Collage

A Poem

I am bits and pieces of memories and events Stickers of self Paintings of others Glued magazine parts on top of each other Layered in more

How could we not be like this? A collage of our lives An interesting mix of snapshots and writings, epic failures and celebrations all pieced together to form one whole piece of art, us

You, me, them pressed adjacent creating a combined memory that never existed Three thought-trains all on different tracks waiting for the conductor to blow the whistle so we can stop adding more

We are collage This world, an assemblage of moving parts and static measures Our eyeballs scanning it all and trying to take it in and some days it’s not pretty It doesn’t look like art, it just looks like a mess Discordant anomalies unfavored by each other

So we keep pasting anew We keep trying something different until, in one fell swoop, the mess becomes masterpiece and our lives look like they should An everchanging reminder that we can always be upgraded by a delicate eye

I am bits and pieces of memories and events Stickers of self Paintings of others Glued magazine parts on top of each other Complete, for now

This poem was inspired by a passage in the book of poetry, If They Come For Us, by Fatimah Asghar. I find myself highlighting words or passages that move me every time I read, no matter what I am reading. When I find the highlight that projects to a poem, I don’t read the source again before I write, I just allow the nerve to be touched. And then I spill my words.

A snippet from the poem, Super Orphan, from If They Come For Us, where I got my inspiration:

Let’s try again: once, there was a family What came first?

—

What to do then, when the only history you have is collage?

© Jonathan Greene 2020

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