Spoken Word

It’s Release Day for A Luminous Liminality!!!

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It’s release day for my newest (and sixth) book, A Luminous Liminality: A Collection of Poetry & Art. The book represents 10 years of my artwork and poetry and is my very first collection of poetry and art. This last week I got the first proofs of the book and I’ve included some pictures of the final product. A Luminous Liminality has both an ebook version and a paperback version. I recommend the paperback version to get the full experience of all the color images. Please note that prints are always available for my artwork. You can find my artwork at this page if you’re curious about it.


The book is broken down into three seasons. A season of sentimentality (poems and art about emotional life), A season of reflection (Self reflection and reflection on our culture) and, A season of transformation (realization, personal growth, change). I really wanted to show many sides of my life and experience in this book. There are poems about love, loss, hope, bitterness, frustration, hope, persistence, growth, and meditation. Oh, there’s even a poem on anthropology. The book is really about my journey over the last ten years.

I hope you enjoy it. You can find it on Ebook from all your favorite digital stores and on paperback via Amazon all at this one link. Simply click whatever service you’d like to use.

A Luminous Liminality Book Cover
A Luminous Liminality Book Cover

A Luminous Liminality: A Collection of Poetry And Art (My First Poetry Book!)

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A Luminous Liminality Book Cover
A Luminous Liminality Book Cover

Hello everyone,

For those of you who have been following this blog and website since it’s inception, you know that I post a lot of my digital art and poetry here. Well, I decided it was finally time to create a book of both my poetry and artwork from the last decade. I’ve been working on this more in secret for the past three months or so, though if you follow me on facebook (where I do most of my posting) you’ve heard me hint about it. So today, I am not only revealing the cover, but the preorder link. Now, keep in mind, if you want a paperback copy of this, you will have to wait till release day, because unfortunately, at the moment, Amazon won’t allow paperback preorders. But the ebook preorder is live and you can find the link here.

A Luminous Liminality will be released on September 17th, 2022. Some of the poems (but certainly not all) are available on the Poetry page on this website. You can check them out for some samples.

How To Lose A Debate On Purpose (Poetry)

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A piece of poetry and artwork both titled “How To Lose A Debate On Purpose.” A quick note, a number of these pieces of artwork and poetry are being compiled into my first poetry book at the moment. It will be out before the end of 2022. More news soon!

©Loridian’s Laboratory LLC and Michael Kilman 2022

How to Lose A Debate On Purpose

It’s time to lose,

To concede,

To let the important human connections supersede

Our need,

To. Be. Right.

Our need to be right?

All that does is cause endless fights.

Until we cut the power and turn off the lights,

On. Our. Rage.

We can never get on the same page.

It’s easy to forget that the world is full of our siblings,

And get caught up in all the quibbling.

It’s all our relations beyond just sisters and brothers.

From other fathers

And other mothers

Hurting them means we will never recover..

All. Our. Souls.

And If winning is always your goal,

Then all that says is that you have a desperate need to take control

Rather than roll,

With the punches.

There are no free lunches

There are only connections,

And they are clear,

Upon. Further. Reflection.

Everyone wants to be happy,

No matter how confused,

They are in it to win it and never want to lose.

So you must be soft and yielding aligning with Taoist-like views.

Flow like a river and you will find a way to defuse,

These culture wars before people choose to…

Take. Up. Arms.

Our whole culture is sounding an alarm.

Whether you live in a city or a farm,

You need to learn to listen to prevent harm.

Listen. To. Understand.

That’s the best plan.

If you listen to win all you do foster opinion.

You never get below people’s skin ,

In a way that makes the space for compromise to begin.

Listen. To. Understand.

Instead of making demands,

Choose to lose in conversation,

When it makes sense to understand someone’s fixation.

Their obsession isn’t going to go away,

If you just block them and ignore what they say,

That way just leads to more disarray.

Listen to practice empathy

It doesn’t mean you have to agree

It doesn’t mean you will ever see

Eye. To. Eye.

But you cannot deny

The people come to their views to try and feel satisfied

And to avoid pain,

Even if they are driving in the wrong lane,

Or maybe they just got on the wrong train.

People are people wherever you go

And most just want you to sincerely know

Who. They. Are.

Spoken Word: I’m Sorry to Interrupt (And I’m on TikTok Now)

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Hey all, I recently started a TikTok Page where I talk about anthropology, history, worldbuilding, poetry and a few other elements of my life and experiences. But today I posted a brand new piece of Spoken Word there called, I’m Sorry to Interrupt.

Here’s the Video:

@authormichaelkilman

#spokenword titled I’m sorry to Interrupt #poem #poetry #rhyme #teaching #classroom #educator #teacher

♬ original sound – Michael Kilman

Here’s the text for those who just wish to read it.

I’m Sorry to Interrupt


I took a breath

I’m sorry to interrupt

Cause it’s time for me to deconstruct

What you just said

I have to make space

I have to write new words in this place

See

I took a breath

My heart was throbbing

And the pain was bobbing

Up and down my throat

It’s like, a perfect melody I wrote

And you just can’t play the right notes

And you struggle so hard to stay afloat

And you can hear them gloat about rigging the vote

But you just can’t devote the time and energy to spread an antidote

But you do it anyway  

So I took a breath

And I breathed some more

And you draw on every ounce of compassion out of your very core

Because before you open the sore

Before you start that war

Before you look for

A safe harbor to explore

Some common ground to open a door

You take a breath

And create some space

So that you face the anger and chase to replace

The commonplace assumptions from that deep dark place

Where we ignore that we treat people different because of race

And that history that we try to erase?

