205.348.7264 mfj@sa.ua.edu

Matter

Jack Ryan Seymour

Pollution | Grace Steffen | Painting

Everything is 

                    but nothing does 

Everything is

 but you couldn’t prove it was 

The summation of science

 (with their claim on Solomon) 

Still
Drugs are unnatural,

in the same way, 

as wanting Micky D’s fries again

 

Humans are matter,
                                          the very special kind,
I know I’m carbon,
yet…
I don’t mind.
Well at least
not about the building blocks
(Maybe their thousand horrible dispensations of so many different shocks)
None the less!
After a sip of some C2H5OH from the barmen
(Or, if you like, a cup that’s been blessed)
In the alchemical garden
reactions progress…
why?
because all life is carbon,
all builds from one.
The sins, secrets, and secretions of the father,
(and the labor of the mother)
are most likely the son. 

                      I mean at least allow me to express how daunting that really is…

 

A Never-Ending…
“The battle”
over death,
un-won…
Time and DNA,
intertwined,
and undone?

     Did you know there is a theory in psychology that depression was an evolution to advantage procreation despite oppression?
     Yet still..

“There is…
Death!
in,
and to those, 
who think; 

“is there a need to guarantee 

an endless genetic wrung,

Is there 

a need 

to rationalize 

blame 


over daughters 

and sons 

hung?””







 

     I know, I know, Suicide is kind of taboo. Who knows if it’ll even get published too, but I can’t count how many time’s a friend or family member have lied through, terrified teeth an empathetic cry “if I’ve ever had suicidal thoughts, which I would never say I’m suicidal at all, but it was after… oh or after also… so I get how you’ve felt…” when I’ve been blue… let me say it too, I believe you.

          Here’s what I think
     Self-immolation has been an undeniable and selfless statement against oppression
Suicide has been guilty cowardice, selfish, isolated, self-wrought, tragic and weak. (Or paraded, hypocritically, heroine-ic cause she wouldn’t submit. (How comedic, the inspiration would be damned and the critiques would probably call it “bravely pleasing but bleak”))
A hearty dose of shame adrift in fearing a shark won’t help when it eats what you think – when you’re so thirsty – it’d kill you to drink. So, maybe normalizing it(AND SEEING WHAT EIGHT MILLION SYSTEMATIC FAILURES CONTRIBUTED) might help illuminate bad habits and investments that have already brought and dropped fathers and daughters from the brink…
                                         I’m not particularly faithful but I hope you believe this isn’t in vain

Jesus!

Stupefied,
complicated, 
casts!

Stranded in a sea 

of garbage 

Still working on the masts 

Forcing all life into a religious fast 
Sailing on smog, 
Smothering, and stealing from
Green god’s chloroplasts

 

     We are not lost youths, or scientific cynics, though behind closed eyelids you may pray us the trumpet of your broken world, harking the climate markers of revelation. We are just scared and desperately smart 

These bonds, bridges, and chains 
Built the brain
[slavery]that asks
are you, Cain or are you Abel?
Ending the endless last supper…
but all life 
rotates
          around 
                       the 
                                    Periodic
                                 table