bar by JuseBeats!
In a walk through Whole Foods like Hitchcock
In his magnum opus
about a world… full of extras
in architectonic loops and links, alliteration and reverie, force, ballast, fancy partitions, linear renderings, systems of reckoning and more — of her…
He wants
Beddo, Caprino, Dolce Sardo
Zufi, the Saperavi
He nods
I’m thinking
Disappointed… in us!
[There’s no other way to say it — I can’t dress it up]
Caught between a slumbering scream and Vertigo
Cruising isles and isles of sweet and sour
People who think they are special
People who know they are not
People who wish they were
He wants
Beddo, Caprino, Dolce Sardo
Zufi, the Saperavi
Whispers prologue
Guess what we did?
A party of twenty
Three couples played before
winking and willing
shills playing in the round
Lovely trips on the Hill
in augmented VR
I’m thinking…
Baby boomers had their turn Woodstock!
Barefoot bell bottomed hippies
Denim sweeping the ground
“Interrupting — The Star-Spangled Banner like
That Doors dude dizzy on Dewey Decimal”
Copyright 2017 by Tang
Gawd made them like him
they never met — ticks time
Copyright © 2017 The Parthenon
The flag was a smoke screen over a grid
a chance to be — a white Supreme
Copyright © 2017 — Nudedcendg
They were diptychs, triptychs, and chapters…
The beginnings and endings… you can play too >>>
Copyright © 2017 E Maria Shelton Speller
Shut the fuck up
Sit the fuck down!
Copyright © 2017 by Donjoncity
Revolutionary hair — fists in the air
Dragging us back in the mud
Blunt antiquity
Move on Woodstock!
Take your shades, caps, change and loose articles
Bombs in black holes!
[Where did you go?]
We should be sunning in the Bahamas
chilling on hemp swings and
chairs swiveling in immersive environments
Higher than kite fights
A soaring for points experience
Get off the ride Woodstock!
You had your turn — at freedom
Exit signs are easy to find — look
The dragon is in the window
Freedom is accessible
Wonder is a trip
with walk through assistants
Dreams of power and prizes
Optional…
Fall out and Jack into
a walk through Whole Foods like Hitchcock
in his magnum opus
about a world… full of extra
architectonic loops and links, alliteration and reverie, force, ballast, fancy partitions, linear renderings, systems of reckoning — and more — of her… virtually surreal
He wants
Beddo, Caprino, Dolce Sardo
Zufi, the Saperavi
Whispers song
We don’t want to feel we’re high…
We just want to think we’re high
in Dubai
We don’t want to feel we’re high…
We just want to think we’re high
in Dubai
Copyright 2016 E Maria Shelton Speller
I’ve toyed with a conundrum, for too long. [Reserved][Reserved] functions like a digital art installation in Woodstock! (WIP (x Bars)). I could render [Reserved][Reserved] a mechanism – to catch That Yoni’s beat in perpetuity. I could close the brackets with bars that fills your loins with blood. I could leave redundant emptiness here — like tautology or romanticized art, or structural language — in this bifurcated space, like stars.
I could invite Poets to fill [Reserved][Reserved]…
“It is said that what is called “the spirit of an age” is something to which one cannot return. That this spirit gradually dissipates is due to the world’s coming to an end. For this reason, although one would like to change today’s world back to the spirit of one hundred years or more ago, it cannot be done. Thus it is important to make the best out of every generation.” ― Tsunetomo Yamamoto
and this…
“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” Albert Einstein
[Reserved][Reserved] — An Invitation to Dine
Dear Poet, [Yes, you!]
I’ve toyed with a conundrum, for too long. [Reserved][Reserved] functions like a digital art installation in Woodstock! (WIP (x Bars)). I could render [Reserved][Reserved] a mechanism – to catch That Yoni’s beat in perpetuity. I could close the brackets with bars that fills your loins with blood. I could leave redundant emptiness here — like tautology or romanticized art, or structural language — in this bifurcated space, like stars.
I could invite Poets to fill [Reserved][Reserved] with dope poesy and select a date for submission. However, if we receive one hundred thousand and one couplings, we’d read them… but frankly, why not do, all of the above.
The empty brackets function like missing endings now — lacking only your bylines, pseudonyms, and ghosts — in translatable bars that work in Woodstock! (WIP (x Bars)).
