November62009
Honey
Your pointed finger
looks a bit like a trigger
Bang!
Anything that moves
Everything moves
Life is motion
But please don’t
You often do!
Mistake my movements for emotion
Bang anything that moves
Alright
Okay
We’ll see
I don’t know where that leads me
I’m not sure I’ve been led
Don’t you know they invented God for people like you?
Don’t you know they invented God?
Just a place to belong
Just a home
Just a cheap sing-along
Just a song
Dying to be normal
Well, we’re dying either way
Conformity is just
a comfortable place to stay
Just a place
Everything happens
Everything will
Evolution doesn’t require your participation
or wait for your approval
Life takes place
Pace the room
with a book
Until you hit a wall
Turn to find another
Corner to corner
You are small
But I am big
I am tall!
I’ll be out
Busy
Buzzin’ with the bees
Until they sting
Until they sting me.
Tags: /Trace-William-Cowen /Trace William Cowen /tracewilliamcowen /Art /Pop /Honey /Sweet /Sugar /writing /words /literature /artist-Trace-William-Cowen /bees /existentialism-and-popcorn /existentialism and popcorn
Louder Than _____
Can’t talk about it?
Then song about it
Dance about it
Book about it
Movie about it
Painting about it
Just create about it
And everyone will hear you
Tags: /Art /Literature /Pop /Trace William Cowen /Trace-William-Cowen /Words /Writing /artist-Trace-William-Cowen /tracewilliamcowen
November52009
P-Zeds & Me
He says he has a brain
So he must!
Have a brain
He says he feels pain
So he must!
Feel pain
Do you think?
Does it hurt?
He wears blue jeans
flannel shirt
Shakes my hand
“Nice to meet you!”
But is it really
nice to meet me?
Have you really met me
without a brain
Do you really know me
without pain
She says she has a soul
So she must!
Have a soul
She says she has control
So she must!
Have control
Do you love?
Do they listen?
She reads me Chalmers
never Dennett
Kisses my ear
“I’ve wanted this for so long”
But have you really
wanted this at all?
Have you really kissed me
without a soul
Have you really won me
without control
See I’m not so sure that you even
Exist
And regarding myself I won’t even
Insist
But if you want
we can settle
Yes if you’d like
we can leave it
at this
Everyone exists to someone
Everyone exists.
Tags: /Trace William Cowen /Trace-William-Cowen /art /artist-Trace-William-Cowen /p-zed /philosophical zombie /tracewilliamcowen /words /writing /written /existentialism-and-popcorn /existentialism and popcorn
bird
Find your friend
with sad long feathers
He waits for you
He waits forever
Find this friend
with sad long feathers
He will sing to you the most beautiful song
Find your friend
he’s out in the weather
The rain for you
The rain forever
Find this friend
out in the weather
He will recite for you the most beautiful poem
“Fly!
Fly!
Where once you stood you must now
Fly!”
Follow your friend
He soars
You plummet
Where once you stood
you must remain standing
“You flew
I didn’t!
I just don’t get it!”
“I’m a bird
You’re a person
I thought you knew”
“I didn’t.”
“Well, now you do.
It’s true
It’s true
I’m a bird
You’re a dude”
“Just a dude?”
“Just
Only
Day and night
You will only take flight
in your dreams
So I suggest…”
“Yes?”
“I suggest you sleep.”
Thank your friend
find a pillow
Rest your head
but don’t sleep forever
You are not a bird
but you can fly
Imagine wings
Meet the sky
Friends are found and lost again
but atop a pillow
We shall never end.
Tags: /Trace-William-Cowen /Trace William Cowen /tracewilliamcowen /Words /Writing /artist-Trace-William-Cowen /Art /Bird /Life /Love
The Minimalist on Arson
House fire:
Introduce me to the arsonist
I will say
“I like what you’ve done with the place
Now I can live here.”
Tags: /Trace William Cowen /Trace-William-Cowen /tracewilliamcowen /words /writing /art /pop /fire /artist-Trace-William-Cowen /arson
November42009
Traffic
Red
in these cars beside you
in those trucks behind you
those motorcycles too
People
some of them are eating
some of them are singing
Poorly!
some of them are retreating
Permanently!
