Umami Series Ep. 1: Dresden

Hello, dear reader. First things first, I’m sorry for breaking my promise to you. Maximum Effort didn’t happen. I slacked. And before I knew it, a year just went by too fast. I’ve been living and thinking. Overthinking, procrastinating, prevaricating.  And finding reason after reason to justify my silence on this blog. The long and short of it is, I’m back from a break that wasn’t really a break. Hope you’re not too mad at me. If you are, please hate-read this post by all means. A guy’s gotta enjoy some attention when he attempts a comeback, you know.

Okay. That sounded a bit sappy for an intro to a brand-new series I’ve been meaning to unveil for over a year. A series for the purpose of providing some insight into poetry from the poet’s perspective. Yeah, I get it. Poetry is subjective. But some interpretations are worse than others. And that’s not on some elitist highbrow kneegrow (I know the correct spelling, you smart Alec) energy. It’s a fact that applies to art as a whole. You could do worse than hear from the artist.

If you’re like me and you spend an unhealthy amount of time feeding on video essays and opinion pieces, you’ve definitely facepalmed a couple of times. Let’s forget the internet (ironically) for a second. You’ve endured absurd hot takes in real life.

That said, let’s get into the first piece of the Umami Series.

DRESDEN

Unwieldy like the songs I keep on repeat

Before I gun for my 3-peat of mistakes, missed calls, and misty-eyed mistresses

Missing pieces of missing peace, pleas falling to the wayside

“Tomorrow I’ll make my plans plain.”

Then it’s back on the bus home, clad in threadbare fatigues for the war against myself

Side-eyes from nameless faces

A match for the faceless names I chuck into the recycle bin, being the ungodly creator I am

(Can’t play God without creating hell.)

Fly over my head, dear bomber

Blow my world away, blow it all to nothingness

Warm my heart with the promise of instant termination

May the fiery rain remind me of the heat of my stupid heart

Chock full of unpaid debt, lost causes, sexless love and loveless sex

Vexed by expectation, frozen by fear of the future

Haunted by those who played X’s and O’s with my innocence

But then, I know exes and hoes. Touché.

Burn it all, please.

My lips have yearned for whiskey over water

Throat an accessory after the fact

Eyes taking in nameless faces, ears assaulted by dumb talking points

Delirium and darkness, sharp mind blunted

Taking time for granted, abused a gift

Booked for two years in this prison I made

And only my vices paid me a visit

Yet my inner child still sat by the bed, drenched in the stains of the sins in these scenes

Burn it all.

Linger in the air and mark the gray matter, sorry, gray manor

The house tinged with nicotine and nostalgia

Illuminated by the highs of ecstasy, fleeting flickers

Where I study past romances for my villainous thesis

Imbued with the geometry of a fascist rally, order masking evil

Invoking chaos, texting from a wicked heart void of empathy

Cause sometimes, sometimes, a haunted house is better than a lonely one

And I’d rather be insane than truly alone

Lies aren’t lies if you tell them a million times, right?

Weapons hot.

But spare the museum of memory

The museum of unfinished art and punctured hearts

The museum of the madness that kept me sane in an upside-down world

The museum of grief that beat me into submission to fate

The museum of lyrics that never sat well on any arrangement

The museum of lust, lust for life

The museum of mirrors, mirrors shattered on drunken mornings

The museum of power, power of creativity

The museum of poetry, verses penned by a madman

The museum of good, good deeds of a broken soul

Call off the raid.

WRITING DRESDEN

There are pieces I have written because they had to be written. Not out of some sense of duty or just writing for the sake of writing. Such poems start off as a whisper and end up as a whole orchestra in the mind of a poet. Loud, yet elegant. The poems carrying charms to be deciphered in solitude. Or so I think.

Dresden is that kind of piece, in my own humble opinion.

So…why did I name a poem after a famed historical city in Germany? First things first, it sounded badass in my head. Drake said titles ruin everything but I don’t agree. Sometimes titles do make poems. Titles can function as a frame for the picture and the springboard for the concept, as is the case with Dresden. I never had any second thoughts. It was love at first thought. A poem inspired by the Allied bombing of Germany in 1943 during World War 2? The history buff in me couldn’t resist. Sometimes you gotta pop out and show people you know your world history. Or this is me needing to justify hours of documentary binging. Take it how you will.

