Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.

-Kahlil Gibran





it took being broken

seated on the floor of a Borders bookstore

a pile of photography books

i could never afford

stacked around me like a fortress

it took a summertime that otherwise felt like

deceit had run its ragged fingernails down my arms

to make me take a second look

and i did---

i could smell the despair

on a little boy named Flavio

his sunken eyes imploring, piercing

i could grip a cold gun barrel in my palm

grit my teeth,

fear trickling down my back in sweat beads

peeking through a dark alley of

a Harlem i’d never know

i could taste the bitter water from the

colored-only fountain, sipping with defiance, not defeat

determination of a new day soon come

exist amid the last moments of a bedridden woman, her

frail hand held up in farewell, her eyes acknowledging the beyond,

poverty--

hard to feed five mouths on a budget that can barely fill one

it took a being broken

an empty wallet

a Nikon FM50 with insect parts trapped inside

the viewfinder

a world

i hadn’t stopped long enough to appreciate in passing

but especially

a blue book full of

days dangling

on the end of an autumn moon

a blue book

made dog-eared

from the countless fingers that

perhaps flipped the pages looking for something

more than inspiration

a broken heart, understanding,

a sense of the unknown and no map to guide me

my toes hanging over the edge of sorrow's cliff

to make me take a second look

at why sometimes

you must trap the moments

worth repeating

as well as the ones without merit

because

the beautiful/especially the ugly

the in-between

the seconds stuck

in freeze-frame

breathed life

into still image

all can make you learn.



to develop film

you must learn the shape of the smooth

that has been broken

from its metal shell in the darkness

you must trust your right hand with the can opener

that will pry the canister's top off and not spear your left

you must have patience to

wrap the film around the metal spool

and all in darkness



i found my sight

in total darkness


anyone can take a picture;


it takes trust

patience

breaking

to develop what only

the dark can see.

© MLH

www.marlenelillian.com

www.planetcory.com

I applaud you and the depth this piece encounters this is truly a salute and honor...the entire time i wonder if he GP wrote it?

"keep pennin till the earth birth's your rightful seed then nurture it wit more ink..."
"there are no writers just channels"
ASIEM
"Kuun fiyah Kuun" Quran
(Be and it is)
" A writer takes his pen to write the words again that

wonderful

*Awesome*

A guitar string vibrating, a measure of my soul, a breech in the silence --
I've always felt like words come through me & I write them down... they have no master --- gsquared ♥

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/2/photosynthesis_music.htm

make it easy to enjoy this artform... truly, you do...

hard to feed five mouths on a budget that can barely fill one

it took a being broken

an empty wallet

a Nikon FM50 with insect parts trapped inside

the viewfinder

a world

i hadn’t stopped long enough to appreciate in passing

but especially

a blue book full of

days dangling

on the end of an autumn moon

a blue book


*nods*

------------------------
Pinwheels and Hula Hoops: my book
http://www.lulu.com/content/132318

http://msmind.blogspot.com

why is it then
do we leave the details to the devil
but get angry at God? ©kimabe

no shit in 06.

i just want chu to know
how i feel
how i feel

and to answer the other question on the boards...he was just an incredible artist...not BLACK artist...but a truly gifted photographer,film maker, artist, poet and muscian...and THAT'S that...k boogie

if you didn't define yourself for yourself you'd be crunched into other peoples fantasies of you an eaten alive.

audre lorde