Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Silent Film Life

In sepia toned dreams
you hope and scheme
brown turns to gray
burnt sienna overlay
an exposed brick wall
shadows cast and lights fall
on a gallery display
image of a memory at play
frozen celluloid moment
mental projector jam imminent
jazz horns wail
in this silent-film life

words fail

Copyright 2010, Aura Shannon

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

A Rap for Lonely Artists

These lights have faded
I'm feeling jaded
back to square one
where I started
before you put stars in my eyes

back on the fringe
and broken-hearted
just another lonely artist
outside and nameless
maybe that's where I always belonged.*


*A note: I usually have an aversion to rhyming.

Monday, June 28, 2010

How Hot Is It?


It's this hot. R.I.P. , some child's lost red crayon. 

Friday, May 28, 2010

If There is Any Justice in This World

If there is any justice this world, the executives and suits that make an insane amount of profit at BP, the safety regulators, and the oil lobbyists would be down in the marshes and on the beaches, knee-deep in that shit and cleaning it up.

It seems pretty simple to me.

What about you?

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Why I Woke Up Crying

     I had an awful dream. What makes it more awful is that I didn't wake up and realize that it was just a nightmare. This time, it was still real. Some of the details of the dream are fuzzy, but I think I remember the parts that I do because that's what's important.

     There was some sort of warning about a tidal wave or some sort of surge near Miami, FL. In the current, there were thousands of marine animals, trying desperately to swim away from something, the way that a crowd of people would run away from a collapsing building. As they were attempting escape, many of them were getting caught up in this current.

     Somewhere in this chaos, there was a pod of porpoises. They were growing tired. (You know how it is sometimes when you're omnipotent in dreams? That's how it was in this dream, either I understood what they were communicating to each other, or I knew what they were feeling.) Their eyes were burning and irritated. the inside of their mouths were raw and sore. They got into the oil earlier in the Gulf of Mexico somehow and felt sick and scared. They didn't know what exactly was going on, but the worst part was that even though they didn't understand what was happening, they knew or thought that we had something to do with it. Not in a psychic way, just in a simple way - like the way that your dog knows that you drive a car. I understood this in pictures, as in what they saw. They knew that the oily stuff was used by people in boats and things, but the rest was just confusion and fear and pain.

     When they finally had to start fighting this current that they ran into, they decided to beach themselves. They were literally so sick and tired and scared that they were willing to just give up.

     So here comes the punchline of the dream. This is the shocker. They consciously chose to beach themselves near a populated urban area. They wanted us to see that something was wrong. It wasn't defiance or anger or hate or anything like that.

They just hoped that maybe we could fix this.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Mardi Gras Indians


These photos were taken Mardi Gras Day, February 16th, 2010
Super Sunday, when Mardi Gras Indians from throughout New Orleans meet, is this Sunday, March 28, 2010.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Wanderlust

What would I do
to ease this ache
for this thing that I can't
quite put my finger on
I miss something I'm not sure of
I miss a place I almost was
I miss a life I almost have
in this other almost
in this never again
the sweet dull ache
that grips my chest
and scratches at the door
of my soul
I wander until I find
the place again
like a dog who wanders into the room
and forgot why he is there
is this it?