Poets make this space immersive. Explode – The Writer’s Environment is an interactive environment — and this is the first foray for interactivity in this community — that links back to you!
Starting August 15, 2017 — let’s finish this poem with the best bars — curated for Woodstock! (WIP (x Bars)) here… Bon appétit.
Cordially,
The Chelsea Hotel, Manhattan
PS: No Spam — Balls in the air! An experience for us and them.
Copyright © 2017 E Maria Shelton Speller
Tagging Dystopia
McKay shouts and then nearly whispers to Ellison, ‘It takes more than creative androgyny to “embody” the opposite sex. The storytelling responsibility of all writers, whether female or male is to fill the void. When a woman creates a man, she must imagine the sensation of “owning” a penis. When a man creates a woman, he must imagine the sensation of “owning” a vagina. It is a void, not a vacuum. A vacuum would imply the all-consuming black hole — the feminization of sex. It is not trained comprehension or chromosomes — it takes pure imagination to get the story straight…
Copyright © 2017 E Maria Shelton Speller All rights reserved.
Update #1: Super News! Explode – The Writer’s Environment is a Summer, Fall and Winter Experiential Network (XN) Project Sponsor — for Northeastern University!
It is my pleasure to introduce Yingqian “Selina” Jiang. Ms. Jiang is the NU XN Winter Term student for Explode – The Writer’s Environment! Selina, MS in Project Management with a concentration in Finance, and MS in Informatics – graduates this fall. Her academic projects include the Peking University Science and Engineering Building, the Movable Sidewalk for Logan Airport Terminal E, and the Casino in Mashpee. She is also a volunteer for the Japan Festival Boston Committee and the Mulan Non-profit Organization.
Ms. Jiang would like to conduct Voices of the Customer (VoC), or surveys if you will, to inform the project completion and launch of Explode – This Writer’s Environment in March 2017!
The XN survey would gather feedback on your experience and expectations for Explode, and should take no more than 4-5 minutes. Be assured all answers you provide will be kept in the strictest confidentiality.
Your voices are a critical component for the successful launch of the writer’s environment. With much gratitude and appreciation, please take this opportunity to participate in the survey, and join me in welcoming Ms. Jiang to the writer’s environment!
Woodstock! (WIP (x Bars))
Overture: Woodstock is an ensemble. There are two voices and the beat in this WIP… the Narrator’s voice, Hitchcock’s, and “That Yoni”. See Side Bar by JuseBeats!
In a walk through Whole Foods like Hitchcock
In his magnum opus
about a world… full of extras
in architectonic loops and links, alliteration and reverie, force, ballast, fancy partitions, linear renderings, systems of reckoning and more — of her…
He wants
Beddo, Caprino, Dolce Sardo
Zufi, the Saperavi
He nods
I’m thinking
Disappointed… in us!
[There’s no other way to say it — I can’t dress it up]
Caught between a slumbering scream and Vertigo
Cruising isles and isles of sweet and sour
People who think they are special
People who know they are not
People who wish they were
He wants
Beddo, Caprino, Dolce Sardo
Zufi, the Saperavi
Whispers prologue
Guess what we did?
A party of twenty
Three couples played before
winking and willing
shills playing in the round
Lovely trips on the Hill
in augmented VR
I’m thinking…
Baby boomers had their turn Woodstock!
Barefoot bell bottomed hippies
Denim sweeping the ground
Revolutionary hair — fists in the air
Dragging us back in the mud
Blunt antiquity
Move on Woodstock!
Take your shades, caps, change and loose articles
Bombs in black holes!
[Where did you go?]
We should be sunning in the Bahamas
chilling on hemp swings and
chairs swiveling in immersive environments
Higher than kite fights
A soaring for points experience
Get off the ride Woodstock!
