The ekphrastic poetry reading by Mind Gravy Poetry was a moving tribute to the art work in the exhibition Paper and Steel, at the Orangeburg County Fine Arts Center. Mind Gravy always does a great job with this. In my previous blog, I wrote a short review of Derek Berry's recent publication, Glitter Husk. At the poetry reading a week ago, Derek chose my drawing, Conspiracy Theories, to write and perform for. It was a tiny 5" x 7" charcoal drawing, but it caught his attention. Mr. Berry has graciously allowed me to share his composition for the art work:
conspiracy theories, after janet kozachek
what must god have felt
when the floodwaters crammed
the lungs of non-believers?
what must have noah’s sons
thought when their friends drowned,
mud and blood and screaming
in the rush of water, the image
of god a turned back,
a night sky? did they whisper
to one another of cruelty?
empathy? or did they cluck
their tongues at those
who had named the dark clouds a conspiracy?
there must be some moment
when children look at their fathers
and understand they are also sons,
when they understand their parents
cannot answer for god.
on facebook, the mother of my childhood best friend
implores her friends to abandon ship.
they will no longer put up with the fake news,
the stolen election, the wicked vaccines,
the homosexual agenda, the millennial generation,
the microchips, the freudian slips,
the children in cages or the children in basements,
the children learning about evolution in schools,
the children who will grow up to one day hate them
for all they do not believe to be true.
i too have huddled with friends
in smoky rooms and asked the questions
about the cia, the man, the medical establishment,
the history not taught in schools, the slaughters forgotten,
the unions busted, the god written and rewritten
into thousands of books, then painted white
and hung on a plastic cross hanging from the neck
of the mother of my childhood best friend,
who believes i’m the enemy.
i do not how to trust anymore.
i do not know how to point to the truth
& say, “this is the truth,” without flinching
at everything i do not know.
i do not know how to ask god, “why?”
without wondering when my children will ask me the same question.
but i know i touch my lover’s
face with the same hands
once cradled in the palms
of that woman, who once fed me,
who once when i was a toddler,
kept me alive for three days
while my brother was born premature in the hospital.
a woman who loved me, in a way,
until i grew up to become one of the drowned.
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