Notes About The Poem

You Gotta Have Heart

Tag words: advertising, bebop, bird, bottle, Charlie 
Parker, Coca-Cola, Cole Porter, Dizzy Gillespie,
door, flag, heart, jazz, light bulb, Louis Armstrong,
Miles Davis, palette, Pepsi Cola, pluralism – found
object, retablo painting, sculpture

Arbitrary or subconscious, Saunders picked six.
Man created on the sixth day from darkness;
we came into the light, of knowing, of naming.
Satan, sin held within, black of skin. Oh,
Africa chopped up bleeding, the third world’s
doors shown black, nailed shut. With the skin
of drums, the heel of hand, he pounds the nails
on the trail of the carpenter.

Kept in place, biblical wives of Lot turned to salt,
white-line the globe. White powder, white power,
sugars the unpalpable, addicting, coca leafs and 
caffeine, doping the public, the poor for dimes. 
Reinforcing the lure of the bottle; the cola bottle 
that fell unbroken to earth from the sky in The 
God’s Must Be Crazy. Some have always used their
addictions to create. Like a found objects, we too
fall calling to Mother Mary.



After: The Gift of Presence Raymond Saunders 1993
First Published by Ekphrastic Art:writing and art on art and writing

*Lot the nephew of Abraham, husband of Edith
who was turned to salt.
Copyright © | Year Posted 2016


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Date: 2/25/2016 10:17:00 AM
There is this unique insurance your works always give my expectations And that satisfaction only builds more castles for my curiosity to thrive, waiting for subsequent results of your talent and thinking.
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Date: 1/26/2016 12:30:00 AM
Enjoyed the way you expressed every line. LOVE LINDA
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Date: 1/25/2016 11:55:00 PM
Love it, Debbie, worth many re-reads and gets better each time. Very clever. Viv x
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Date: 1/23/2016 7:02:00 PM
I agree with Chrissie here, this is so creative, Debs. You are good at this kind of thing!!
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Date: 1/21/2016 12:43:00 PM
Wonderfully creative! (Africa is doing well though.) Chriisie
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Guzzi Avatar
Debbie Guzzi
Date: 1/23/2016 7:06:00 PM
So Africa is doing better, it all depends on your point of view; I guess & where in Africa you are; if you are working for nothing in a mine, I don't think they'd think they were doing well.
Morris Brady Avatar
Chrissie Morris Brady
Date: 1/21/2016 3:19:00 PM
Women are starting businesses and providing for their families. More countries have democratic governments that encourage fairer deals. Slavery is all over the world and must be fought and stopped. It is not peculiar to Africa. Mainly China benefits from the resources, but at least they provide some jobs. Lately we have seen indegenous inventors create soloar powered lighting, and renewable transport. Mortality in childbirth is decreasing. Health workers are increasing as are teachers. I work in human rights.
Guzzi Avatar
Debbie Guzzi
Date: 1/21/2016 2:49:00 PM
Interesting, in what sense is Africa doing well? literacy? slavery? democracy? Africa is rich in resources that only a very few are recieving the benifits from ...
Date: 1/19/2016 9:40:00 AM
if you don't have heart....you can never create art....not in any section nor part....because you are lost from the very start....so there is no way to ever chart....on any journey with which the mind can embark....wonderful write Debbie....;)
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Date: 1/18/2016 11:00:00 AM
Sad but true. In almost all we see and touch, there's the stamp of the whites, but though Saunders is a black American, his paintings and art are of universal theme rather than just the culture of blacks, of Africa. We do resent the word "third world". We prefer "developing country". Awesome write, Deb! :-)
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Guzzi Avatar
Debbie Guzzi
Date: 1/18/2016 11:04:00 AM
ahhh thank you for the politically correct term dear Kim- I will keep that in mind!
Nunez Avatar
Kp Nunez
Date: 1/18/2016 11:04:00 AM
...and yes, the addictions of the West have now become the addictions of the East... consumerism is at its all time high...Indeed you gotta have heart...Bless us all...:-)
Date: 1/17/2016 8:01:00 AM
You got all of that, from that picture? Oh I have so much to learn.
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