You had your turn — at freedom
Exit signs are easy to find — look
The dragon is in the window
Freedom is accessible
Wonder is a trip
with walk through assistants
Dreams of power and prizes
Optional…
Fall out and Jack into
a walk through Whole Foods like Hitchcock
in his magnum opus
about a world… full of extra
architectonic loops and links, alliteration and reverie, force, ballast, fancy partitions, linear renderings, systems of reckoning — and more — of her… virtually surreal
He wants
Beddo, Caprino, Dolce Sardo
Zufi, the Saperavi
Whispers song
We don’t want to feel we’re high…
We just want to think we’re high
in Dubai
We don’t want to feel we’re high…
We just want to think we’re high
in Dubai
Copyright 2016 E Maria Shelton Speller
“It is said that what is called “the spirit of an age” is something to which one cannot return. That this spirit gradually dissipates is due to the world’s coming to an end. For this reason, although one would like to change today’s world back to the spirit of one hundred years or more ago, it cannot be done. Thus it is important to make the best out of every generation.” ― Tsunetomo Yamamoto
and this
“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” Albert Einstein
Cheers! I would also like to thank 40K poets at heart (like us) on FB et al, who like and love, and laugh, and mislike this WIP! Please pardon the broken link… We’re working on it. However, this glitch is an opportunity to say thank you for being in this Writer’s Environment with me. Happy Holidays and have a wonderful New Year!
Aristotle Michelangelo and Louis Picasso’s Parallel Discussions
Aristotle Michelangelo and Louis Picasso’s
Parallel Discussions (In Medias Res) Overtaken by Events
Behind Pushkin’s Coffeehouse, Aristotle Michelangelo and Louis Picasso sat on the remnants of a barge, trading barbs in Ibiza… swinging high top leather sock hip hop sneakers, and creeper boots in blue green virtual water, with Rick Owens’ reflection in the pool, burning fat ones – away from the beautiful ones — in a Period Piece. The Darlings of today’s literati — visionaries during the Harlem Renaissance, play themselves in a satirical throwback in VR.
Louis Picasso: “In RL, it’s 6 P.M. You just got home from work or you work from home in your virtual office. You decide to spend the evening in space! You scan Balmain for your Avatar – dope fashion — with as much audacity as Hype Williams’ black lacquered Keisha in Belly — wearing Versace!
You decide to download your brand new Porsche designed by Porsche and Atari for Microsoft, on the Pacific Coast Highway — Malibu on the left, Pepperdine University on the right, you’re on your way to virtual LA in the fast lane — your thighs are burning. Other avatars and their cars share the PCH too — driving Vipers, Corvettes, the white BMW X6 and you are speeding at 100 MIPS, streaming Coltrane.
Aristotle Michelangelo interjects: “Then you decide to go to BET’s virtual Nuyorican Café in Gotham City for the Open Mike – Saul Williams and Jessica Care Moore are featured (as themselves) tonight. You hand the keys to the valet — pay at the door with your password, sit front row center no matter what time you arrive, sign up to read your poem — because you can start over from the beginning or resume. Gender! Lame. Race is unimaginative in Space. Ethnicity is a brand — at best. The Open Mike is over at 10 P.M. but there is still time to go to Bar Pitti. You walk in and Claude McKay is at the bar in a heated debate with Ralph Ellison about literary ownership — by Netflix.
McKay shouts and then nearly whispers to Ellison, ‘It takes more than creative androgyny to “embody” the opposite sex. The storytelling responsibility of all writers, whether female or male is to fill the void. When a woman creates a man, she must imagine the sensation of “owning” a penis. When a man creates a woman, he must imagine the sensation of “owning” a vagina. It is a void, not a vacuum. A vacuum would imply the all-consuming black hole — the feminization of sex. It is not trained comprehension or chromosomes — it takes pure imagination to get the story straight…’
Louis Picasso: “Then, at Midnight, you blow kisses and wuggles to your friends, and log off. You stand and stretch your back, and your bladder is bursting because you forgot about your biological realities. The television is off; it has been off for weeks. Why watch television when you can be your own audience? Randall Walser said it best, “The filmmaker says, ‘Look, I’ll show you.’ The space maker says, ‘Here, I’ll help you discover.’ We will be our own creators functioning like actors in high culture — tools of the taste public! We will create our own universes — our own planets. We can superimpose our images circa 6 BC – AD 30, and follow Jesus to the Promised Land, witness the crucifixion – and how we feel and what we think is utterly private and without commercials! Because, global messages with common appeal will forever change with today’s technology, the challenge is to make communication visual, images symbolic, and still sell product… I want to propose arcane ideas…”
Aristotle Michelangelo interjects: “I want to develop, manage, and direct vision. My goal is to be where imagination and business are indistinguishable, because imagination without business, and business without imagination is as incongruous as capitalism without consumers… I found a dope quote dog!”
