First Friday April 7 features Diana Ramirez and Thomas Lucero
Story by Portia Choi Photographs by Ezekiel Espanola
Event hosted by Kevin Shah
The two featured poets, Diana Ramirez and Thomas Lucero, performed poetry in the “spoken word” style. They memorized the words and used dramatic intonation and rhythm.
Diana Ramirez has participated at First Friday Open Mic regularly. Ramirez memorizes a poem by recording herself and listening many times. “I listen in the car, before I go to sleep,” said Ramirez. She memorizes a small portion of a poem, at a time.
Ramirez started writing in high school. “Music inspired me to write. I fell in love with lyrics and felt the urge to share my emotions through words. That’s the only way I can express myself in a trughful way without hesitation of what others may think,” she said.
Thomas Lucero memorizes his poems by saying and hearing the cadences and the rhythm of the words. He remembers a poem which he learned as a child, “There are rocks in my socks said the ox to the fox.” He was only five.
He started writing poetry by listening to “rap,” when he was 15.
Lucero is also an artist. He painted the mural that is on the inside wall of Dagny’s Coffee Company. The painting is of a clock and an octopus. Both symbols are of time. “The octopus is a universal symbol for ogdoad, an eight,” said Lucero. The eight turned sideway is the symbol for infinity.
Following Ramirez and Lucero, enthusiastic poets and musician performed their original works.
Here are poems of Ramirez and Lucero:
My Anima
By Thomas Lucero
Farther than mine eye can see,
and Further than my mind can conjecture.
I strive ever upwards
And climbed the Giants Scepter
to the right hand of the father
in Search of my Center. . .
I found the water,
Drank upon her
Sacred tonic.
A tincture of timeless wine
derived of the finer divining process,
my Secret obsession
objective of my infernal affection,
eternal reflection
internal, abnegation.
Lust and hatred, consummated
in the bridal chamber.
When Cupid met Psyche,
When two fools wandered away from the light nightly.
to sight see
to fight, +#c*, And fly free.
Conspiring to swipe the Keys to life,
And knowledge occulted.
Kept out of sight
of the unsightly”
Map
By Diana Ramirez
You don’t have to like me,
You don’t have to care,
You think I’ll share
The battle being fought in my head,
Well, I won’t.
You think I’ll hide,
Afraid of what, exactly?
And don’t fucking assume I’m alright
If you see me smile,
If you see me laugh,
Be careful,
It’s a map,
To all the detoured journeys,
Out on the road, where I’m trapped,
Caught between the wrong turn,
And the right stop,
But I keep driving,
This peculiar tune on repeat,
Skip, repeat, skip, repeat
But wait,
Can you hear it?
Delusional,
Driving through a mirage,
Mirrored through myself,
Blurred out of sight,
Through a tunnel,
Into the light,
Yet you never found me,
I got lost along the way,
Because I was rotting,
Transforming, perhaps,
In a cave
Made,
of all the walls I ever put up,
You think you know,
But, honestly,
These massive stones
Came crashing down,
Access denied,
As I try to find,
A way out,
With no amount
Of miles to bring me to my escape,
So, are you still trying,
To get through,
There’s no way,
You know nothing,
You assume everything,
And will never know my pain.
