Sandy Hook Reaction: Tête-à-tête UPDATE

There is a tragic epidemic spreading across the United States. I'm not quite sure where it began or how the infection started, but it appears to be growing. It is characterized by intense violence directed at your fellow man.

The atrocious events that took place a week ago in Newtown, CT have brought to the fore issues that have been teeming at the heart of this outbreak for quite some time. The brutality exhibited is tied into other circumstances surrounding American culture today. Why, with so much technology, are we so alienated from one another? Why do we choose to communicate through a screen rather than face to face? Bullying is nothing new, but when it is exhibited on the internet, it becomes property of the world, leading to an all new breed of anxiety. Suicide runs rampant. The pathways in place to keep us connected have drawn us apart. An older gentleman told me he used to hitchhike everywhere in the 1970's, but now he wouldn't dare set foot in a stranger's car. What the hell happened to us?

The politics in place on the television and on our radios only mask the true issues at hand. The way in which media networks have reported on recent events attests to our addiction to entertainment. We are becoming crueler and further alienated from one another. We are surviving off of stigma, force fed dramatized reality, being lobotomized by primetime televised genocide, and it is corrupting our genes.

We must, together, persevere to reverse this growing calamity. No amount of diplomatic bickering and institutionalized rights can alleviate the American people of responsibility. We must collectively embrace our identities as human, as American, and work together to save each other, from each other, from ourselves. There is a civil war occurring in our hearts and it is spilling out into the streets. The only way we can win this war is through love - Love for ourselves and our fellow human beings.

Tête-à-tête: A Reflection on School Shootings in Two Parts 

I.

There are few things that I hold unjustifiable.

Few acts persist with purity

As inarguably heinous

As the senseless murder

Of the innocent…

The helpless and

The defenseless

In public places.

A mall,

A movie theatre,

A church,

But none more despicable

Than a school.

There is nothing more tragic

Than when utmost ignorance

Conquers a safe haven of education,

As if chains had suddenly conquered their keys.

The only time books and bullets should share the same space

Is in a social studies book;

The only time a child should have to smell gunpowder

Is on the Fourth of July.

No one should have their innocence

Ripped away from them;

No one should have to die

In a classroom.  

I sympathize with the mentally ill,

The delusional,

The misinformed,

But I cannot sympathize  

With those that deliberately take the lives of students  

In a violent act of self-aggrandizement.

I cannot pool my pity

For this monstrosity;  

For the purity of evil it distils.

The thought processes required

To compel a human being

To massacre children and young adults

Is an infectious adulteration

That strikes at the crux of a person’s humanity,

Transmutating them into something

Far more vile,

More disgusting than I think any one of us is capable of conceiving.

But anger…

And vengeance,

And hatred

Are not the answer.  

This is not about gun control

Or mental health issues,

This is about the worth of the human character.

This is about the need to act,

To quell the spread

Of this infectious disease.

To save the lives of the innocent

We must save the lives of those who seek to kill them.

We must stop the beasts

Before they feed.

Realize that

The shooter was innocent too once.  

We must learn to support each other,

Through love and acceptance.

We must learn to read the signs of danger

And to act on them,

To save the perpetrators from themselves.

They will thank you…   

We can no longer be afraid to help one another,

To fear the stigma,

The backlash.

It is a chore that must be undertaken by each and every one of us,

To winnow out the demons that possess our fellow man.

Build a gun that shoots bullets of compassion…

And we can blow away this mess. 

II. 

I am so sorry

For what has happened here…

So sorry

For what your fellow man has done.

The love that binds you

To the loved ones you have lost

Binds us all together

In the wake of this tragedy. 

The memory of their beauty,

The grace with which they have touched our lives,

Will no less persist

In my mind

And heart

Than in yours.

Let us,

Together

In our collective sorrow,

Reflect on them

With the confidence

That their death  

Will ensure the world is made

A better place.

I am so sorry

For your loss…

For my loss…

For our loss,

For the loss to humanity.

I am so…

So sorry

That my poem

Cannot bring them back.   

This poem is dedicated to the memory of all those who have lost or given their lives as a result of a mass shooting. My love and my words go out to the families of those lost and anyone else who is connected to or has been affected by a public shooting. 

God Bless America  

UNDATE
A recording of this poem can now be found on the ReverbNation profile. Check it out and share it with your friends! 

Call For Submissions to "The Hearts Series"

I need your help. 

