WELCOME TO INNER MICHAEL GUEST...

The gods of artistry have spoken. So has my Inner Michael. I loved how Michael would invite and feature artists he admired. So the gods (and Michael) whispered: "So invite them!" I have met some talented people on this journey and I have been in the arts long enough to recognize Le Artiste`. So I have invited them here... all for love. Enjoy.


Tuesday

Was it Always Meant to be This Way?

I wonder if it was always meant to be this way.

That we would only understand that something brilliant, something beautiful, had sat at our table, walked with us to school, danced with us when no-one else would, been there all the time - when it no longer was.

Into the space he occupied, into the vacuum, somehow has flowed all the love we withdrew and all the love we forgot.

All of us carried along on a journey since June 25th, a journey we had no idea we planned on taking.

We were caught unawares, without the the right clothes.

And now we find ourselves asking the questions we didn't ask before, because no-one was asking them.

No-one said what if?

What if that wasn't the way it was?

We thought we knew.

We didn't.

~Deborah Ffrench












SOMETIMES WORDS ARE ALL WE HAVE
~Deborah Ffrench

Sometimes words are all we have.

But sometimes, if we let them, they can carry us on the wings of the emotions they contain - to a place beyond words.

A place where we remember.

Michael.

Through the beginning,

Through the joy,

Through the splendour,

Through the catastrophes.....

......To the desolation we arrive.


The summer of 2009 will always be remembered as the the winter that took our brightest light, and for those who understand, it has been perhaps the hardest summer of our lives.

And so it should be.

Michael deserves nothing less.

I wish I could have met Michael, felt for myself the force of that fire, seen first-hand the curious grace of that smile. Scorcese described his persona as 'shamanistic', Spielberg recalls 'an emotional star child', Mark Romanek remembers him as 'metaphysical', Anjelica Houston 'a meteor.' Whatever the word used, all of these highly creative individuals were each in their way trying to express the indefinable 'difference' they felt in Michael's prescence.

You can hear it in every note of his songs, in his entire body of work.

And his voice, my God, that voice.

That soft yet tough, delicate yet bullet-bright force of power and beauty he could produce at will. It crept inside you when you heard it, tapped at the fortress of your innermost being, before offering - everything. It elevated the merely kinetic to the kaleidoscopic, music into magic and a thousand songs into the substance of the soul.

Some say Michael should be thought of as nothing more than an 80's artefact, a relic of the bad, brash, Lucas-filmed, pre-Aids, pre-9/11 years when we thought the whole world loved America and people adored their stars like the old movie idols from back in the day.

Maybe.

But what they fail to realize is this: every kid I know is discovering Star Wars for the first time. The Sistine Chapel is no less beautiful now than it was when its painter first stepped down and exhaled.

For true art is immortal and it lives forever.

Michael often quoted Michelangelo - who famously said: 'I will attempt to bind my soul to my work.' This is what Michael Jackson did. He put all that young idealism, that thirst for freedom, that yearning to 'move' and be moved, his desire to be the best, his love and his joy, his rage, his pain and his sorrow, his confusion and his loss; into his work.

And when all the lies and the untruths have faded with time, and those predators who even now pick at his memory like vultures to the bone have finished their feasting -

That work - and that love, will remain.

On June 25th the world knew a unity of sorts. It was as if the whole world, for a moment, felt the slow agony of being that misunderstood, that lonely, and that betrayed. Michael is free now. He sings and dances amongst the worlds. In his leaving, becoming at once a symbol of our lost innocence and the possibilty of regaining that.

And for those of us who know who, and what he was, and what he tried to do here,

Michael Joseph Jackson will shine in our hearts for all time.

I will not wave. I will say no farewells.

The Immortals need no goodbyes.

Who Will Conduct Love's Symphony?


Who is Conducting Love's Symphony Now That Michael is Gone?

On June 25th 2009, the Sun went out
We loved him like Everything
father, son, lover, husband
friend, brother, mentor, inspiration

We loved the way he touched us
more than the Universe
He touched the way he Loved us
and it was too much for words
so he translated it
into song and dance

The vast emptiness
left by his absence is fire
fueled by an ache that never runs out
the only analgesic for this
is Michael's Love

His pulse, his breath
all he did and all he gave
was the Heart of the World
and now, it seems
there is no Love left,
except ours for Him
... but He's gone.

What fills this, what empties it
what takes it away
even the crickets seem to know
that something is different
that something is missing
they don't even sound the same

Who cares now about the children
in Romanian orphanages?

Who cares now about the cries
in the night that no one else
could hear - when no one else
is even listening?

Who remembers now those
the rest of the World forgot
or those the World rejected?

Who holds the World's children
so close in their hearts
and prays for them every day?

Who hears the cries of Earth
as she tries in vain to heal
the damage wrought by humanity?

Who cares more?
Who loves more?
Who loves most?
Who gives everything
the way Michael did?

Who will send us tingling
with the ecstasy of dance
the way no one else could dance?

Who will help us believe
in ourselves, that we could be
everything we dreamed
every time he sang?

He saw God in all of us
and gave pieces of our own Hearts
back to us,
wrapped up as sparkling gifts ...
pieces of ourselves
we'd lost and didn't even know it
Every moment in life with
Michael Jackson was like Christmas

There is no replacing this
I miss those big brown eyes
I miss that magnificent smile
I miss that sparkling laugh
I miss that Heart bigger than the Universe
I miss my father, son, lover, husband
friend, brother, mentor, inspiration
I miss the love notes he sent
I miss the Love he WAS more than anything

On June 25th 2009, the Sun went out
The Heart of the World went missing
and Nothing seems like enough
No one seems like enough
There will never be another One

Who is conducting Love's symphony now
that Michael is gone?