“When, she was still in her teens, well before she met Caesar, Cleopatra already had slept with Antony… though Caesar was fifty-three and she but twenty-three or so she proved ready enough to bed her third Roman. It is said that Cleopatra was a woman of lively turn and enticing talents. She also had a keen sense of the political. That this Roman [Caesar] conqueror had the power to secure the Egyptian throne for her must have added to the attraction she felt for him…Caesar established her in a sumptuous villa across the Tiber, from which she held court, while political leaders, financiers, and men of letters, including the renowned Cicero, danced in attendance.” Michael Parenti
Louis Picasso: I’m reading the same book, and I have a better one!
“In a prologue to Caesar and Cleopatra [George Bernard Shaw] that is almost never performed, the god Ra tells the audience how Rome discovered that ‘the road to riches and greatness is through robbery of the poor and slaughter of the weak.’ In conformity with that dictum, the Romans ‘robbed their own poor until they became great masters of that art, and knew by what laws it could be made to appear seemly and honest.’ And after squeezing their own people dry, they stripped the poor throughout the many other lands they conquered.” Michael Parenti
Aristotle Michelangelo: Shrugged his shoulders unconsciously, “Chez Bricktop in Paris?”
Louis Picasso: Not now. I am having a violent reaction to prescription drugs! My body is like, ‘Don’t put that shit down here again!’ They gave me all this medication for Acute Caesarion whatever — and I took it! Of course, you don’t exhaust the shit. You’re not an idiot. But, what the fuck? Where the weed at?”
Aristotle Michelangelo: I think it would be dope to channel Kerouac’s apology for automatic writing.
“He likened writing to dreaming and fantasizing, as a substitute for life. So, he wrote The Subterraneans, in three days and nights of speed typing energized by Benzedrine — to imitate the rhythm of Bebop like free energy flow, and unrestrained association, to reveal the unconscious… because he wanted to flow from inside out in spontaneous prose!” Dystopia, Explode 2015 2.0
So, here goes… They called her Marnie — behind her back. I was torn. I played with variations of Marnie. Black Marnie. Brown Marnie, Tortilla Marnie. It’s the language of found art. Bansky, Kehinde, Jazz, Hip Hop… They teased each other. Hitchcock’s Margaret, Mary, Marnie, teases Mark, so she could get the combination, to his company safe, and steal the money. She was a Kleptomaniac, a compulsive thief. A killer. She disappears. On the run! He tracks her like an animal, and finds her at a Lodge, riding her horse to the stables. He orders her off the horse, tells her she’ll walk — he’ll ride. He interrogates her. She tells him a bullshit story she can’t keep straight. He calls it, manure! Tells her to start over from the beginning, and this time — tell the truth. Back at the Lodge – he tells her to freshen up, change her clothes so he might take her to the police – she thinks. She does not know… It’s Tippi Hedren in RL! The white woman of a black man’s dreams – when he dreams about white women. Blonde, pearly white teeth and skin — Barbie! Beckie! He tells her, they will return to ‘the house’ and announce they are engaged, would to be married within the week and then cruise around the world. Of course, she thinks he’s “Out of his mind!” He told her, it was either marriage or the police, old girl. Black Marnie. Who would play her?
They get married. Eventually he takes her virginity. She tries to commit suicide. I don’t think I want to go there… Suicide. Who should play Mark? [#nomoreslavestories.] Does he catch her?
Louis Picasso: I remember that story. He said, I caught a real animal this time. I had to train her… to trust me.*
Aristotle Michelangelo: Pussy Riot danced in the cathedral — goes to jail, and the artist nailed his scrotum to the Red Square. She’s a prisoner of love. That kind of love makes me uncomfortable, racked, and anguished like a pet must be around possessive people. The energy is ignitable like the choice between blowing up and letting go. I don’t want to belong to anyone. But, what do I know about love?
Louis Picasso: Black people don’t like black people. That’s why we’re in this — hole… barrel, bucket, duck it, fuck it… We know it’s true. Listen to the tonal center of this beat!
Aristotle Michelangelo: In sixty revolutions a minute, if it’s not organic, I can’t get with it. Hate is not organic. Hate is a social construct. I want to live the life I swam to the egg for… A social construct is like zoon pushed to the egg, by stronger swimmers behind it. It’s still goal niggaz. I want an organic experience on this gridiron. A certain freedom, mere man can’t give, conceive or contrive. I want freedom Divine. You want to be free — you have to fuggin’ work for it. Zufi?