Some of you may have noticed, here on the blog and on the Facebook page, that I have a photo series entitled "The Hearts Series." The purpose of the series is to capture heart images in everyday life so that we can each learn to appreciate the little miracles that surround us. 

I am calling upon my readers and fans to become a part of this lovely project. All you have to do is take pictures of hearts that you find in your day to day hustle and bustle and send them to me at licardist@gmail.com. Picture quality does not matter, iPhone or Canon, as long as people can tell what they're looking at. The only requirement is that they have to be FOUND: They can't be made by you just for the sake of taking a picture. A few of my friends have already contributed to this project, and now I'm opening it up to everyone!

Email a copy of your pictures to licardist@gmail.com along with: Your name and a short description of the photo (what it is of and where it was taken). I will desplay the pictures on the Facebook page along with the name and short descriptions you provide.   

I'm looking forward to seeing what you guys turn up, so get out there and find those hearts!   

What's the Harm in Fantasy?: Concrete Balloon & Cloud Cover

To be a good writer, you have to know how to pretend. You have to be willing to talk to yourself, to act out a scene, to think abstractly, and to experience things that cannot be experienced. You have to be an expert in the world that you create. You have to be its God.

For the most part, life isn't very concrete, if you think about it. Certainty is, itself, a fantasy. It is the illusion of certainty that keeps us comfortable, but every so often something comes along and jars that comfortability. I think good writing taps into this uncertain aspect of life. That meager "What if?" that persists is played upon in the act of reading, and a good writer can make it feel real. Indeed, sometimes, the more abstract something is, the more concrete it feels. We can impart onto it any meaning we want and make it a part of ourselves. The more ludicrous the premises, the more attractive the conclusion.

A good story gives us the gift of flight. It gives us the ability to fly to someplace beyond our everyday existence. It is a vacation taken between two flyleaves; page trekking, if you will. And the writer is your tour guide. No one should be punished for daydreaming a little - That's how writers workout! The mind is a xanadu, if you furnish it well. We need fantasy to set goals. Our ideas of the future are constructions of something that doesn't yet exist. And I strongly believe that to reach for the stars, you have to put your head in the clouds.      


Concrete Balloon

When you fall into my eyes
I feel like I can fly,
As if awakening a sleeping dream
Inside a concrete balloon.
Beestings hold my soul together,
But I've been pruned.
You plucked my final feather
And how my wings will carry me now,
I can only assume.
My shoes are coming loose,
While these fragile wings flicker,
To be harvested from my back
And chewed.
I curl my limbs in
To stretch the skin over my eyes.
As gravity absconds me
And leaves the ambiance to hang like a noose,
I drag my concrete balloon.
Drowsy eyes you tumble through,
Shattering and smattering
My mind with you.    
Shards of glass protrude
Through perfect skin,
Through blood and bruise.
Outstretch your hands to catch
The ground and drown in the swoon.
Let the sky dilute
All of you.
You and I
We fly like concrete balloons.

Cloud Cover

There is an endless sea
That lies beyond the sky
Where every little mistake
And hurting
Are cast aside
Where the wooden hulls of happiness
Never crack
Where the heart-shaped waves
Never break
Where the shores of pain and longing
Are never met
And where the highflying sun
On the wings of love
Never sets

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Learning To Appreciate Things: I Am Thankful

How often do we stop to be thankful for the things we have? The simple things, like four walls, a full fridge, and a cat. But even simpler things, I think, deserve thankfulness: Like this computer or phone screen, or the shoes on your feet, or the paint on your nails, or even that bruise you got the other day. Why be thankful for a bruise? Why be thankful for a scar? Why be thankful for heartache?

Life has a silly way of being precious. There are things we take for granted that, even when we think of the things we take for granted, we don't think about. Like... solid ground... or birds singing... or being betrayed. A lie can even be cherished. What if you had ended up with that boy or girl who broke your heart? The childish love that never was - what if it had been? Maybe if you had you would have never learned to love yourself. The good and the bad, in time, are equalized.

I had the idea for this poem two years ago, but finally got around to writing it this year. It's meant to be a Thanksgiving poem, so I wrote it on Thanksgiving morning. Hopefully, in reading it, you can learn to appreciate things you hadn't before. Its purpose is to remind us that, even in the darkest moments, there is something worth being thankful for. In the end, everything has a silver-lining.  

