Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Manifesto




It has to be music.

It has to scream out from the shelves

and never allow dust to settle.

It has to shake loose from the page,

stop conversations at the bar,
leave trails of itself hanging in the air
like ribbons of spot-lit cigarette smoke.

It must be capable of writing itself on walls,

able to paint city skylines
in glorious Technicolour
or a million shades of gray.

It has to take root in the kracks between paving stones

and spread its fingers out againts the canvas of the sky.

It has to keep rhythm - an everyday rhythm.

It has to mark time.

It has to make news rhyme with actual fact

and truth rhyme with beauty.

It has to speak,

has to put words in people's mouths,
make new shapes for tongues to hold,
open tired eyes to new ways of seeing.

It must birth its own language

with lips capable of kissing scars,
and it must stand -
stand as a testament to the fact
that words can draw blood
and make that blood sing.


Jacob Sam-La Rose