
Poem collaborations
Chantal Meza & Brad Evans
I applaud you
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I applaud you
You who toil in the madhouse of the world,
I see your shadows
Exposed to the viral flames
You, who were always invisible
Silently killed by unseen forces
I applaud you
I am not you
I applaud you all the same
It is you, on the margins,
Sustaining this broken time
Refugee, migrant. Your story
Always the same,
So, I applaud you, mothers and daughters
Sons of the earth, who feed us
Even as your suffering continues,
You're starvation but another day
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I applaud you, now
From my balcony of refuge
Yes, we all now seek refuge too
In this locked down asylum, where
Distance is now our shield
But you now see us for what we are
Refugees without moving
Locked down, safe, depending on you
So, I applaud you, with a silent chorus
Carried across the pure infectious air,
Breathe don't breathe
And I know you don't ask
To be celebrated like others,
Simply to be recognized, not a hero in our midst
But you, the disposable, the forgotten,
the wretched of history
What you contribute, remains a mystery
Yet in that mystery, the basic truth of life
I applaud you
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Brad Evans, 2020


Alone
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Alone. Is there a more painful word?
Merchant ships set sail.
Plying bodies as their trade.
Bristol. Liverpool. Ports of no call.
Oceans filled with unmarked graves.
Alone. Is there a more savage word?
A cartography for the masses.
Enlightened lines on empty maps.
Abducting children, the promissory labour
Gordian bonds. A scientific Cross.
Alone. Is there a more violent word?
Soldiers marching forward.
Forever England. Where the paupers lay.
Trenches dug for eternal resting.
Pity the working class slaves.
Alone. Is there a more devastating word?
Monumental battles, still they continue.
Never again. Motoring time.
A solitary death amongst millions.
Myth of Nations. Progress divine.
Alone. Is there a more fearful word?
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Our Enemies now amongst us.
A terrifying refrain.
Planes. Trains. Hope. All weaponised.
Imagination brutally slain.
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Alone. Is there a more tragic world?
Cities of millions. Connected by fate.
Walking past. Invisible armies without coffins. Only the streets.
The boulevards. Continue with names.
Alone. Is there a more desperate word?
Solitary confinement. Domestic.
Abandonment.
Awaiting the next visit.
Punches. Fill the sanctuary air.
Alone. Is there a more sorrowful word?
Kind acts of betrayal.
Broken memories. Wounding now.
Grieving for a future.
Never to pass. Life in torn.
Alone. Is there a more shameful word?
Sanctifying claims of humanity.
The worldless denied.
What promise? What possibility?
Another casualty. Needlessly reminds.
Alone
Brad Evans, 2016


Time
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Time is nothing. Time is everything.
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Time is the horizon of hope, the wound that cuts, the flight that returns, the passing of the storm.
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Time is destiny unfolding, the historical placement, the world revealing, its sadness foretold.
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Time takes no prisoners, the destroyer of all myths, it asks nothing of reason, penetrates the soul.
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Time is the forgetting of language, the forgiving of actions, the world of feelings, feeling alone.
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Time is the luxury of possessors, the richest of riches, yet forever their torment, incarcerated minds.
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Time is the more than being, the event of becoming, poetic imagination, irreducible to words.
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Time is the envy of tyrants, the throne that is empty, the earth that is liberated, the solitude of thought.
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Time is the deadliest silence, the triumphant chorus, the shadow of remembrance, but a fleeting embrace.
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Time is the fateful healer, the bringer of sorrows, the deep river of mercy, the ineffable void.
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Time demands nothing for nothing, Dante’s reflection, Heidegger’s mourning, Nietzsche’s return.
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Time is the fall into freedom, the wondrous exception, the impossible promise, keeper of dreams.
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Time is the peaceful violence, the threshold of existence, the graceful performance, passing of worlds.
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Time is thinking in motion, the force of expression, the affirmation of difference, the love for it all.
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Time is the beautiful spirit, refusing the fateful, the endlessly possible, the colors of the earth.
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Time is nothing. Time is everything.
Brad Evans, 2016