On a quiet night in the spring of 2023, I came up with the title Dresden and a concept revealed itself. As my mind was trying to comprehend the horror of the victims who found themselves trapped in an inferno courtesy of vengeful bomber planes from above, a metaphor was born. Lightbulb moment. Maybe red wine and insomnia had a little something to do with it as well. I was coming off a massively successful show and should have been euphoric as hell but peace eluded me. My beloved Uncle Chris had just left this world and his death hit me hard. The stage was where I found sanctuary, yet the show can’t go on forever. It was a time of exhaustion and grief. Burying myself in my work (and vices) was my only recourse.

Some writing had to happen. Some dark writing.

I found myself smack dab in the middle of the metaphor, imagining myself as a citizen of Dresden having handed myself over to fate. The burden of existence weighing on me. Thoughts of complete erasure making sense. I fantasized about a force blowing my reality to smithereens and smiled. Equally Lost by Tove Lo (fantastic artist by the way) took on an eerie meaning as I cranked out the poem. I wanted to feel better, but couldn’t get over the thought that I deserved to feel shitty for everything. My only solace would a final silence. Lost, never meant to be found.

But poetry proved me wrong that night.

I write this with the fear of sounding scholarly. Which is certainly not my intention. The heart is where the connection with art truly happens. You don’t need this post to appreciate the piece I wrote. This whole article may not sway you in any way. That said, Dresden did change me in its own small way. When I wrote lines such as “Missing pieces of missing peace, pleas falling to the wayside”, I felt like I’d finally shown up to a mature conversation with myself. A conversation about how I’d mistreated my inner child and embraced sadness because it seemingly felt more compatible with my present worldview. Cynical, but why not? Do things really get better? Or am I just scared of believing they do because I’m so familiar with disappointment?

Ah, the World War 2 and fascism references you may have peeped. Sometimes you compare your existence with the worst things ever. Destruction, warped ideology. Because you don’t feel like you belong in any place that the light of hope can reach. It doesn’t matter what good you do or how much you achieve. You still feel unworthy and only deserving of contempt and obscurity. I recalled footage of the infamous Nuremberg Rally of 1935 and couldn’t help but feel that maybe all the things I’m happy about in my life simply mask a messy existence. There’s a beautiful musicality to grim poetry that can downplay the fact that the picture painted is all the way messed up. But I dare say that life imitates art. Public success and private failure. It’s the story of adulting at times. Then the success fades in the eyes of the public. Destruction finally sets in. Shit hits the fan. Where to hide?

And oh, the poem is apparently a nice one. So my people say. Hell, I even turned it into a spoken word record for Local Man, a joint album I’ve been chefing with Isaac Yamie. Never mind the fact that I only had my private poetry journal in mind when I typed the first line. For my eyes only. But by the time the last word escaped from my fingertips, I knew I wanted to share this with the world. Maybe even contribute to discourse in my own infinitesimal way through poetry. And here we are. You probably came across this piece for the first time here, but this won’t be its final destination.

There’s something Kendrick Lamar said in an interview with SZA. The moment you feel like you’re digging too deep, going too far, that’s when you’ve begun to actually say something. That struck a chord. For years, I’ve been made the poster child of brutal honesty by those around me. Inevitably, that permeated my writing as well. Sometimes I want to sound nicer, more palatable, more lighthearted, more 2024ish. Then I imagine someone that will read/listen, and how I’ll be sounding to them. I can’t fathom intentionally wasting anyone’s time with writing that is an exercise in saying nothing at all. Tell it like it is or shut up.

Far too many poets write poetry for just two things: their own feelings and the algorithm. That's so not me.

I care about making art that will stand the test of time. Art that is well constructed and actually says something to someone. Zero pressure, hey. And if that means I have to write every single line without pulling punches and take you on a trip inside my mind…so be it. I care about craft and emotional authenticity in equal measure. So when you run into some heavy lines in my work, just know that everything came from a real place. I’m not ashamed of my experiences; I exploit them. Lines may be crossed and that's fine by me. Welcome to my House of Horrors. Stay on if you will. Or run away before it's all reduced to rubble.

This was supposed to be a line-by-line breakdown. But let’s do that in video format, methinks. Or in the subsequent episodes. Right now, I’m just happy to come here and talk about a poem that’s dear to my heart and hopefully touches yours too. Some words rewrite your life story after you’re done writing ‘em. One day when the writing bug stings you, we’ll be back here. I look forward to that.

Time to write some more poetry. Are you with me?

Umami Series is here to stay.