I Am Thankful 

I am thankful

For eight fingers

And two thumbs

I am thankful

For two legs

And two arms

I am thankful

For vision

For sight  

For foresight

I am thankful

For taste

For smell

For touch

For speech

For an intact mind

I am thankful

For an empty stomach

Because it reminds me of what real hunger is

I am thankful

For a hungry mind

For curiosity

For inspiration

I am thankful

For ideas

For convictions

For concepts

For virtues

I am thankful

For fear

Because fear gives us something to conquer

And something to keep us in our place

I am thankful  

For tears

I am thankful

For mistakes

For being able to make mistakes

For being able to learn from my mistakes

For being sorry

For my mistakes

I am thankful

That I am not perfect

Because if I was

I wouldn’t need a reason to strive for better

I am thankful

For strife

I am thankful

For struggle

For hope

For faith

For being let down

I am thankful

For pain

For pain

For pain

For pain

Because when pain comes

It makes you want to forget what it means to feel

Because when pain comes

I want it to leave

And when it leaves 

I am thankful

Because pain reminds us of the beauty of contentment

It reminds us of how petty some things are

How real some things are

How fake some things are

I am thankful

For loss

Because it reminds us of what we still have

I am thankful

For memories

For being able to remember

I am thankful

For being able to forget

To forgive

I am thankful

For forgiveness

I am thankful

For love

The ability to love

For unrequited love

For lost love

I am thankful

We never were together

I am thankful

We couldn’t make it work

I am thankful

You didn’t love me back

I am thankful

For loneliness

For giving me a reason to listen to myself

For loneliness

For teaching me to love myself

I am thankful

For words

For language

For expression

I am thankful

For your attention

For your eyes

And your ears

And your tongues

I am thankful

For community

For friendship

For family

I am thankful

For my companions

I am thankful

For my mother

For my father

For my brother

For my grandparents

And my great-grandparents

And my great-great-grandparents

I am thankful

For my blood

I am thankful

For happiness

For humor

For laughter

Because the only thing stronger than your will to live

Is your laugh

And I am thankful    

For the stars

Because without them

The chemicals in my DNA

Would have never been

Because without them

I would have nothing to reach for

I am thankful  

For breath

For existence

For consciousness

For life

And all the baggage it comes with   

I am thankful

That I have been given the opportunity to exist

And to be thankful

I am thankful

I am thankful 

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STEVEN T. LICARDI FEATURES AT THE POETRY PLACE IN PATCHOGUE, NY ON DECEMBER 15TH @ 7:30pm

Join myself and Pramila Venkateswaran on Saturday, December 15th at 7:30pm at The Poetry Place in Patchogue, NY for a lovely evening of poetry and expression. We will each share their work for approximately fifteen minutes, after which there will be a short period mingling, followed by an open mic. Bring your own work, share with the crowd, and feel free to invite others.

RSVP the Event on Facebook now 

or simply mark your calendars!

And, as always, spread the word!
I look forward to meeting you all there (:

Religious or Spiritual?: Antidisestablishmentarianism

I can't claim to be religious. Then again, what does that even mean, "to be religious?" I have heard people talk of frustration when inquiring the same of others, only to be responded with, "No, I'm spiritual." What does that even mean? I talk to God (though I can't say I'm certain who or what I'm talking to). I pray. But I don't adhere to a particular discipline. Though my weekend yoga routine may be somewhat regular, that's the closest I come to Sunday Mass. Yet, I feel comfortable in any religious setting, be it a Baptist church, an Islamic mosque, a Hindu temple, or a Catholic cathedral. Indeed, I indulge in such eclectic participation, though I respect other's potential abhorrence of such activities. Sure, the community created by organized religions is beautiful, but I think the point of "worship" runs far deeper.

I'm not bastardizing routine religious and/or (as I see no concrete discernible difference between the two) spiritual adherence. Quite the contrary - I'm aggrandizing the personal experience of engaging in religious and/or spiritual activities. It is the personal component that is key. No organized religion or sect can certify for you the correct way in which you should perform your adoration to whomever or whatever you wish, unless of course you feel that religion/sect fit. You have the choice; you always do. The divine acts in ways that I cannot see rulable by man. The powers that exist beyond have bestowed upon you the gift of worship in any way you deem practical, even if you choose not to worship at all.    