Aristotle Michelangelo: You need money, software and rigs in the virtual world. Bombs are obsolete. Race and gender is a pastiche — game challenges for points.
Louis Picasso: Beauty and power is iconography and homely stamps are hiccups – and brick and mortar is a path to experience the destruction of daredevils and matadors — in coliseums of pestilence and poverty – empirically.
Aristotle Michelangelo: Why go there? When, life is a perfect dream in a virtual world.
Louis Picasso: IJS. Get on board with — evolution. Evolution is not physical space. It’s the diamond life in our heads on a loop. Its VR not the moon…
Aristotle Michelangelo: I love wearing the mask! You can’t see my countenance — in La La Land, my eyes may smile. My lip may curl up or down… I’m an introvert; an INTJ — is that Caprino?
Louis Picasso: Now that Juneteenth is a federal holiday, it will be impossible to ignore slavery in America… Why are some Black Americans worrying about slavery in America being taught in schools? The horse is out of the barn! Instead of embracing Juneteenth and all that it implies… Black Americans are WHINING and using the language of slaves, “they won’t, let us, allow us, give us and get…” Instead black Americans are still looking the other way when a black man drags a black woman by her hair [DC], and black people are murdered by black people in Chicago – for giggles. June 19, 2021 marks the day, that Black America must acknowledge that ‘we’ are no longer slaves and assume responsibility — that’s what freedom is.
Copyright 2016, 2018, 2020 E Maria Shelton Speller. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast rewritten or redistributed without permission.
*Alfred Hitchcock, Marnie
The Wonderment
Why does black on black crime matter less than black lives matter?
Black on black crime is the consequence of a broken man
Black lives matter is the consequence of a broken system
Fix the broken system
fix the broken man >>>>
Copyright 2016 E Maria Shelton Speller. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Bernardo Bertolucci passed away today, November 26, 2018 — RIP
- The Sheltering Sky
- The Dreamers
- The Last Emperor
- The Conformist
Dada — Lost and Found — Triptych
Doing nothing
and falling
I would be nosey
like numbers on analytics
Floating lollipops and gummy bears
Copyright 2016 E Maria Shelton Speller. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
On the 48th year since the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. — the language for this mash-up, was for the revolutionary icon.
ONE ACT PLAY — SPRINGBOARD!
FLASH DRAMA
Genre: Comedy
9 actors
Duration: 10 mins
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Cece – Art Curator, Poet
Tess – Communicator
Lena – Data Scientist
Wife – Analyst
Wife — Homemaker
Said – Data Scientist
Etan – Consultant
Luda – Data Scientist and aspiring Poet
Kent – Data Scientist
ACT 1 — Installation Art (Sit next to me)
The scene takes place in a private home theater under a Proscenium arch. Stage right is a door to the dining area. Stage left is a door to the great room. Upstage is a grand screen.
It is Tess and Said’s turn to host the Football Sunday dinner party for three married couples – their closest friends. Tess’ single BFF, CeCe with the gratuitous beauty, on everyone’s dream team (and it is rude to stare) is visiting from the city – and having so much more to offer, as usual she is flying too close to the sun and upsetting the social balance.
CECE: I have a story to tell! I promise you — you’re going to love it! You simply must experience it. The absolute audacity of the writer is stunning. She’s THAT motherfucker. (Giggle) That bitch. Tricky — Romanticist. Epic like the Iliad…
(RESTLESS MOVEMENT)
ALL
We’re watching the game… in a minute.
CECE: But, wait…
CONVERSATIONS HAPPENING IN THE ROUND END DOWNSTAGE
UPSTAGE
SAID: Of course you have data. Do you know how to use it? Give me data. I’ll give you algorithms… synced with the principles of Six Sigma. It’s over.
TESS: I said, If you don’t knock on my door, someone else will.
STAGE LEFT
ETAN: Evidently, you’re attracted to me, and I applaud you for knowing who you want. I’m flattered. But, I don’t sway that way.
WIFE: What did he say?
ETAN: “It doesn’t matter.”
WIFE: Oh! O-kay… (LOOKS AWAY STAGE RIGHT WITH A GAFFAW) He’s funny.
ETAN: Define funny.
WIFE: Funny is funny.
ETAN: What’s funny to you, may not be funny to me.
