On Being an Artist

 

As at other times when life has shut down on me, during the pandemic I turned to the arts to mentally survive. Since that time I have been very active as an artist again while continuing to write. I wrote a poem about being an artist and a Christian a while back and share it here now along with the announcement that I have the privilege of being selected to show two works of art at a local gallery. It's great fun to show my artwork again and deeply rewarding to feel like a true artist--not because I got into a show, but because my brain is filled with images, colors and desire to put art out into the world. 

 

I only know Whose I am

When a brush is in my hand

Or my fingers are stained with ink

From that well

Or a pencil is between my fingers

And pressing against paper

Or a brush is filled with pigment

Flowing onto canvas

Or when a Bible is splayed out before me.

© M.R.Hyde 2022

 Jumbo Shrimp Art Show - Cottonwood Center for the Arts

 

Torbjorn © M.R.Hyde 2022

Safely In © M.R.Hyde 2022

Enjoy the Arts and Support your Local Artists!

 

Homesickness

 

I forgot that this is not all there is.

How could I forget such a thing?!

                           Here, there are good things,

        Yes, some good.

But it is always just shy—

        Or at times completely absent—

Of the best.

 

I must acknowledge that I do not know

Most of the better and the best things.

I cannot know it now.

But I can taste it.

I can see it dimly.

I can catch its aroma.

I can sense that it is real

        And lasting.

 

So, for now I will rekindle my homesickness

And remember that this is not all there is.

  

© M.R.Hyde 2022

Hateful Algorithms

 

Hateful algorithms.

 

Telling me what I should read

Rather than what I could.

 

Choices made to appear random

Striking the same note over and over

With no melody, no harmony.

 

Bradburian fires

Digitizing monetized similarities

For the sake of glutenous prosperities

For others, not my own.

 

False senses of browsing

Predetermined by some Silicon family

Rather than the fingers tripping over spines

Rather than the smell of ink and dust

Rather than cool cloisters of words.

 

Gone is the joy of discovery.

Banished is the wonder of surprise.

None of us should be bound to

Immediate gratification of a purchase

And a hundred identical choices.

 

Get me back to a library

Where the smell of paper and leather

Permeates my senses

Where the mind of a librarian is as

Random and beautiful as my own!

 

Let me roam the aisles

Of bookstores—laughing, gasping,

My hands stuck deeply into bins of sales

Swimming in a sea of tactile words.

 

I walk away from the zeroes and the ones.

I wrench my wrist from the keyboard.

Let me pay in cash for my choices.

 

I hold in one hand the Truth that sets us free

And in the other a great book.

 

Defying the hateful algorithms.

 

 

© M.R.Hyde 2022

Can you find the numbers in this poem?