Lost Cause (day 3034)

I feel upset
The photos have all been captured
In ten thousand different ways.
No matter what the thought is
It’s gone on and had its way.
The angle is found
The lens is used
The camera is easily within reach
The model is tired
The couch is worn out
And I’m upset
Without my way
– I’m lost in a sea of haze –
With nothing but
Inspiration
Surrounding me out here,
Targeting my weakest hour
Flashing goes away.

An Ode to Sebastião Salgado (day 1651)

Your truth shall not lay untold,
A liberty demanded by your lens.
Spread far, to a billion souls!
And left them telling more.

This sacrifice you’ve made,
These injustices you’ve witnessed,
Have scarred you deeper then we know
And left you far from home.

Yet you have challenged yourself to be
A man to change the world!
A man who walked, sympathetic in thought,
To capture truth, indefinitely.

I know I’ve seen but little of what
It’s taken to make the view,
A tree or two, a holocaust,
Amazonians who eat the sloth.

I recognize the commitment required
To flap the shutter again,
I know desire that trumps all hells
To keep thy foot aloof.

For without your alert eye
Trained towards this land we all call home,
Surely we’d all have remained
Ignorant till the day we die.

So be thy grace as you continue,
Be the majesty we step into each day,
A glory we call on friendly terms:
Home, our land, our people, our soul.

 

Sebastião Salgado Genesis
Sebastião Salgado Genesis

Dripping Lines (day 1432)

I’m dripping lines in space: undefined,
A long list passed around and
Checked at each and every gate.
Wings have spaced my heart apart
From that which never fails to start.
Allow my breath to quicken here
Into a lens aligned to stars,
Which, unlike reopened gifts to her
Carry ethereal makers marks,
I spent my last dollar here,
And now I’ll gather my things and leave.