Self-Portraits of a Black Hole (Finding Frida)

Last Saturday night, I went to the Lampara album launch in Cafe Saguijo with some friends from work.  We were there to support Dan, a friend from work who is also the drummer of Lampara.  I had a great time listening to Lampara's music that is fresh and original yet still possesses a musical sensibility that you can easily relate to.  There were several other bands that played that night and it was a beautiful surprise when I saw a female guitarist that looked a lot like Frida Kahlo.  And so I was inspired to write this poem.

Self-Portraits of a Black Hole

Do we come into the earth like the plasma ashes of a comet’s odyssey,
A comet embracing salvation as it burns from flesh to light?
Do we come into the world already broken, children of the same mistakes,
Same regrets, same blinded hopes and crippled desires?

Do the gods cut themselves when gunshots have become music,
When they ache to be crushed between eternity’s walls?
Do the ages feed on the scabs of time, scratch the intolerable itch,
Agonize from the travesty of dead ends and closed loops?

Does a woman see her child’s birth as her own rebirth from haunted years,
The acrid shame in beauty, the narcissistic pain in heartbeats?
Does a man return to the womb to murder his second death,
To inhale his powdered bones and cough them out with blood?

Do we come into the earth without roots nor wings, only teeth,
For ripping faces, spitting chains, and biting our tongues?
Do we come into the world as orphans of legends and bombs,
And vanish like a scarred heat wave before the night?

I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best. - Frida Kahlo