Limitations of Light
In a shining city on a hill.
According to the Census Bureau, the United States has a total area of 3,809,525 square miles, encompassing 3,532,316 square miles of land and 277,209 square miles of water.
I have seen the flashing of a light beating and shining at the hardcore of human existence. I have been instructed by strange coincidence. I am a poem in a machine breaking down but still objectively real. Our mechanistic metrics say so. Did you ever notice that science today can sometimes seem most certain of its smallness? Science cannot share harvest wine with cavalier creatures and beautiful bandits in a quest to construct an exquisite corpse. Only a poem can remain intact and humble when thrust into tunnels shaped by bluster and fury. To discover transformation, our science must unlearn and rekindle the larger language of stardust captured within us... within us, value judgments are the enemy within us, resides atomic curiosity. Art does not tell people what to do. It brings beautiful confusion. A confusion that somehow serves as both inquisition and starlight ingredients of revelation moving us beyond the frontier. America floats now, unbound by the concept of time. Earned fluid boundaries. Tilled soil. Waves of deep lack. Particles of invisible wounds. Concocted theories of objective reality Held hostage by unprocessed grief inside gray matter building elaborate pathways to move beyond lonely to discover a thingness called blue. We know the unreal. Our certain gaze has been our distraction. (we are 3,717,792 miles plus an hour, from them both now). Looking back, We see the mappiness of our political agreements Giving name to the places where we have been. Places where - no-fi hi-fi and semper fi are tucked away together in the bedrooms of the dirty South. Places where - go-go dancers and secretive trios evangelize on dance floors in Chicago and Miami. Places where pop freaks and self-involved redemptions (Things Nina would call funkier than a mosquito's tweeter) alley-oop the street beat of new jack swing into dubious triumphs out in LaLa Land. Places where - voodoo tambourines still shake in the Louisiana swamps -a wash tub city- with piano-stabbing climaxes still parading down streets (streets that weren't laid out for neon disco. But, to survive, pretend for the customers like disco is here to stay). To where - poor, trash-talking mountains and hollers are tucked away from interstate commerce and the public eye. Uncharacteristically content to be portrayed by workable stereotypes -- those uninformed ideas barreling over media channels-- Though devoid of contextual foundations, the bones know there is an expectation that must be played out if survival is to be survived. In reality, the blood feels good just to be noticed. Everywhere! I hear our pavement songs. America has 3,809,525 poems plus an hour Traveling in every direction. These are our pavement songs. Songs of scruffy mentalist who could never get clean no matter how hard they got washed, beat upon or taken to the cleaners. Songs that ping pong between Chappell Roan and Beyoncé's throne between Dolly Parton and Kendrick Lamar, between Lizzo and Lynard Skynard, between Nina Simone and Ariana Grande, between Snoop Dogg and Dean Martin, between Tupac and Elton between Grateful Dead and Radiohead Between Lil Nas X and infinity between gospel greats and acid jazz between hustlers and preachers between our ears, heartbeats, bellies and toes between drunken stage brawls and dark, sophisticated moments of communal detox... which never seem to last for long. Songs of higher than the stars bold glamor filter faces Faking Insta memories of harvest festivals as they dive headlong into time-traveling through allegory caves …TikTok… TikTok… TikTok… Where's the filter for enticing a memory from a forgotten analog sound locked within a memory palace? The place where we first heard reverberating the intrigue of a little night music. Little acoustic waves where it sounded like... “Is you is or is you ain’t my baby. You... is still my baby, baby” Tomorrow, baby gonna find somebody new. Songs laid down... for survival jobs in Web3 digital crypto marketing with libertarian leanings Songs of up-tempo funk laid out in the sandy circles of ugly duckling mandala digital architecture and scratchy calypso Twitter scorn. Songs of … Red Bulls … Blue Walls … and, Bingo Halls. We are 3,809,525 poems plus an hour breaking through nostalgia as pavement songs. They are our sentinels, wrenching out our imminent revelation. In every direction, we feel the secret, painful, and lonely wisdom that comes from being a cool, wet seed in hot, scorched earth. Caught between mud brick and flame Caught between moonlight and Tesla cars, Caught between running and clutching A cool, wet seed turning in hot, scorched earth. Revealing flexible truths of politicos and merchant kings to be seen for what they are. Wet bones standing in moody shoes. A dream of fire. A baby with a swollen belly. A child looking at us all from a puzzled soul A child who takes notice of the emperor's new clothes. It is a child brave enough to ask the only question which truly frightens the mirror. Why DO some... feel the need to be rulers, everywhere? (Inescapably, we know that we are all mirrors and windows.) Through all this Noise. Bluster. Fury. The distractions of our tender voice continues to sneak up on us still. Our tender voice in a strong poem, conjuring memories from before the time we followed others who wanted us to believe... ...that there is only ONE set of words to name our experience as stardust. ...that there is only ONE set of words to name the journey of a flower. We can still remember imagination. This memory of awe mingles with curiosity to stir our future. The memory of being a cool, wet seed beginning to turn. Courage. Reaching through wonder to stretch beyond the limitations of light found in this shining city on a hill.
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About the Author
Theo Edmonds, Culture Futurist® & Founder, Creativity America | Bridging Creative Industries and Brain Science with Future of Work & Wondervation®
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