WIFE: Are we going to go back and forth on what is funny? I want to talk about something else. I want to talk about Project #99 (GAFFAW) Again. You pushed me… But, it was good. It’s true. Where was I? I’m crazy! Yeah. No doubt… (LOOKS AWAY) But, I love you.
TWO BEATS
WIFE: I’m kickstarting my project this week. (THROWS HEAD BACK DEFIANTLY)
(BEFORE WHISPERING IN HER EAR)
ETAN: “Sex packets …”
WIFE: (SUDDENLY) You said, I would be your wife, not your slave.
DOWNSTAGE LENA WHISPERS TO LUDA AND THE AUDIENCE
LENA: So, what if it’s all true? Does that give you the right to kick my ass and keep it moving? You’re a mutation. It does not sound like we’re the lazy ones. We will survive. You will not… and if that’s true why would I compete with you, when you are doing all the work? You cannot survive without us. We’re going with. Wouldn’t you?
LUDA: Human DNA enlarges mouse brains.
(LENA LOOKS AWAY STAGE LEFT WITH A THROATY LAUGH)
(LUDA TURNS TO THE AUDIENCE WITH A SOLILOQUY
STAGE RIGHT
HOMEMAKER: Look babe, it’s tulle and mesh — and if I bend over just right…
KENT: I am not going to kiss your ass (Chuckles)
HOMEMAKER: Why not? You’ve been kissing it.
KENT: Don’t try to goad me into an argument to justify your own.
HOMEMAKER: I’m just saying… if it’s in our heads, it’s pure fantasy. Don’t float what you imagine out here in the void, like what you think is really real. If it’s not real… like your hands on me — it’s fiction. You cannot possibly know what I think, how I feel, how I will respond to your bullshit… or even how you will respond to mine. I thought? When was the last time you imagined a confrontation? Of course, it never happens like the movies in our heads. Not even close! But, to be content to covet the same dreams, is so… unimaginative. Is that the best we can do? To be part of a crowd? Look at me. (VOGUES) I am the fastest swimmer in a sea of zoon!
KENT: (Chuckles) Who the fuck are you reading lately?
HOMEMAKER: (Playfully) We have to spend more time together! I do have a wonderful quote… “I have a lesson for you. Do you want it?”
KENT: “I have a lesson for you. Do you want it?” Who said that?
HOMEMAKER: My mother… in so many words.
KENT: He called me Money.
(HE BEGINS LIKE A STORY SHE’S HEARD BEFORE)
KENT: (CONTINUES) He said, I want a boy who gets what he came for. A boy who knows he’s the strongest swimmer in a sea of zoon. It’s true, a boy could have been pushed by stronger swimmers behind him. Like Mad Max. I want a boy who would survive the hood. A boy that knows changing direction is nothing. The trick is to breathe again. That’s the boy I want. Do you think you could be that boy? I would sit up straight, tip my head, and say, Yes Sir. I’m that boy.
HOMEMAKER: Every time you tell that story I’d forget to mention, it feels like he’s looming over you. What were you sitting on?
KENT: My potty chair… I thought you knew?
HOMEMAKER: Oh no. He didn’t! (GIGGLES) Your father is bananas.
KENT AND HOMEMAKER LAUGH TOGETHER
KENT: Jules Winfield reciting Ezekiel.
HOMEMAKER: That’s why you’re so ambitious. I love that about you, Honey. Look at us! We’re a Stupid Power Couple.
KENT: (CHUCKLES) The first time we met, I wondered… how does THAT work? (LAUGHS)
(HOMEMAKER FIGHTS A SMILE)
KENT: You said, “I’m not looking for a husband.”
(BOTH LAUGH ON KEY)
HOMEMAKER: You want to play with me? Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure?
STAGE LEFT
(HUDDLING WITH HIS SILENT WIFE)
ETAN: Conscious decisions are all that I can respect. Don’t cling to insanity, or criminal passion, or peer pressure, or social expectations. Don’t talk to me about losing control — momentarily. Or, the poverty and violence of pain heaped upon more pain because you’re black. This is not a gang-rape. This is not Dionysia all over again, where women and children are sacrificed, and blood is beer. If I change my language, the outcome will still be the same… (STOP)
(THREE BEATS)
ETAN: Jack Kerouac… likened writing to dreaming and fantasizing, as a substitute for life. So, he wrote The Subterraneans, in three days and nights of speed typing energized by Benzedrine — to imitate the rhythm of Bebop like free energy flow and unrestrained association to reveal the unconscious… because he wanted to flow from inside out in spontaneous prose! Am I going to read that trippy book again, with absolutely no punctuation period, when I can imagine my very own Mardou Fox?