             
Antidisestablishmentarianism

All the Rites of Day and Night
Bestowed upon my temple
Of clockwork switches and capital heights
With spires and sconces in marble
Bury your teeth upon the alter
Be faltered by the depths of the murals on the ceiling
Rest your head on the granite floor
And ignore how you think the priests and nuns are feeling
There are staircases in hidden corners
Horns are grown, and groaned, to boast
You'll learn the points are sharper and stronger
To lobotomize and inoculate the ghosts
We baptize with bullets here
Neither our sheep nor goats
Lazy linens
And tenant tents
Swaddle our brethren and our hosts
Sweeping away the regurgitation of the day
When night comes knocking
You learn the flowers are not quite so gay
We're stripping the tires
Offering justice
To places who wish it, but find it not
On the map of life and luxury
We'll help you to erase your dot
Drones of clones and matchmaker weddings
Pending address to mail us a claim
"We're sorry for all the happiness,
"We'll be glad to blot out your name."
The seats sink in like an elderly mattress
To clasp you tight and let you go
To free you from commitment
(Your reluctance will let you know)
Blessed upon the brow
A sacrificial cow
With smoke
And glitter
And mint oil
Kicked in the back of the knees
To bow
Dogmatic
We must be the dogs
To bay by doors
Gilded
Black
Denied the right to be a scoundrel
Denied a meal, denied attack
Water laced with plasma    
Quarried with salmonella hands
Bottled up for firmament
In barrels with steal bands
We will drink to the sloth
A company of gluttons
Introverted stomachs
Keep our petticoats and suits still buttoned    
Hear our choir illuminate
The darker parts of the mosque
When we pass around the hallowed skull
Its time to empty out your socks
We can raise the dead with the Rites of Day
And make you forget you passed away
Reanimate the potpourri
With an ungodly euphony
We can bring you to the edge with the Rites of Night
And make you forget you ever were alive
Disintegrate your spirits spine
Leave reality behind
Come together in our mass
Of abandoned monotony      

After Sandy: Chawdron

I live on the East Coast. As such, we have experienced a lot of destruction and uncertainty lately. The New York area I think is fairly well known for its ego and hubris. We're always bustling around, rarely thinking of our fellow man. "Frankenstorm" Sandy (and the nor'easter that followed it) has been a humbling experience, returning people to the things that truly matter and making our collective humanity far more real. Though tragic, I believe life sends us harsh messages to remind us of the things that transcend the material and revamp our awareness of the deeper things in life.

The destruction brought by Sandy has compelled some in my community of poets to take action. The Bards Initiative, a local poetry organization on Long Island, has banded together to create "Songs of Sandy (SOS)," a collection of poetry and reflections on the events of the storm, and other hurricane related subject matter. The anthology will be included in a disaster relief bundle, consisting of SOS, two ebooks, four poetry collections, an indie album, and recordings, videos, and performances from poets (myself included) and artists from around New York and abroad. 100% of the proceeds from the selling of this bundle will go toward disaster relief efforts in the wake of Sandy. For more information, and to learn when the bundle will become available, check out the official Songs of Sandy website. Interested in contributing? Submit your recordings, poems, reflections, videos, and/or performances at songsofsandy@gmail.com, but act fast! The deadline is November 13th (this Tuesday). 

One cannot help but think of the worst as we look at images of the damage on our laptops, TV screens, and phone (if we even have access to those things). Our own destruction looms in the back of our minds and is brought to the fore in gazing at such vivid imagery. Our things are temporary; the memories they carry are temporary. We are temporary. Hold close to the preciousness of this life, and don't let it be flooded beneath the weight of petty things. 

Chawdron

When the entire world has fallen away

You’ll find me steeped in rust,

Attempting to keep boredom at bay

By sifting through the dust.

Squalor to riches,

Night to day,

Death, the common lust;

Love asunder,

Knowledge astray,

And only a sliver of trust

Remained.

Blood soaked into the smattered loam,

Like decadent red velvet cake,

Arsenic had seized the foam

Of the sea, turned to bile, and ached.

Mud,

My tux,

A ghoulish husk,

Of what once claimed this dank mirage,

A lasting hush,

A creeping gust

That sluggishly patrols the hodgepodge.     

I toil to find

The remnants of mind,

And where the body lay

To rebuild Fate

From humdrum waste

And the world’s newfound decay.

I wish to confine 

What’s left of Time

To reclaim that soiled day.

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