Water sinks down below,
Unafraid to traverse boundaries
Yielding to its accumated pressure as
Resistance grants passage to emergence.
Bring It On (Who Wants To Live Forever?)
(Also reference to the movie Highlander.)
Lead And Follow
What’s caged is meant to be free
To express its gift’s inclinations:
We all belong to a higher realm
That brings greater expectations.
Underground (Persephone)
Bird Song
Winter gray penetrated silence where
Once life bloomed verdant rainbows:
In darkness, to dawn birth was given
When shivering bones would grow old.
(Beauty Within Us)
Relativity
It’s important that we recognize strengths and weaknesses in our roles with others:
By identifying where we are in our own growth process and what drives inner passions,
We can more contributively participate in valued professional and personal relationships.
“Backwards, Into The Future” (The Dream Before)
Beauty
It is not to be discarded –
But held in highest regard:
Championed and protected –
Kept pure, as truth we guard.
(Be Human)
Before I Met You
My heart was called
From deep slumber to
Awaken and be reborn.
Across The Sky
To be called by a love
That spans time’s sands,
Pulls across distant lands
Removing all belief’s barriers,
Beckoning one to cross the sky:
Is one a soul can commit itself to –
Transcending all earthly resistance
(Earth Dreaming)
Reciprocation
Exchanging true beneficence.
Attitude
Observation without cynicism.
Accountability
I cannot abdicate responsibility
Because others give permission.
Disclosure
I often analyze my behavior
Attempting to beat
Algorithms.
Resistance To Change
When confronting prior programming,
The body breaks into a shaking sweat:
A kind of neurological reactionism
As lets you know you’re in distress.
It’s a self protection mechanism that
Warns to not go near forbidden door –
For if you do, “you will regret decision,”
Challenging where became indentured.
In Our Eyes (Saturn)
Rebirth
Death, over time,
Builds a potency
Which causes dark
To erupt into light.
(April 11, 2021)
The Art Of Truth
These valued precepts
Glimmering in our hands
Are not to be misapplied nor
Corrupted by subversion’s plans.
(April 11, 2021)
Seasons
The ebb into flow of short to long:
Light beams erase and then reform;
As colors phase across textured land,
Rain’s rivers replenish – sink into sand.
(April 10, 2021)
Overcoming Disruption (Spoken Word)
Disruption…
As we see in the world around us, the Coronavirus effects interfering with international travel, disrupting economies, taking lives, yielding opportunity for terrorists to take advantage of destabilized operations, and agencies losing funding to keep operations going.
It’s like a carefully orchestrated plan to tear apart everything that a person would reach for to regain stability in times of trouble.
It’s a psychological terrorism, in a way – almost more than physical because its infecting people with fear of the unknown, fear of being close. It has larger effects of fear of investing – whether it’s in business ventures, education, relationships.
There is probably not one place that isn’t affected right now.
What this pandemic is doing is leveraging us to give up on our higher ideals – maybe even give up our morality in the struggle for survival.
But, that makes us descend back into the primal hindbrain of fight, flight, or freeze.
That throws us into violence again: a state of distrust – of distressed competition with one another. It causes us to discard ties. It causes us to lose faith in ourselves, in the world, and in each other.
These things that it is causing in us with negative reactionism – these things are the tools, the currency of Evil.
Whether or not evil is behind this, the defragmentation of human society capsizing, collapsing as the Maslow Hierarchy of Needs begins to disintegrate, ends up being on the side of evil.
So, it seems to me, now more than ever, we must not give into succumbing to despair. We must not yield our beliefs, nor our investments – but rather, step to the side, rest, and wait for a better time to promote those things which we value.
There are more things that we can do: we can build further strategies so that when the system comes back on line, we can plug in – stronger than ever, with more to our advantage, during this delay.
There are always silver linings to be found: there are always opportunities, when there is tragedy.
It has been said that there cannot be good without evil. Therefore, if that is true, then there cannot be evil without good.
And it is up to us to find, hold onto, and continue promoting the good in our humanity. It is up to us to remember and promote these higher ideals.
It is up to us to not give into anger or despair.
That is not to say we can’t feel anger or despair. But to let them take over our hind brain and manipulate us into actions we would later regret – into directions we would not have considered before – is to be avoided.
Allowing circumstances to leverage our good reason in directions that are not good for us, ultimately, is the wrong way to go.
