Superheroes are Hard to Find

Out in the Darkness far above the street lights

we are the shadows, moving like ghosts into the night
we all want some measure of justice that we define
when life and death are at stake, when we cross the line
between good and evil to find the moment of truth
like when boys leave behind their ideals from their youth
like when we stop to gaze upon all we have done
down onto the actions that matter, those that we shun.

Choices are to be had, decisions that have already been made
do you stand out in the strength of your convictions
do you question the laws that everyone says must be obeyed/
Are you the hero of the moment, a matter for depiction
or are you something more than this our present fiction?

Run in the Shadows or Run in the light
this is our struggle, this should be our fight
Will you right the wrongs to be found
or will you wait until there is no more bravery
or even the freedom to say I can stand my ground

Take up your cause and wave it like a war flag
for it is the glorious combat that make what you
carry more than just a honor, more than just a rag
Stand up and be counted one of the brave and the few
against the world's expectations, be something original
be something new

Because if you don't, if you get left behind
you will become just another wannabe hero
that lacks any metal, or steel or even a mind
It is true when they all stand together and tell you
that Superheroes are hard to find!

There was a time once

There was a moment when the Sun broke through the clouds and light fell upon
the world like it does a thousand times since I have begun to walk upon this my
mother Earth.
There was a day, when I looked for a puffy white cloud floating in the sky like
some fantastic dragon lazily gliding by as I gazed up at her passage from the green
grasses upon which I lie.
There was something in the way the time passed that was as if my memory came
to life around me and I saw friends and family that normally I would never have
a chance to see.

It was on a day like this, so many days gone by that the years have faded like
sepia painted photographs pressed into a dusty unopened album taken off the
old wooden shelf to be revealed to a descendant that has yet to come to be.
I saw my ghosts and illusions of the loves and losses come drifting by under the
sun, under the motion of the birds moving like dreams upon the winds
of what I find to be true in this my mind's eye.
I called for my mother as she came running through the swirling leaves
in and out of the dandelions and rose petals that obscure her response if there
was one and then she is gone by.

I looked for my father but he never came to me in this vision of summers
to be and summers long forgotten yet not completely past.
It is like lemonade poured fresh from a silver pitcher on a hot Sunday
afternoon, ice cold, fresh bittersweetness on my tongue
It is like jumping from the rock over the mirror shining brightness of the
swimming hole of my youth soon to plunge into the chilly depths or awake
to the evening, the moon and her silent yet melancholic song.

Cast Iron Wolf

Cast Iron Wolf

Out of the darkness, comes the iron man running

into the light, the thunder of his passing shaking

the ground.

Did I only dream of the glint of menace in the glare

of his eye shields, was it only my imagination

that made it seem so real?

I run with wolves amidst the ruins of the only world

that I have even known, we are shadows racing 

towards the violence of the sound

Did I witness the path on which my life is heading,

nowhere to turn, ever the straight path forever

at the pace of the men of steel.

I find no mercy in this the race with no end in sight.

Is this my last chance to don the armor or to stand

in the sun under the stars in the night?

We raise our weapons under the brilliance of this

our final dance into the clouds into the sky

We raise our voices to shout with contempt and joy

for justice and honor making it our battle cry

Hear our howls as we charge into the melee of the 

fight, will we win this day for all that we hold true

or die in our ambition to be among the right?

I am only one man in this skin that shields my

intent, the goals of my youth unwritten unspent

for there is much that I still want to believe, to 

accept that I can want to feel...

Meanwhile I will keep on running to maintain 

this requirement to hold to this pace

until I come to meet with my destiny face to face.

On Coffee

On Coffee.

How many poets have sat down to write a piece of work and decided to do it on coffee?
Is this an ode to the bean that is more like a cherry pit that the assumed brown treasure plucked from this our Mother earth?
Will I find the appropriate words to capture the imagery from this caffeinated therapy that so many men, and women, have consumed before me?
Can I pull each line of verse from each sip of the bitter sweet yet ultimately indescribable sensation locked within the myriad of flayors?
What was my compulsion to convert from the vintage of my native teas to the concoction of New World alchemy?
Like the drips falling into the Coffee pot
like the aroma of forgotten places or spaces
that you only have wished to visit
like the people that you have only
begun to dream up.
This is my coffee poem and now it's time
to find another cup.

