The Off Week / 17th November 2024
The art of the people watch
This week, an artist I love released their new single titled ‘People Watching,’ which is also the name of the album that will be released next year. The title got me thinking about what we see when we look at people. I got stuck in traffic the other day, and it is always fascinating how we all have somewhere to be. I ride the bus and find it baffling how we are all moving. I know this is the daily living of life, and it isn’t a groundbreaking discovery, and on a surface level, it is nothing special, but the more you think about it, the more the enormity of the world we live in starts to take shape. It is almost haunting how there is a damn near certainty that whatever is happening where you are, the polar opposite is happening somewhere else. In a single city, births and funerals happen simultaneously. Heartbreaks and weddings unfold at the same rate. Maybe this isn’t as fascinating to you as I find it but think about the complexity within your life and then think of the complexity found within a coffee shop. When you try and imagine the complexity in a city, people upon people going through their own struggles and all having their own feelings, it feels immense. Without diving too deeply into this, as we are in the off week, get yourself a drink or a nice book, find a busy place, and just watch all of the people who pass by. Imagine every story that passes you, and then try to turn some into poems or pieces of writing. I did this recently, and this piece is still in draft state, but I like what it is and love what it can be.
Somewhere a funeral
(When you watch people, you see so many love stories happening. We all experience heartbreak in our lives; some are lucky enough never to experience it romantically, but there are different shades of heartbreak. This poem is about a couple fighting on a street corner and, directly opposite, another couple dancing. An older couple walks past both interactions. This is what this poem stemmed from.)
Somebodies heart is pulling into the gas station/while another is running on fumes/the likelihood is that somebody/will drive your heart off a bridge/and into a lake/it is always cold in lakes/tell your heart to cross its arms across its body and hold itself tight/it will freeze but not to death/all of our lovers are tow trucks/with loud horns/already on the highway/searching for the right exit/all of our lovers carry chains/they pull our hearts out of the water/as we pray they don’t become anchors/sometimes a lover is a house brick on the gas pedal/love is often a cut brake line/and we barrel down the hill/praying we do not hit anything/we can save ourselves/but the curiosity of love is too much/it is only human to want to know/what lurks at the bottom/do you get it now?/that is why they call it falling.
What polar opposites do you see? What similarities? How much hurry do you witness? What can we gain from the watching of people? Does it change your perspective when you contemplate the size of the world? Let me know in the comments below.