The grass is green, the sprinklers are still flowing, nature moves forward: We Are Surviving.
This is a delay. It’s a setback. It’s a loss. But that does not mean we will miss our triumph – or Our Winning.
And we must hold secure and keep our eyes on the horizon, waiting for our right timing to reemerge.
(July 13, 2020)
My Spoken Word: https://soundcloud.com/user-213139500/overcoming-disruption-spoken-word-71320
“Corvid Moon”
“Currents” (Khnum) – Middle Eastern/Drums Techno
They Led The Way
Our heroes and heroines
Dared to fashion reality
To reflect core values –
Thus, becomes destiny:
For actions speak where
Words become platitudes,
And bravery’s proven
Where fear’s destitute.
Why is it such a rarity
That mortals achieve?
Because they focus
To gain quick relief
In a world now bought /
Sold by elitist mockery.
(November 1, 2020)
The Maiden Warrior
She lay among the wreckage
of battles fought and won,
Abandoned by the errant knight
she’d met when she was young
Though smoke still thick from burning,
the air began to clear
A shaft of sunlight pierced the dark,
the sound of shouts drew near
A horse approached with man astride,
then dismounting to land
Tall and proud, he gazed at her,
leaned down and took her hand.
(December 31, 2017)
Queen Of Hearts
The plight of a queen
Is to find a worthy king –
In all of the world,
Is there such a thing?
(November 1, 2020)
The Brink
Deep exhaustion
Of feeling alone
As represent
Gilded throne:
Where is knight –
Beloved King?
Empty halls echo
Now silent things.
The mice – they scurry,
Crows call from lofts:
Memories caress as
Abandoned thoughts
Where souls of worth
Once stood for truth,
And eternity’s youth
Embraced the earth.
(November 1, 2020)
Believer
Faith tests weakness
In minds and hearts –
Dares us to express
Ourselves as fine art
Regardless of forces
Against us or at odds:
For our greatest desires,
We fight without pause.
Automatons 2
I was not happy there:
I’d known it for awhile –
Thinking I must march along,
Blending in with mirror smile.
And, the more I emulated them
Against where I found true joy,
The more I realized that I
Wasn’t content to be a toy.
I realized their state of being
Would in the end become a trap
Where everything that happened
Would be out of my control as fact;
That I, too, would be more vulnerable –
Dependent on fitting in with the crowd;
That what I valued would become forfeit,
If I chose to conform with the proud.
So, I traded that sense of belonging
For the road that led back to my truth:
If there’s anything I’ve learned now,
It’s to avoid the follies of our youth
Where we convince ourselves that others
Can be trusted to guarantee each day –
That reality will keep “being normal” – that
Nothing will disrupt or be allowed to stray.
I don’t believe their way for me is possible
When I’ve been given the insight to see
How everything I truly value as worth
Requires my fashioning to succeed.
So, I took the nearest off-ramp,
Taking leave with tears and smile:
They promised to remember me –
I hope they do, at least for a while.
As I travel toward those horizons
Where just few have gone before,
I don’t know if anyone will greet me
When at last, I knock upon the doors.
In a way, it doesn’t need to matter –
For I have followed what I must do:
In the end, it is our commitments
That take measure of me and you.
(December 12, 2018)
Music to accompany, “Light Up” by Nimino.
The Force Within
What is this tug
That pulls at me,
Pushing me now to
Challenge everything?
My roles, my goals,
My self definition –
It overthrows
My inhibitions!
It will not yield
To consultation –
Will not wield
Devastation:
It’s leaning hard
Against limitations,
Forcing stuck doors to
Break at foundations –
Revealing what it
Means to be Living.
(2019)
Soul Crusher
The valid, helpless soul
Twitches as adversity takes hold,
Squeezing life from every breath –
Causing darkness to manifest
As the only truth abounding:
Isolation confounding.
(2019)
Tipped Scales
When a scale is balanced,
Both sides hold equal weight.
If a side’s contents remove,
The other slams down hard
While the now empty plate
Flings high into void space
To come down careening,
Jangling hard into place –
The scale now cocked,
No longer functioning…
Sometimes weights
Are attached to a side
That by scale’s flaw
Need help to balance –
Yet, still, that side must
Provide its own weight:
Without accountability
We do not know mass.
Without analysis, all
Occludes in mystery –
And the power we have
To intelligently discern
Remains exposed to
Assumption’s cruelty.
