A Word To My Favorite Artist—Responding To Your Whiteout

(April 27, 2021)

Recommended Song: anything from his “Whiteout”

When’d you stop making things that were beautiful?

Your scratching on the wall sounds more like screams in a void.

Did you lose hope in thinking you were saying something important?

Or maybe it’s the scratches that say something deeper than what I’d say I saw on the surface. 

You were singing of something I couldn’t understand,

I couldn’t figure out if it was genius or if it was mad.

Was it the exploring that you talked about years ago that you’re doing now?

Carving out a new avenue for expression, a new vein for thinking and imagination?

Groundbreakers always feel a bit strange in the beginning.

After all, they’re breaking ground, and so maybe that’s what you’re creating.

The things you used to sing and say used to move me,

But now, the only thing I hear that resembles old is your latest “Rookery.”

But I guess you’re still doing something right,

Because I wrote this while listening to Richard Russell’s “Strange Last Flight.”