A resident of NY, Stephen Mead is a published outsider artist, writer, maker of short-collage films and sound-collage downloads. If you are at all interested please place his name in any search engine in conjunction with any one of these genres for links to his work or merchandise. After 30 years of being published in small zines and eventually on the web, he is thankful that he has managed to keep a day job for the health insurance.
Stephen about his writing: "Writing since my teenage years, poetry has always been a conduit for me, an "axe to release the frozen river within". In this sense I believe my writing is emotionally and spiritually autobiographical. However, sometimes I write from a fragment, a phrase, even one word, and then just see where my consciousness takes me from there. This has included writing in voices other than my own but by putting myself in another's place. Sometimes that "other" is not necessarily a person, but an animal or a plant. If we look at poetry as a way of connecting with something larger than ourselves in order to know ourselves (and others), while, thanks to the internet, learning how millions of others are doing the same, there really can be a sense of belonging beyond the isolation, the solitary act. On good days I remember that is a blessing. Thank you."
Waiting for the Storm
Locusts stir, propulsion of wings whirring
as small helicopters passing in the upturned
leaves, their silver shivering in gun metal blue
sky whetting its appetite on cloud swirls whiter
with winds
gusting for the yellow
anticipated through indigo & thunderous claps…
Soon, soon…
Will Ra come by this? Hecate?
Michelangelo’s great painted finger of God?
Hooves, chariot wheels, the excitations
of a lover all heavens trek
the dial of
via our hearts needles?
Rain comes at last, that starry descent streaming
brilliant in streets, the teeming trees, the running
feet, the umbrellas as lotuses between the beach
buildings.
.
Arc of my spirit,
a floating rock near the shelter of yours’,
what Arcadia islands we are here
in the Weather’s blessings.
Today our drought parched gardens are quenched.
Today, mid summer, this dream is real
& does not signify monsoons.
Later you will collect, weave leaves
to parchment, & I will transfuse this experience
through the intimacy of glazes…
Oh, living Gods, artistry all in the work of mysteries,
let our gratitude rejoice, small voice by smaller,
for the great chorus of senses given unto us
as Nike flight when we correspond.
Faith
Boy with bruised eyes,
split lips,
the wounds of hands,
but in a Baptist church,
Gospel willing
the rising of his voice…
Maybe this here is Alabama
& the bus boycotts have re-begun.
Maybe this is you,
the black kid in me, the kid really
of any nation, sexuality, street…
Bleeding heart, open fists
& face the throng of bats
since anger’s stance is
a right not to be victimized.
Lies, lies:
To say pride can entirely forgive
when no one has said, "Sorry."
Instead, eras of rage
grope for justice as tolerance,
& humanity as spirit
just to understand.
That’s how it is with struggle,
its kite flight flag made
from some blood stained cloth.
Moments, the same day, the overcome,
The we shall overcome some day
moments sail, but only when for all
Shall the planet truly be civil,
truly humane.
For A Moment
You read my face like a blind man, fingers
finding a smile, the specifics of lips proceeding
upward, cheeks, bony slopes, then the eyes, closed
glowing almonds reading as well the prints of your touch,
each digit intricately looped, particular, indigenous
to nobody else, sort of a passport, a chimerical sort of
will 'o the wisp, lights flickering as if in a thunder
storm on flesh, flesh reflecting, as though off of
water, shimmering crescents, colors, each of us
disintegrating yet re-merging, foghorns for light
houses, other vessels, ships cannoning distant
throughout this hovering
Casablanca mist.
Some Are More
Angel,
a certain luminous
stained glass shade,
that hue of the pulse,
all of empathy’s blood
running marble carved
beneath the mouth,
the veined lids
of the gaze & those
full eyes, round,
pinning down pain
before a blow…
It is too much lightness
breathlessness, heavy
as a thousand candles
in the calm still
that pours its hair
as tears through your hands,
pours its love to this absolute
benediction that will not save
any one of us though,
by clarity, grace, we may know
what that glowing means.
When the Moon Was Comfort
Light would call,
light dialing the blinds
with the most accessible rays…
By them pathways shone
in the parting fields
teeming the secrets of silver,
the dew whose crystals
whispered of brooks…
Sailing, sailing-----
White tent billowing
with the streams
truest escape
on a raft in mid-wave-----
All hearts opened with eyes
and one’s very soul could breathe…
Yes, breathing, one’s
very gaze
alive in the tender dance
shivering with thirst
for mercy to satiate-----
That was hope
meeting its dream
and the sweeping moon,
Navigator
for all to come
full as fruit
from the night’s deep belly,
the night’s blanket of sky.
