R::nners Cl::b

RC is an Arts Club in Whanganui, (Ao/NZ), celebrating diversity, dance, alternative culture, music, and community. I was asked to introduce the culture of RC at the latest event with a poem.

Let’s get this night up and r::nning

Kick-start a flow of art at the heart of our town

In a triple-X building of unexpected dimensions

Friends – take a moment to set your intentions

What kind of night do you want to live?

What kind of love do you have to gift?

We have the power to shed the hard skin

We’ve been forced to live in

Why rule your life by what others think?

Our culture is sick, our world on the brink

As we ‘Civilse’ the wild places

Finding abundance, leaving dead spaces

Make a desert and call it peace,

A plastic prison cell to take your ease

Colonisation starts in your own heart

Do you have the courage to free yourself?

Our society talks of freedom like a beggar talks of wealth

Like a surgeon talks of health.

Rewild your hidden places – I urge you!

Move from busy to spacious.

Put down your judgements – they are swords that cut both ways

Judging others only internalises your own pain

Put down your fear – leave it at the door

Fear of love, fear of pain, fear of what’s in store

Break down the walls protecting your inner demons

Homophobia, racism, sexism – your garden doesn’t need them

Ignorance, denial, shame – all keep these weeds alive

In darkness, hatred thrives.

But if you’ve got an idea, a vision shining clear,

Then Here is the place to r::n with it

We will r::n with you, like dogs in a feral pack

Howl at the moon, no going back

Melt your mind into this cauldron hot

It’s been cooking for eons, such a rich stock

Take a scoop and launch it at your blank sheets

Read your future in the wild patterns it excretes.

And softly comes the realisation

That there’s nowhere to go, no destination

No magical place where you will be free

To explain the hierarchies, inequality we see

Unless it can be – Right Here.

This very moment is your only certainty

Live like you’re soon to die

Run like horses, powerful, fast

Heart pounding, lungs gasp

Muscles strive, r::nning on Earth magic

Joyous, and painfully alive.

Tonight my friends, dance like it’s your last dance

Like it’s your last chance to be embodied

Like this infinitesimally short blip

From Big Bang to emp..t..y wh..i..m..p..e…..r

This TINY span in which You exist

Is a gift

Given Freely

Not a debt to be paid

By your slavery

And the whole f::cking world is a poem.

.

Joe Blogs, 2021