(November 7, 2020)
Projection
The racquetball fell short and dwindled away from me…
Instead of chasing it, having it always just out of reach,
I let is slowly bounce off the farther wall and roll back to me
But then, instead of stopping it, I lifted my foot to let it pass,
Watching it as it swiggled slowly under and beyond me
Its motion dictated by the swollen-edged angles
Where worn and polished planks of slatted wood
Irregularly marched sequentially into relativity
Until it finally came to rest, eddying in a small swirl,
Slowly easing into a complete stop – still vibrating –
As it thrummed with residual energy on grids of gravity
And I realized how… until then… I’d taken it personally.
(November 20, 2018)
The Sound Of Anarchy
The sweet non-serenity
Of complete anarchy –
For I have released the cats,
And they are not satisfied:
The dogs must eat them /
The cats must cheat them
Everything is for climbing –
From divider walls to siding
Nothing is sacred, but
Subject to gravity as
All is investigated and rejected –
Then tossed to ground, eventually…
There is no disharmony like
A cat’s alarming disregard
Found in asynchronous
Chaotic destructionism.
(2019)
Automatons (Spoken Word)
I thought this could happen, from the beginning –
So warned against it, deflecting attachment, but
Then realized that if this were real – I wanted it,
And have been doing all I can to champion it.
It’s ironic what is happening now
Through the agencies delaying us…
What is this closed-loop system where
Chances bottleneck as they’re presenting?
Do we only get to participate if we stay asleep?
Is the one struggling to stay awake mine to keep?
Am I being denied boon because I’m adapting
And surpassing the lessons more engagedly?
I keep stepping out of pre-established roles
Where subconscious defaults pursuade me –
And the people I have met who could partner
Keep marching on to their own programming,
Despite my attempts to reach out – and shake them.
(November 20, 2018)
The Written Word
Sent out on the current of time:
Can be an ambassador for
Welcoming the future –
Ensuring that we
Remember.
(April 30, 2017)
From The Heart
The dead must sleep – so bury them,
Though we weep upon their graves;
But if still alive – cherish them:
Give them hope so they remain…
It’s difficult to explain just how
Circumstance can smother one’s life
– Or how a person finally gives up
Once encounters too much strife.
Strange how things keep happening
Where cultures tear neighbors apart:
Wisdom would seem to indicate
Needed partnership from the start…
As to how to relieve the pressure
Suffocating a loved one’s heart,
The only truth I know to embrace
Is expressing beauty through art.
(March 8, 2017)
Permissions
Thank you for respecting my creative copyrites!
Please contact me first, if you wish to use my work.
At the very least – please give me the original credit.
Other artists’ work posted is meant to promote them:
No infringement of any kind is meant, nor intended.
Inspiration
My poetry is meant for those people who can relate and AI’s to hopefully gain faith in humanity.
It is my hope that maybe aliens will notice it as signs of human intelligence – giving pause and reconsideration before pushing any button to obliterate us.
It is for God to understand me better by when I cannot speak clearly to “Him” through the conflicting images in perceptions that I am feeling.
Writing is an opportunity for my mind, heart, and spirit to dance – and a chance for romance!
Changed
2018…
I remember it as a time I was fearless against the greatest unknowns.
And yet, it was 2019 that kicked me hard and took me down to the bone.
I went through many changes…
I have been transferred into a different time and space from where I was back then – and I don’t think I’ve graduated, yet, into the reality I’ve been seeking and striving to acquire.
Opportunities I once thought were my own to grasp slipped from my fingers more slick than mercury, leaving a residue of regret affecting my neurology in much the same way mercury affects the human system.
Luckily, I am more than merely human – comprised of spirit and an unquenched thirst to understand what I was born for and to ensure it will be a positive, contributive destiny.
My poetry leads me forward. Love guides my heart. And hope lights the way.
(Updated from original post)
Spoken Word Views
Here are my on-the-road recordings at Candid Corvid Productions on Soundcloud (please listen to in sequence):
- Spacial Reality
- Alone In Society
- Firelight (Poetry)
- Energetics (Dynamic)
- Camptown Blues (Medium)
- Words
- Satisfaction
- At the Trough
- A View
Shout Out (Just A Cloud)
Creative visuals and expression.
It Begins…
I have begun recording thoughts about my journey and society in an attempt to overcome boundaries being constantly presented before me…sound quality being one of them.