© 2010, Seven Bowie
http://www.mj-777.com/

Wednesday

Cry for Michael

"Cry"

Marjolein, from the Netherlands, wrote to tell me about how, where and when she heard of Michael's passing and how she felt about it. Like so many people, Marjo felt regret at having not been clear about who Michael Jackson was and who he was being in the world.

Since Michael's passing, she has learned how to paint and discovered that her real mission in life is the same as his was... to make the world a better place. She is using her art to do just that.

This piece is dedicated to Michael and his "Cry" on the Invincible album. 

Tuesday

The Peacemaker at 30,000 Feet


My Michael Jackson Story:

“When I was laid off (fired) from MGM/UA in 1994, I opened my own movie marketing consultancy. I decided to concentrate on animated films. Over the years I was fortunate enough to work on wonderful animated projects like Steven Spielberg’s An American Tail, among many others. Before long my business was booming. I was making more money than I ever did with Columbia, Universal or most recently MGM/UA. And more importantly, I didn’t have that awful commute I did for years, plus no committee diluting some wonderful ideas that individuals conjured up.

I was exposed to the international marketplace (my movie career with the studios was confined to domestic) and found myself at the Cannes Film Festival numerous times exposing and selling some of the animated projects I was representing. Yes, Cannes is beautiful, sexy, sensual, alluring, intoxicating, exciting and downright the bomb, to use an old expression.

Thursday

Touching Words


Do you ever stop
and feel the caress of a word?
Let it shiver
across your cheek
and down the back of your neck?

Do you ever let it tap-dance
upon your spine
or play each vertebrae
as the ivory keys of a piano
climbing to crescendo?

Do you ever let it sink
beneath the fortress of your skin
and unfold its limbs
upon your aching muscles?

Do you tear into it like a present,
or let it tiptoe out of its chrysalis
and flutter around your ribcage?

Do you ever drink it like wine
and let it swim through your blood?

Or let it cry
through the porous shell of bone
into the uncultivated vitality
tucked away in our marrow
waiting for the moment
when we will actually start living?

Do you ever let it transform
your body from noun to verb?

(c) 2010 Jenna Wittaker
 
Jenna, a graduate student in Literature, is the Librarian for the Violence and Words Curriculum
being developed in memory of Michael Jackson at Voices Education Project.
http://www.voiceseducation.org/

Tuesday

Poet Gerri


Gerri Stone has guided many who were in the throes of grief over the passing of their beloved Michael Jackson. Her channel at You Tube is filled with comfort and the healing salve of compassion.

Gerri is responsible for the video tribute at Voices Education Project:
Take a look:
 http://www.voiceseducation.org/content/michael-jackson-spiritual-messenger-hiding-plain-sight




FREEING THE HEART  Part II

Every minute of every day somewhere
in this world someone is
watching a Michael Jackson video,
listening to one of his songs
on an I-pod, blasting it in a car.

And whenever his music plays a grief
arises.Free floating grief searching for
a heart to nest in. Pain trapped in the
stomach, eyes, throat.

And we in our ignorance think this pain is
surely here to destroy us.

But it is not.

It is Michael at work, removing the
raggedy burned-out thing
we've been carrying around in our chest
all these years,
leaving in its place our real hearts.
Awakening us from our heartless trance.

(c) 2010 Gerri Stone

Inspirations from Poet Gerri Stone

Sunday

I Weep

I weep for the children in hospital beds on every continent who knew for one bright, shining moment that they were important enough for the most famous man in the world to take the time to visit and lighten their burdens. He brought smiles and laughter. He brought toys and games and music. But his most important gift to them was his presence, his thought, his caring. In that gift, they knew that their bodies broken by disease did not disgust him. They knew that their bald heads and discolored skin did not arouse his pity. They knew themselves as gifts to the world, just as he was. His smile, his eyes so full of love removed their shackles and intravenous tubing and weakness. It was only for a moment, but it was a lifetime of renewed faith. Who can do that for them now?

I weep for the children whose lives were lived in darkness, frightening and fraught with peril, until he brought them into the light in a magical fairy tale place which he had remade in his own image. They laughed and rode rides and ate snow cones with him. With magic shows and movie reels he helped them forget for a few moments the chains that bound them to a reality that held no hope. They ran over rope bridges and slid down giant slides and were allowed the freedom of childhood under his watchful care. Like all tender buds, they blossomed for those moments and he rejoiced. Who, now, can bring that blossoming?

Saturday

When Michael Danced




WHEN MICHAEL DANCED

When Michael danced he was music in motion,
melody flowing through his being
Moving in rhythm with God’s orchestra
the man was a tapestry of grace and soul

When Michael danced our eyes were gifted
with passion and beauty and love
suddenly angry, insistent and bold
in your face expressions of sensuality and lust

When Michael danced we gazed at his feet
bathed in sparkles, quicksilver…don’t blink
you will miss the spin, the kick, the glide…
and we wonder why God made toes?

When Michael danced did you see the light?
It shined through him and graced the stage
Arms held wide, embracing us all
welcoming…we shared his glee

When Michael danced we saw such ease
the body and soul as one
His hat pulled low, a piece of the dance
camouflaged dedication and work

When Michael danced did you feel the joy?
Of the boy in the man and the man in our time
Then see his hands, a painter’s magic
Drawing us in and etched in memory forever

When Michael danced it was Christmas morning
a gift that stuns and thrills
Unique and special, just like the man
God, I loved to watch Michael dance

~Lauren