Showcase!
ArtSlant has announced that Theo Edmonds is a Showcase Winner in Round #3 of the 2010 International Showcase competition cycle!
From entries worldwide, Edmonds was one of 30 chosen artists in the Mixed Media category. Showcase Winners have been designated as promising artists by ArtSlant’s team of art professionals.
Edmonds is now in the running for the prestigious Gold Frame Award which will be chosen in the coming months by a panel of the world’s leading gallerists, curators and collectors.
To view Edmonds winning entry along with the other winners in the ArtSlant competition, use this link. To view Edmonds online ArtSlant profile, use this link.Showtime!
My Name Is YOU.
(a new poem by Theo Edmonds)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 part of a machine
breaking down but still working
(when it no longer should).
—-
I have shared harvest wine
with cartoon creatures
and gypsy bandits
(it was beautiful nutrition
though not entirely nourishing).
—-
I am not good.
I am not bad.
I am no longer an experiment.
—-
I have attained the ultimate
in strength and power…
it is called – fragility.
—-
I, too, at long last,
have reached a
a deep lack
of conventional wisdom.
—-
(an absolute necissity
to be inducted as
an oil-hearted shaman
within the linened, white walls
of Chelsea’s hallowed halls).
—-
Born pure -
I am now stained from
…coffee and cigarettes,
…wild days and nonsensical monologues,
…heavy years and dark nights
—-
I know what is real,
I have been what is distracting,
—-
(I am a hundred miles a
and an hour
from them both now).
—-
And…I have been places.
—-
To where -
no-fi
hi-fi
and semper fi
are tucked away together
in the bedrooms
of the dirty South.
—-
To where -
go-go dancers
and secretive trios
evangelize on dance floors
in Chicago and Miami.
—-
To where -
speed freaks
and slow burns
(both funkier than
a mosquito’s tweeter)
alley-oop that streetbeat
of new jack swing
into dubious triumphs
out in LA LA Land and
the Hollywood Hills.
—-
To where -
voodoo tamborines still shake
in the Louisiana swamps
and, a wash tub city
with piano stabbing climaxes
still parades down the streets
—-
(streets that weren’t
around for the disco craze
but, to survive,
pretend today for the customers
like disco never really…
went away).
—-
To where -
poor, trash-talking mountains
and hollers are tucked away
from interstate commerce
and the public eye.
—-
(workable stereotypes
based upon past sets
of uninformed ideas
have created expectations
that must me played off of
for survival to be survived.)
—-
I have been to where
there are 3,537,441 miles plus an hour
of pavement songs in every direction.
—-
Songs of scruffy mentalist
who can’t get clean
no matter how hard they
get washed, beat upon
or taken to the cleaners.
—-
Songs that ping pong
back and forth
between drunken stage brawls
and dark sophisticated moments of detox…
which never seem to last for long.
—-
Songs of higher than the stars hot girls
who fake memories of harvest festivals
and bat caves…
just to entice the analogue sound
of a little night music
where they can still hear it sound like…
—
“Is you is or is you aint my baby.
You… is still my baby, baby”
—-
Tomorrow,
baby finds somebody new.
—-
I’ve been to where
there are songs laid down…
for survival jobs
in tele-sales marketing.
—-
Songs of up-tempo funk
laid out in the sandy circles
of ugly duckling mandala phone sex
and scratchy calypso internet porn.
—-
Songs of
… Red Bulls
… Blue Balls
… and, Bingo Halls.
—-
I have been to where
there are 3,537,441 miles plus an hour
of pavement songs in every direction.
—-
They are…
Revolution Songs… Call out the hounds!
Revolution Songs… Call out the hounds!
Revolution Songs… Call out the hounds!
—-
Revolution?
(to gain what… we have forgot)
—-
My name is you…
My name is America.
And, thanks to our
better angels…
it is still…
a beautiful name.
