Oso Para Vos

saturn’s blues.

when the moon is in Fresno

and the sun sets a purplish

haze over early-autumn skies,

the cold winds of Hell

breathe heavily against

the hopes of local heroes

and the women who made them.

farmers stare off into the fields

without realizing, and housewives

pull their young close to their

bosoms – suddenly and

without explanation.

intuitively they sense the onset

of a long and severe influence;

a time of hardship and hindrance

when the faith and courage of

more than a few good men

and women are put to test.

the carousel is out-of-control,

and in the whirlwind confusion

crops will fail, loved ones will

pass away, jobs will be lost

and the simplest of dreams will

be stifled by saturn’s blues:

a mocking nursery rhyme telling

of horror and despair, and sung

over and over again with endless

variations on the same cruel theme.

(from Adam Donaldson Powell’s “Collected poems and stories”, 2005.)

“Corona: In the Eye of the Storm (We Can’t Breathe!), oil on canvas, 61 x 61 cm.”

This raw, mechanical and spontaneous painting portrays: “A naked eye — whose hopeful eyelashes have long since been singed away — strives to peer out of the cotton bedding with which the enclave’s psychic environment is upholstered. The dizzied prisoner of this padded cell is searching for grounding; but the floor is in a constant state of movement, change, and insecurity. It is an asylum and is thus meant to keep us locked inside … as much as to keep outside the World. We cannot escape The News, the media, the opportunists, the fear, the meme, the boredom … or our own futility in trying to forever hold off the inevitable. And the written warning scrawled in Day-Glo Green resonates and resounds in the most powerful and succinct language possible: QUARANTINE!”

— Adam Donaldson Powell
(survivor of the AIDS-plague)

Adam and The Meme.