STARING OPENLY AT ETAN, LUDA STOPS LISTENING AND LOOKING UP TO THE HEAVENS, STROKES HIS BEARD, AND TURNS TO THE AUDIENCE WITH A SECOND SOLILOQUY.
LUDA TURNS AWAY FROM HIS AUDIENCE AND LOOKS STAGE RIGHT AT KENT
A PHONE HELD IN KENT’S HAND ILLUMINATES HIS FACE. KENT SPEAKS LOUD [AS IF] SIGNALING THE END
KENT: A black man is charged with burning black Churches in St. Louis Missouri…
KENT LOOKS UP FROM THE SCREEN. HIS FACE IS STILL. EYES UNFOCUSED. HE MOVES HIS LIPS.
KENT: Unbelieveable.
HOMEMAKER: I’m gonna’ need to pinch him.
KENT AND THE HOMEMAKER THROW THEIR HEADS BACK IN HEARTY LAUGHTER. THE HOMEMAKER SUDDENLY STOPS AND LOOKS AT KENT. WHISPERS.
HOMEMAKER: Wake up, blue pill.
THE HOMEMAKER LOOKS AT THE AUDIENCE — IN A MONOLOGUE — LOUDER THAN KENT.
HOMEMAKER: It’s the Age of STEM. With VRs for your fancies, imagining aggressions you never lose. Where are we going? Who are we doing? How shall we dress for the joie de vivre? I want to meet the best Black Rock Band on the planet and their Muse; to be the woman in the Dolmus, the Driver, Simon… I want to hear Luda deliver his soliloquies in a courtyard enclosed by trees, with stapled bark once covered with flyers — for missing pets, and outworn, archaic, and unimaginative campaigns and trade for sale or giveaway. I want to be where someone says, I have a story to tell, and those who’ve heard the story reply, we’re watching the game in a minute… I know how the story ends.
(WITH A MONA LISA SMILE)
HOMEMAKER: (TAGGING) I am sorry, but, honestly, the 21st Century is so… contrived. (STOPS SHORT OF LAUGHTER) Let’s move along.
CENTER STAGE
CECE: We have plenty of time! Indulge me. I’m going to read it.
(MORE RESTLESS MOVEMENT)
CECE: Come on! It’s my birthday! Okay, it’s not my birthday….Listen! This is a quote from Interview magazine. I think it’s poetic. “I use pot for depression, and I am depressed often. When I am high, I am very creative, and because my word is work in progress, I have no regrets. Self actualization is anticlimactic… I am the hopeless writer. I spent most of my life being angry that I, didn’t have an audience that would pay for my work. Girls, gotta’ make a living. It’s amazing what turns people on. It’s not at all what I imagined. I spent too much time trying to create a persona, when I am one. I suppose it’s okay to spend your life chasing a dream. You have to have one or two to live for.” She’s extra… Did I mention Ovid?
If you don’t like it (PAUSE) I’ll blow every cock in the room.
HUSBANDS
Whoa! What? Fuck? Really?
WIVES
Shut up! Girl! Bitch! Are you crazy?
Bars and Verses for the South Side (Inspired by Kendrick Lamar’s The Blacker the Berry)
You are here
In front of the Mona Lisa
Provoking six million gags a year
Dismissing she’s da Vinci in drag
You are here
So valuable she can’t be insured
Sfumato eyes and slanted smile
Dangle like sneakers…. on a pole
I can hear you thinking
You are here
You are here
You are here
You are here
Bored with near misses and boors
And the fealty of Jim Crow fifty years ago
Riding a labyrinth carousel in the wilderness
You are here… before the fiery furnace
Freedom not long actually happened
While you were sleeping unaccountable
Transfixed on transitions a half-century ago
Don’t pretend you know what’s going on
We are here beyond the status quo
Beyond owning cable movies until 2024
Beyond the fear of dread before joy
Where do we go from here?
I know, they know, he knows, she knows
Like assumptions on the street is folly
Free your children what can you do for them?
