29 faces challenge Faces 10 and 11

Two faces again today: collage, paint and markers. Makes it a bit easier to keep up ;-)

It's a poem from Rod McKuen, who I only recently found out passed away in January. I felt sad when I read that, I have been a fan of his poetry for so many years, and it feels like such a shame that there never will be any more new poems from his hand. Luckily he has left behind such a wealth in writing, I haven't even read everything yet.

Here's an overview of the other faces I did this week:

Faces # 5 and 6: the weekend is always hard for me to do any art. So a pen drawing with two heads is about all I could manage ...

Face #7: trying to be more "messy" with my technique, hmmm ...., not sure if I succeeded

Face #8: Not liking what I was doing and starting to swipe the paint away, and then the idea of a guy falling apart was born ....

And finally face #9: wild-hair-girl

Remember that I wrote about the refugees fleeing to Europe last week? That same night I found a beautiful haunting picture with an even more beautiful poem about refugees, and it touched my heart so much that I read it and re-read it over and over again. I want to share it here with you, it's a poem from Warsan Shire, a Somali poet who is fast becoming one of my favorites. But be warned: it's very long!

picture from David Ho

"HOME," by Somali poet Warsan Shire

no one leaves home unless
home is the mouth of a shark
you only run for the border
when you see the whole city running as well

your neighbours running faster than you
breath bloody in their throats
the boy you went to school with
who kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factory
is holding a gun bigger than his body
you only leave home
when home won't let you stay.

no one leaves home unless home chases you
fire under feet
hot blood in your belly
it's not something you ever thought of doing
until the blade burnt threats into
your neck
and even then you carried the anthem under
your breath
only tearing up your passport in an airport toilet
sobbing as each mouthful of paper
made it clear that you wouldn't be going back.

you have to understand,
that no one puts their children in a boat
unless the water is safer than the land
no one burns their palms
under trains
beneath carriages
no one spends days and nights in the stomach of a truck
feeding on newspaper unless the miles travelled
means something more than journey.
no one crawls under fences
no one wants to be beaten
pitied

no one chooses refugee camps
or strip searches where your
body is left aching
or prison,
because prison is safer
than a city of fire
and one prison guard
in the night
is better than a truckload
of men who look like your father
no one could take it
no one could stomach it
no one skin would be tough enough

the
go home blacks
refugees
dirty immigrants
asylum seekers
sucking our country dry
niggers with their hands out
they smell strange
savage
messed up their country and now they want
to mess ours up
how do the words
the dirty looks
roll off your backs
maybe because the blow is softer
than a limb torn off

or the words are more tender
than fourteen men between
your legs
or the insults are easier
to swallow
than rubble
than bone
than your child’s body
in pieces.
i want to go home,
but home is the mouth of a shark
home is the barrel of the gun
and no one would leave home
unless home chased you to the shore
unless home told you
to quicken your legs
leave your clothes behind
crawl through the desert
wade through the oceans
drown
save
be hunger
beg
forget pride
your survival is more important

no one leaves home until home is a sweaty voice in your ear
saying-
leave,
run away from me now
i don't know what i've become
but i know that anywhere
is safer than here.


That's it for this week. Next week I'll post another funny, promise :-)

Thanks for visiting me here, and thanks for your wonderful comments. I'm linking this to Paint Party Friday, to Show your Face and to 29 faces.

Wishing you a beautiful day and a happy peaceful weekend! I'll be back on Saturday with another face! See you then ♥ ♥ ♥