Why Rainy Days are good for Poetry

I sit there listening to the gentle fall of the morning rain
reflecting on the idea that this kind of writing
keeps me safe, still and mostly sane.
Inside me there is a wealth of words
reaching for understanding and for the minutes
when my lines come together from the refrain
like music is to madness, patterns against the grain.

In the matter that surrounds a day like this
I feel the imagery flash in pictures
I remember what sweet sorrows that I miss
the first moment I realized there was sunlight
the first touch of my very first kiss
when time had come to have a meaning
like you find in those moments of bliss.

What truths can I reveal in the space of a line
what mysteries will be revealed to the seeker
who comes here to read mine?
There are pages that can contain splendor
like light falling through stained glass.
There are feelings beyond belief
like relief that nothing can surpass.

What is it that people find in the pleasure
of poetry on these our rainy days
to claim that a few verses can measure
the value that such work portrays?
I know that what I write will always need work
but the fulfillment is more than just a
message, or a form or a pattern
It is all that I am, all that I want to be
then to find a reason for such symmetry
to compose a little bit of poetry.

Adagio for the Strings of my Soul

There is a moment between the sweetness of sadness
and the movements of the violin's strings
where I find resolution and serenity, where I can see
a pattern in the orbits of Celestial beings

There is a idea that forms in the melancholy stillness
of the such harmonious sound
where time is meaningless, where I can feel my soul
is lifted above the limits of the ground

There is something I cannot define in the separation
between the music and the imaginings of my mind
It is like the flight through the universe in order to remind
me of those I have left so very far behind

I look back to the ones I have known both among those
still living and those who are dead
There is no measurement in our regrets, having left things
undone, unwritten and unsaid.

Can I find the emotion that my song brings like the stuff
from which the universe can be made of
Can I sum up one life in one moment without even the
a quartet played in the fullness of my love



For my Brother, Stephen
and a fulfillment of his dreams

Here's what I mean by that

In Saturn's Rings - Work in Progress shots from non-profit IMAX space film from Stephen van Vuuren on Vimeo.
More footage : http://vimeo.com/33933151

In March 2011, the first footage (http://vimeo.com/11386048) from my non-profit IMAX film In Saturn's Rings went viral, resulting in 3.8 million hits and 1.3 million plays & media coverage in over 250 countries.

Some viewers expressed disbelief that the footage was created only from real photographs. Here are a few unfinished, work-in progress shots from the film. In these incomplete shots, it is much easier to see that only real photographs are being used. Much more work will be done on all these shots to improve them.

I'm creating the film on home-built computers running Adobe Photoshop & After Effects. Let me know if you'd like to help.

Work in Progress Shots

#1 “Earth to Moon” (from 50,000+ photographs)
#2 “Shuttle Flyover” (from 1,000+ photographs)
#3 “Ring Twirl” (from 10,000+ photographs)
#4 “Big Bang Test” (from 20,000,000+ photograph instances)

Master is 5.6k resolution (5600 x 4200 pixels) with all work done in 32-bit floating point color space to preserve
photographs from artifacts.

No 3D models, CGI or texture maps used!

http://www.insaturnsrings.com/

Not-for-profit animated IMAX film in production by a single filmmaker. Visit the site to make a tax-deductible contribution to support the film.

Much thanks to everyone who has supported and contributed to this. This is the beginning, just a taste of incredible things to come.

This is still a work-in-progress and it's an art film, not a science film.

Survival

Well I survived my PODM. 31 poems, unfortunately not one everyday, kept getting sidetracked and there were days when the poem just sucked or was bad enough to annoy me. Most of these never saw the light of even getting a draft made.
It was exhausting and exhilarating to to produce that much work. I might even try another month like this later this year....or just make it a May thing. (no other month rhymes with day- so there!).

Now on to the future, Going to probably rework what I have written. Improve on what is there. Maybe try to publish some of it.

Who knows?


Mike