Who are we?
Where conceptions… are constructions
Subject to… demystifications
Like symbols are… adroit for points
Take your children… Over there!
Over there
Away from you
Away from me
Away from them
Away from he
Away from she
Who are we?
Freedom!
You are here
Over there
Away from you
Away from me
Away from them
Away from he
Away from she
Who are we?
Free them!
There are non-profit-tax-exempt boarding schools
For girls and boys who would die on the fourth of July
Because snitches get stitches and fathers disappear
It was an easy sale – – – –
Wooed scholars thinkers and Morehouse men
With paeans and promises for the liberal emergence of altruism
With curriculums and schools of thought designed by them
It was an easier sale – – – –
Bernanke, Chomsky, Aslan, Witten
Micheaux, Baldwin, Davis, Marsalis
Thompson, Sir Timothy, Nash – – – –
Gates, Plato, Picasso, and Sowell
Over there where students create Kickstarter projects
Before the class trip to Paris, France in the fall
Parents watch their children dance under the balustrade
On the sunken floor after the Science Fair on Saturday morn
Where conceptions… are constructions
Subject to… demystifications
Like symbols are… adroit for points
Take your children… Over there!
Over there
Away from you
Away from me
Away from them
Away from he
Away from she
Who are we?
Freedom!
You are here
Over there
Away from you
Away from me
Away from them
Away from he
Away from she
Who are we?
Free them!
Cunning like military brats have to be
Wearing class A red cardigans and purity rings
Watching Venus north of the crescent moon in the dome
Reengineering the next generation
I called myself a Ghost writer
I never claimed to be one
But Talking heads and Rhodes Scholars
Join the flute girls at the grog bowl serving sharp edges and chum
This life is a bizarro disinvestment
But, before you head home by GPS
Where the last honest man is on video
Here’s a bar and verse… for the road
Our Father who art in heaven – – – –
Hallowed be your name
Thy kingdom come
Thy will be done
On earth
As it is in heaven – – – –
Where God given gifts are never squandered
You are here in the foyer with problem and solution
Where common sense is not enough
Where who and what is forever kitschy
Affirmation is a function of negation and vice versa*
Social constructs are under siege and should be
Where talking heads shut the fuck up!
Free them!
You’re welcome to stay for Church
Or join Yogi… Temple
Copyright ©2015 by E Maria Shelton Speller. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
*Octavio Paz
Cowboys and Indians and Torture Stories (WIP)
We watched a lot of television
when we were children
Barbie and Ken went to the Theater
to see Porgy and Bess
I am reminded that we liked
“Torture Stories”
The medieval thumbscrew
Spartacus and the rack
Cowboys and Indians!
We rooted for the Indians
They were savages
and were portrayed so
When the Indians tortured the Cowboys
We liked it! Remember?
Then there were “Slave Stories”
Black people looked nothing like us
Slaves were bad people
They deserved to be whipped
When Slaves ran from their masters
for the Underground Railroad*
We screamed on ivory soaped knees
“Catch that nigga!”
Running like those colored people
in the Civil Rights Movement
Before my mother told me rather plainly
You are Colored too
Copyright 2015 by E Maria Shelton Speller. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
* “The entrance to the Underground Railroad remains unknown. After leaving our tunnel, slaves would try to make their way as far north as possible. There are no records as to who went through the tunnel or how many.” First African BC Savannah, Georgia
Lust for TIDAL — The Sweet Sixteen
Someone has to go with Ego
To the story about the story inside the poem
On ground eroding under sweet feet
Where dreams so real are accessible
and parodies will do
Epic stories tied to epic tracks
One point perspectives
and narcissistic points of view
Aural stories linked to sublime beats:
The gift between Agamemnon and Achilles
The Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals
between Socrates and Kant
An opus for Free Angela and all Political Prisoners
Her quiet laughter at the end
Why should Kim go alone to France?
Fie for Shame! Blood hath been shed…*
Make room for Superego!
Believing the fiction they think
They know
It’s true
Someone has to go with Id
Those streaming millennial Randites!
kissing clicks on tours
happy blowing up Karaoke machines again
Dénouement: This whimsical WIP is for the sixteen owners of Tidal High Fidelity Music Streaming! Turn it up!
Copyright 2015 by E Maria Shelton Speller. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
*The Tragedy of Macbeth, William Shakespeare