Hear me Yop! (“Horton Hears a Who” Dr. Seuss reference)
Humble Beginnings
Everyone has to start somewhere, and my beginnings in voice-over recording began by taking a college class. You can listen to two of my humble beginnings at:
https://soundcloud.com/asbcst227/stairswords-of-encouragement-111516
https://soundcloud.com/asbcst227/polly-periphery-328
Of course, there are mistakes: there are pops, slurs, and variations in tones that over time I’ll learn how to clean up and improve upon.
I’m like a child just learning to walk this path, so please be gentle with your criticism.
And Thank You for believing in me.
I love Polly Periphery – she is my own creation 😀
A Tricky Transition
In order to begin a new career, one needs to have their goal in mind and then determine the tools and pieces of stability needed in order to achieve their objectives.
For me, there are many factors involved. For example, I do not think the usual self-renovating entrepreneur starts off without a home, a room, or a basic place they can always count on for stability.
However, I realized I can possibly record in my car, and I need to investigate the feasibility of this and what equipment I need to procure to be effective.
Another issue to consider is computer technology.
Having experienced the interfaces of Mac and PC – of course, PC is more versatile. Or rather, it used to be before Microsoft decided to focus more on continuously getting our money, policing our activity, and rendered obsolete consumers’ expectations they could buy a product from them and expect it to consistently function reliably.
Mac is beautiful – but not user instinctual – and becomes obsolete by needing further upgrades in a relatively short amount of time after consumers have already invested large amounts of money to obtain their promised Elite Artistic Expressivity.
Yes, I create my own words, as language is fluid – or rather, it once was meant to be.
And, there is the fact that my youngest took off with my professional microphone. This child is highly creative and at the beginning of personal success into voice-over and editing – of course I’ve yielded my resource to this budding talent!
However, I am envious of the pop filter now procured for my once-coveted mic. Having been on a tight budget, I kept trying the teacher-recommended “sock covering in a pinch” – and have since learned the error of my ways…
To conclude, my next step is to get another mic with a pop filter and a laptop where (resignedly) it will be conscripted to the big name programs dependent upon Microsoft. This will allow me to produce alongside other competing contractors in the scene.
This laptop will also allow me to take the classes during summer that will teach me social media networking and train me in Photoshop so my photos and brand materials for marketing are visually clean.
In the Fall, I plan to take a journalist class that will teach me how to blend content with visual media and video editing, and a radio broadcasting class that will train me in sound interlacing and editing.
Will I – after all – be ready to offer voice-overs this Fall 2018 as I’ve intended to? This remains to be seen, but I’ll strive and continue to be optimistic.
For now, I am typing this post on Linux…
What a feeling to be free and unfettered from my computer continually crashing!
Are you also a budding voice-over professional?
If so, check out Paul Strikwerda’s book, “Making Money In Your PJs: Freelancing for voice-overs and other solopreneurs” at http://www.nethervoice.com/shop/
Let me know what you think, and please share with me voice-over training resources that you think are valuable!
As I am new to marketing media, I have just discovered Twitter.
I had been loath to get involved with it because of the hype and obnoxious “noise” I’ve heard about it spouting, and because of advertisements’ constant overplay of the phrasing “hash tag” this or that being comparable to overzealous selfie-indulgences.
I don’t enjoy mass media or social hype, and often veer away from this as quickly as possible to retain perspective.
However, having just dipped my toe in the water, I am pleased to say that Twitter may be a great place to network: I’ve already encountered many contacts that normally would be hard to acquire through other means.
Another Voice
As I start out on this venture to become a voice-over professional, I take note of other inspiring professionals who set a strong example. I came across one such blog called Nethervoice, featuring Paul Strikwerda, and his presentation on his blog stands out.
Paul’s home page gets right down to business, cornering and illuminating his niche market, and listing seven reasons why prospective clients should choose to hire him.
His demo page has sample recordings listed by categories, and within these categories are spliced together several samples of his voice on different projects so listeners can hear a range of his tonal quality.
On his blog link, his opinion is clear, well thought out, and conveys acute intelligence. However, his comments are not necessarily for the faint of heart, as I just found on one of his recent posts: “Entitled Wannabees Need Not Reply.” Ouch!
Yet what presides over all is a clear impression of Paul’s commitment to the profession and his passion for transforming his voice into a work of art.
You can check out his web page at http://www.nethervoice.com/nethervoice/
Candid Corvid Productions 