Wow, this recent sequence of events is quite a roller coaster ride of rediscovery and contemplation as an artist. All those times–hundreds–that I doubted why I was putting in the time, I was incapable of seeing the bigger picture. And now that I’ve glimpsed a larger scheme of things, I can also understand that I’ll never see the entire picture. My senses limit that panoply.
But that’s okay! I can make do with what I’ve got, and make it as colorful as possible.
My Straitjacket series, as you may have noticed, is the driving force behind this particular reinvigoration.
I’m going to post dozens of these Straitjacket poems, all named a particular time of day, Greenwich Mean Time. There are 1,440 possible titles for this series, if you consider the different combinations of digits that represent particular periods in time (however ambiguous).
The older me would have let that overwhelm him, likely thinking about that 1,440 number as a challenge to WRITE 1,440 POEMS FOR THE SERIES. Anything less would have been a letdown.
Fortunately, my thought processes are much healthier these days, and I’m just taking it one poem at a time.
The speaker in these poems is… a man in a straitjacket. He’s in a rubber room, doesn’t know how he got there. Time is static in this environment, and sensory deprivation is opening up new ways of thought for him. As time progresses, he becomes more and more comfortable with his purest expressions, abandoning the inner critic that always told him he wasn’t good enough, and that he’d just end up selling used cars out of an auto mechanic’s garage (well, not exactly in the garage–it’s out back, Gus owns the adjacent lot and decided one day to supplement his income by buying fixer-uppers and flipping them for tidy profits).
Taking the idea of audience out of the equation for the speaker is sublime and freeing, I can do whatever I want with words under the umbrella of absurdity and non-sequitur, legitimized through a unified theme.
So I reckon that’s about it for now. Just wanted to check in, let you know that I’m happily creating. Perhaps, in the near future, an upgrade will come my way. Some kind of monetization. Perchance a book or booksss? That’s my hope, eh? Just need to figure out how to self-publish printed materials and reach the widest possible audience.
Cheers, mates!
-Aidan
WHARVED 