November 11th
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Every mirror has been shattered
Within a kaleidoscope of liberated hate
This world of ours is dying
Of a broken heart and lost friends
Landscapes of intellectual devastation
Covered by shards of sorrowful dreams
Wounded by promises of hope
For a time, the future, never that was
We're dying a pitiful death
Tragedy becomes us all
Casualties of organized forgetting
Mere captives, waiting to fall
New Tyrants with old messages
Occupy palaces in the skies
The seduction of the masses
No longer deceived, born of the lies
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Sold into a solitary condition
Together, we seem alone
Cruel optimism, they called it
Chained to a suffocating embrace
Prophets of greatness now guide us
Leading into the polluted abyss
To witness the slaughter of Virgil
Weaponised ignorance sealing his fate
With hindsight it all seemed inevitable
Scripted by producers of despair
Another road to serfdom
Laughed at in a humorless tone
Collectivized by trauma
Fear consumes us all
Another whitewashing of history
Burning books takes many forms
Still yet we find reasons to dance
Despite the cold darkness of the caves
Shadows, now tender with fury
Cast alight with a poetic flame
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Brad Evans, 2016
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Explosion of Fate
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Red skies burn
Over Zacatecas Skies
Like the dust reaching
For the heavens
A contradiction of times
Giving rise to memories
Of this bitter sweet land
Where hopes and pains collide
Passing through tender hands
But the earth returns silent
And so the poets retreat
To gaze upon Eros
And her landscapes of wine
So the dust falls to earth
And the memory awakes
To the dawn of a new tomorrow
And this explosion of fate
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Brad Evans, 2016
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Never
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If I never write another word,
Be this the one that defines me
If I never sing another song,
Be this the one that moves me
If I never see another dawn,
Be this the one that awakens me
If I never dream another dream,
Be this the one that inspires me
If I never learn from another child,
Be this the one that humbles me
If I never read another book,
Be this the one that changes me
If I never climb another mountain,
Be this the one that exhausts me
If I never fight another day,
Be this the one that dignifies me
If I never rage another injustice,
Be this the one that abides me
If I never friend another enemy
Be this the one that honours me
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If I never tell another truth,
Be this the one that forgives me
If I never adventure another star,
Be this the one that captivates me
If I never feel another emotion,
Be this the one that pains me
If I never slay another demon,
Be this the one that terrifies me
If I never think another thought,
Be this the one that destroys me
If I never chase another rainbow,
Be this the one that colours me
If I never paint another canvas
Be this the one that remembers me
If I never dance in another storm,
Be this the one that lightening strikes me
If I never connect to another soul,
Be this the one that beautifies me
If I never touch another hand,
Be this the one that reminds me
And if I never feel another love,
Be this the one that outlives me
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Brad Evans, 2017

Who is beast?
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Who is beast? In the dark, the admixture, the prance. In his violent act.
The death in its body explodes the ash to disappear
An image? Beast
Bring about the shape of your image. Beast
Dance, walk, cry. Ask me to find your trace. Your face
The blood falls
You, the one, explodes, splashes. A sea of ​​blood. Dissolved bodies
A beast, embracing you. Lifetime
Leave your wounds exposed. They are necessary
Your memory? A predisposed abyss. Lapses of memory
Leave a shadow
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Chantal Meza, 2019
Fire
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Disappear. Where?
Within the fire
Let my pain, your anger. Their fear and dementia. Burn in the flames that my body is now
Listen…
Become the fire. What does it say?
I am solemn, my tremor is intense. Savage
The sound of my flames, reaches you. You feel it, there, in the heart
The heat of my body penetrates your chest. It burns your eyes. Those eyes that do not forget
I'm there, in your hands. They are burning. Just like your feet. Yes, your feet
You want to run. you want to burn. Because I
I am already fire
The fire that consumes. And rises with the aiR. The fire that burns us
Ignited ones that disappear
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Chantal Meza, 2019
Air
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Disappear. Where?
In the air
Be dust in the night. Be dust in the day. Be the pain and then rise. Surround us within
Observe
Be the smoke that permeates and blurs, Becoming the shadow
in your darkness. In the midst of that darkness. We are here
You are searching. Who are you looking for?
Yes, air
Breathe
Who is it?
It's me
Wind, dance with the wind.
Pour yourself into the mountains.
Move the trees. Halt in there
Behold
Descend
Feel the ground I walk
Walk
Walk on my feet
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Chantal Meza, 2019
Earth
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Disappear. Where?
On earth
Where is my body?. Fragments of Hope. Despair
The shape? A mixture, of red and black
Touch me. I disappear. Dark mass
Let the earth be. There in the dust, I exist. I breathe within us
A wrenched life. Stained ash. Sorrows that walk. Covered in red. Muting the voice
Blood within blood
The liquid you pour
The earth absorbs me
My trail
A crimson wound, that gives life
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Chantal Meza, 2019
Water
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Disappear. Where?
Be with the water
The water is painted. It has no clarity. Moans wet, with blood
Drowned screams that mutated the voice. Bodies caught. The terror submerges
I don't see the history. I don't see the fright. I discard the body
No ashes, no dust
A flotilla of absence. My voice is silenced. In a chorus that never leaves
But history returns. Cascading waves. Broken on shattered lands. Ghosted by the moment
In the weeping eyes of the world
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Chantal Meza, 2019