Lester Burnham

This is a poem written about Kevin Spacey's character in one of the greatest films ever, American Beauty.


Lester festered in his memories of how things once were.
Evey morning, for years, the glare of resentment on his wife's face was like blisters behind the eyes.
Her perseverance of perfection was projected on everything static, except him.
He came to realise that he was still who he was and she had become something else.
A frozen soul with motions that crack in clockwork.

And the weeks that seemed like days that passed between he and his daughter, where words were exchanged, but nothing actually said.
He watched and pondered and wilted into the past where nostalgia embraced him warm, familiar hugs and cuddles

He gained and he lost
Remembered and forgot
Until he was who he wanted to be - who he was
But then all was lost
Perhaps, the ripple rings in coagulating pools on imaculate kitchen tiles tells us a sharp truth
You are who you have become and, one way or another, you can't go backwards

I Am An Artist

I am an artist

I wonder if the true ideal of freedom of artistic expression actually exists
Or are we bound by the constraints of our own fear?
I hear the constant support of the notion
From others close around me but
I see them shriek and cower in fear
When the notion becomes practice
At it's own borders and limitations
Set by us, the artists
I want to point a finger at the world screaming
"Look at this"
"Why is this happening?"
"Let's do something about it"

I am an artist

I pretend. I imagine
I create. I question
I feel humanity's self awareness
Of our own evolutionary process
Slipping, slowly through our fingers
I touch the destruction and poison that is us
I cry because I am part of it

I am an artist
And I WILL point my finger at the world