Yeah, there’s the occasional urge to bash a face in,
maybe don a big furry hat, ride a tiny screaming pony through McDonald’s, slaughtering and pillaging, kicking up whirlwinds of French fries and packaging, and all because someone laughed at the wrong place during our power point presentation, or took an extra seven seconds at the checkout in Tesco’s. So what? Our ancestors had to battle just to get to fuck in order to make the ancestors that fucked to make us. Warfare is scribbled in the sleeve notes of our blood. Thousands upon thousands of years fighting to live creates echoes that won’t die overnight. Maybe meditate, get therapy, bake intense cakes; let loose your war cries safely. As a kid I loved to blow stuff up. I still do if I’m honest, though I often abstain these days. I still have specks of rubber embedded in my torso from leaping bonfires. A gleeful monster seared into me would love to see the world go up in flames. But not really. And so what? I had relatives in the Holocaust. Family alive by a single unstruck match. Of course I want play with fire, make it mine. We’ve all lurked behind sofas gobbling entire chocolate cakes to ourselves, fisting chips into our maws as our guts protest. Guzzled, snorted, puffed and clicked into oblivion. So what? Our ancestors had to chase horizons just to eat. Some folks still do. Of course we’re all wackos now our shelves are so packed. We suffer from having too much, too soon. We’ve all risked the foundations of our lives in rampant spurts of sex-bingo sometimes. We’re all part of the mindwarp parade feeding off of, feeding into, suffering from, racism, sexism, global inequity, the enslavement of our home planet’s seemingly infinite species and beauty. Humanity is waking from a nightmare millennia long, from a psychosis; believing we were separate, better, alone. This stuff is scribbled all over us; our epigenetic scripts are palimpsests, our schools, streets and offices force us to walk and talk weird; we’re so programmed for psycho-hopscotch we don’t even notice as we jump the steps. The thing is, we each get to heal our share. The very privilege of safety and abundance creates space for the ghosts to speak. If you have a full cupboard you’re kinda wealthy. If you have time to watch TV you have time to heal. If you have internet you have a world of free teachers. Our inherited trauma and cultural conditioning is not our fault. But healing it is our responsibility. Bring your tiny pony warlord to the dance floor or page. Bring your ghosts into the conversation. Guzzle courage, truth and love as much as all the other stuff. Let’s stop pretending we’re better than the world, or separate from it or each other, or alone in any of this.
2 Comments
Peter Wright
12/8/2020 03:29:22 pm
I find this article answering a question I wanted to ask, as I was in some way wondering what is spoken word, and if it is merged with dramatic theatre would it be still be spoken word.
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AuthorDave Rock is a prize-winning spoken word artist and storyteller, and a conscious writing, speaking and performing arts teacher. He's worked with thousands of people, including award-winning comedians, actors and inspirational figures. Archives
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