You take a breath

And then the question

You don’t know if that student will have any reception

To these new truths that will push up against their perception

There’s such a disconnection here,

So much fear of the things that they hear might be true  

But what I  am supposed to do?

Part of me wants to turn the screw

Part of me wants to make them rue the day they pushed through and cut off their classmates words intertwined in a shrew view that’s all askew that prevents them from ever having a breakthrough

Because they’re scared

So I take a breath

And I breathe some more

Because I know what I’m here for

And I have to push just a little more

Because I’m not sorry to interrupt

What is the Value of Art?

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Here is a bit of spoken word poetry I just wrote called, What is the value of Art.

“Center of All”

What is the value of art?

It is our birthright, our education,

it’s the smashing of all our limitations,

it’s the last breath as death collects us

In an ever winding energy nexus

It’s the movement of words and thoughts and dreams

Of a plurality of reality, and a sequence of scenes  

It’s what’s delicious and nutritious for the mind and soul

So luscious and rich with wonders to behold

It’s our essence and presence as a universe to witness

A study of truth and the quickest path to fitness

Of our species survival all threatened by meaninglessness

In the hearts of greed where we find only deafness

Or daftness and a lack of meaningful madness

This Art is our madness, our collective sadness,

All balled up and beat up long past the gladness

It’s the laughter of life and the meaning of love

It’s the universe in our hands and as below so above.

So you ask, what is the value of art?

It’s all this and more

For our humanity

is lost

if we lose

it’s core.

Ache in the Bones.

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It’s been quite a while since I did any poetry or artwork, so, here’s some new stuff. I call this one Ache in the Bones


Ache in the Bones

Aching Bones

My bones ache,

And it’s something I can barely take.   

But I look at myself and try to break from the heartaches and earthquakes of those woes and worries that I just can’t seem to shake.  

Do I enjoy them?

Do I employ my messes to solve my problems and downplay the stresses?  

Or do I conjure up more problems and conundrums, unsolvable riddles and endless questions

Do I ignore the suggestions?

See?

I see.

I see what I do,

I know what I’ve been through and am starting to understand the things that I do

To increase my own suffering and the karma that I accrue

Programmed

It’s the underlying program at work,

It’s the ways that I was a jerk,

Or the way that I lurked around my own blindspots to ignore to rot

Most of my life I followed the toxic attitudes I was taught,

Never letting myself see the light,

Instead, I fight

I fight for the right to bury my head in the sand, rather than expand

My mind, or maybe find the things that I hide behind

You just gotta move forward?

What’s forward is back,

How can you choose to move forward when you’re stuck on the wrong track?

You gotta attack those toxic flashbacks if you wanna bounce back from the blackest night

If you ever want to be alright

What happened to me wasn’t my fault

But that doesn’t mean I have to keep pouring salt, on the wounds from the assault

If I just live in default mode and lock it in a vault, how can I ever erode the pain or decode this heavy load?

Healing’s a lot of guesswork,

Like I’m not even supposed to be here, I’m just an innocent clerk

But That’s my party pity, my last attempt being witty

Before I deal with the pain…

But trauma? Trauma is like an oncoming train, and you can’t refrain from standing on the tracks that live deep inside your brain

But it’s just a game, just some lame excuse to frame my history in an event to pretend like some of it was a mystery

Things happen to us.

But we happen to others too.

Recovery from trauma might make you feel pretty blue, maybe you can barely stand the things you went through or the debts you accrued

But that doesn’t mean I can take it out on others,

Others are my sisters and brothers

On the path

And can you do the math? If we keep walking this path, we’ll face the wrath

Of our actions, of our overreactions and we will find ourselves making factions, rather than taking the course that leads to the best actions for all beings

I’m far from perfect, but I’m practicing seeing,

Practicing just being,

To be a better human being.



I AM a Mistake

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New poem I wrote this morning. The text is at the bottom after the video.

 

I AM a mistake

I am a mistake

Not in the sense that my birth was accidental,

Or that my parents weren’t overly sentimental

About me coming into this world all cranky and temperamental

 

I am a mistake

Rather I am a serious of flubs and fuck ups

A never ending calamity of false starts and blowups

A breakup, a checkup a buildup a burnup

A constant crisis of startup and windup

 

I’m the guy who has to learn shit the hard way

Hell, I’ll probably bring about my own personal doomsday

My luck is rotten and

I’ve already forgotten

the lessons I just learned

When I got seriously burned

But I know it’s really all my fault

You don’t have point that out or pour on the salt

 

I’m always thinking about the choices I’ve made

And the prices of paid

Or The ways I have strayed from my path

Ending up alone and afraid

I should have gone, I should have stayed

If only that message could have been better conveyed

Those are thoughts that never seem to fade

It’s as if with every passing decade, my mind seems parade all the mistakes I have made so that I feel like inside there is an endless tirade

 

You’d think I’d be ready to say enough is enough

But even though things have been pretty rough

I’m still standing, I’m still moving, though sometimes it’s tough

 

But you know what? I’m fine with it

You might think I’m stupid or full of shit

Or Maybe I’m just too foolish to quit?

Perhaps I’m too prideful and arrogant

But I think, I’m finally ready to admit

 

I like who I am, mistakes and all

Sometime I laugh when I recall

The fist fights and brawls

The late nights and close calls

The angry cougar who liked to maul me with her paw when she was under the influence of alcohol

It’s hard to recall it all with out feeling like I’m in free fall

 

I am a mistake

Until now, my life has felt like purgatory

So much felt routine and mandatory

A hoary momento mori

Signifying nothing but sound and fury

But you know what I realized?

That shit is only a made up story