Showing posts with label Stephen Mead. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stephen Mead. Show all posts

Thursday, November 30, 2023

GAS Featured Poet: Stephen Mead


Stephen Mead is an Outsider multi-media artist and writer.  Since the 1990s he’s been grateful to many editors for publishing his work in print zines and eventually online.  Recently his work has appeared in CROW NAME, WORDPEACE and DuckuckMongoose. Currently he is resident artist/curator for The Chroma Museum, artistic renderings of LGBTQI historical figures, organizations and allies predominantly before StonewallThe Chroma Museum - The Chroma Museum (weebly.com)



April Rain

 

Does loving, merely feeling, make us what we are? 

That's where pain abates or can be used. 

People kiss on streets, weave backdrops for puppet theaters. 

Abundance happens. 

 

Meanwhile rain ripples, 

is fabric, a sheer sound curtain.

 

Suddenly, out on the thoroughfare, a main bridge collapses.

We stand on the sidelines, assaulted, shocked, drowning emotionally.

 

Under such water I draw myself towards you, 

a sea cow, a beacon. 

 

Divers hunt for bodies. Sedatives get administered. Authorities notify kin. 

Others, on-call, are a compiled stand-by stationed 

to bring any possible gentle thing. 

 

Their intentions drift soft as fog 

over an erupting volcano.

 

 


 Despite It                                                            

                                                                                       

Living as a grocery list, or reading one, 

the basic sustenance, true music with each book

opened, each page to find a face in

between digging under couch cushions for change...

 

There's a painting in this, the act of a hand

waltzing with its edges to resemble a freedom

time does not totally steal.

 

Here I meet your outline & try entering it,

pulling the fit round as the pod of a bean.

There's really no distinguishing separateness

any more.  Your needs & ability to ripen,

your risk of withering, match my every length

as a hostage to the future.

 

Likewise delivered, held by the weight

& the waiting, light pours through the room

for every chance & its absence

to reconcile realization.

 

Who, what will accomplish this deed?

 

Here, scribble supplies:  bread, milk, toothpaste.

Here, open a book.  Let your music swim in

& ingredients mingle.

 

The stock must be much, blessed despite lacks

& the struggle for other blessings.