Yellow
But most of them are alive
in some way or another
Alive
A sister
A brother
Like you
On the way to somewhere
a job or some rock show
The music is too loud to tell
The music is too loud to really tell the story
But this is fine
as it hasn’t ended
We are chapters
We are pending
Green
Tags: /Trace-William-Cowen /Trace William Cowen /tracewilliamcowen /words /writing /art /artist-Trace-William-Cowen /traffic /people /life
Lost in Advertisements
At six years old I
learned everyone would die I
decided I would write I
decided I would draw
Big faces
Pages
Stapled
Do you see now what I’ve seen?
Know it never makes sense
No
It never does
At six years old I
learned everything
The rest is just the fight to remember it.
Tags: /Trace-William-Cowen /Trace William Cowen /tracewilliamcowen /Words /Writing /art /artist-Trace-William-Cowen /Lost-in-Advertisements
November32009
Violence
Prank call your gods
Egg the homes of your demons
Laughter defeats all
We are all defeated
Show some teeth
Even some tongue
Life is funny
Life is fun
That same heart that beats
that wakes you up
that makes you sleep
that tames your love
That same heart that beats
will also rest
That same heart that beats
will rise and get dressed
To leave you
Protest!
Protest!
An existence so brief
should at least be hilarious.
Tags: /Trace-William-Cowen /Trace William Cowen /tracewilliamcowen /writing /art /artist-Trace-William-Cowen /violence
November22009
Hum Peasantry
Of all the things that matter
we will soon lose sight
Invite the day
to stay through the night
If we never sleep
perhaps our minds will go to better
Contentment is a siren song
She will soothe you if you let her
Her song is short
the melody is pleasant
“You were and always be
a paltry little peasant.”
She has curves
like rolling waves
See the ocean in her eyes
Crashing crashing
salt and stave
between familiar thighs
When the pleasure breaks
I trickle and shatter
What else in this world
could possibly matter?
I have been
effectively distracted
as my life injected
is swiftly extracted
Tags: /Trace-William-Cowen /Trace William Cowen /tracewilliamcowen /writing /words /literature /art /artist-Trace-William-Cowen /siren-song /contentment /seventh-posture /the-seventh-posture /Hum-Peasantry /Working-Class-Hero
That Which is Good, This Which is God
She’ll wear a blue dress and insist on
red
shoes
I can accompany you
Yes, I can be blue too
She’ll talk fast
yeah
nospacesbetweenwords
I can accompany you
Yes, Icanbejumblytoo
She’ll eat spoonfuls but
only
two
I can accompany you
Yes, I can reject three too
She’ll close her eyes but
never sleep
never dream
I can accompany you
Yes, I can be real too
She’ll be on her knees but not for
me
Thou shalt not repeat
Still
I can accompany you
Yes, I can make demands of the sky too
“I demand of you an eternity of silence
No further interventions
I demand of you an explanation
Then quickly you subside
As we dissolve at our own pace
We evolve from our old states
Singing
glory, glory
Hallelujah
I hardly knew ya
glory, glory
Hallelujah
They’re gonna bruise ya
Can we not just live and die
with certainty?
I will live with as little apology as I die
Do not regret your existence
Do not extend your presence
Come
Go
And stamp them in some way
Print something
Sing something
Show something
Love something
And for a while they will remember
For a longer while they will forget
I shook them
But I too will be shaken
They took him
I too will be taken
Can we not just live and die
without Why?
without particles and trying
Beginnings have ends and they rarely start again
Beginnings have ends and they rarely start again
Beginnings have ends and they rarely start again
Without repeating.”
She’ll be on her knees in a blue dress and red shoes
for me
finally
for me
She says
“Thou shalt not repeat”
and stares into the ceiling
I say it back to her
We have divided upon its meaning
Demands of the sky
big endless
demands of the sky
She asks of them the world
but all they have is time
I can not accompany you
Yes, I can close my eyes too
And sleep
Repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat.
Tags: /Trace William Cowen /Trace-William-Cowen /art /artist-Trace-William-Cowen /life /literature /love /tracewilliamcowen /writing /That Which is God /That Which is God /Existentialism /Existentialism-and-popcorn /God /love
