#49 take a (Soma)tic bus ride!

A collaborative (Soma)tic by CAConrad and Ryan Eckes

PART ONE: Take a bus to a city where you have never lived. We took a bus to NYC from Philadelphia. The driver was obnoxious, but we were undeterred. The driver was a terrible driver, tapping the accelerator over and over and over lurching stopping lurching stopping. This is excellent for poetry, these bad bus drivers. Have one foot on the floor, the other hovering an inch above the floor. FEEL the staggering, growling engine through the floor. Look outside. What engines move the world out there? Trees, what does the engine of a tree sound like? Touch the seat in front of you in two-second intervals. Lift your hand to the air in front of you. It is FREE from the vibrations of the bus. HOW is this your life? What does it even mean to ask "HOW is this your life?" How are you FREE and not free? Look around you at the strangers on the bus. You are near people who share planet Earth with you. LOOK AT THEM. What do you have in common with each other? Take notes, take notes, notes notes notes. PART TWO: When you get off the bus, you should be hungry. Go get something to eat at a kind of restaurant you've never eaten at before, and order something you've never tasted before. As you eat, say the name once in a while of the dish you've ordered, and think about the sounds of the words along with the taste of the food -- does it match? Are there discrepancies? Take notes on your napkin. Ask the server what they think about the dish -- do they like it, why, why not? Take as many napkins with you as you can so you can write on them throughout the day. Exit
the place and ask the first person you see (or who'll answer you) in which direction they think you should walk. You're not worried about going any direction in particular. If they ask what type of destination you want, say "Look, I need some guidance, okay?" Walk a couple of blocks and then ask another person "Left or right or straight ahead?" Do this 7 times. Walk two blocks after the 7th direction -- this is your destination. Take out your napkins and write about what you saw on the way, see now, and how the food feels in your belly. Do this sitting on the ground. Shape all your notes into a poem.

#48 YOUR (Soma)tic Spectrum

Eat a single color of food for a day. For 7 days do this, eating through the spectrum of color our optic nerves are able to bring into focus and joy. Use food coloring, it's about EATING the color, not whether or not RED naturally appears. Water with food coloring, rice, potatoes, you can do it, you can absorb it for the poems. And wear or SURROUND yourself with the color. For RED I wore a red wig someone threw in the dumpster behind the beauty academy near my apartment. For ORANGE I drew an orange ladder on my chest with magic marker. For YELLOW I tucked a yellow condom in my left sock. For GREEN I painted my middle fingernails green. For BLUE I listened to Bobby Vinton's song "Blue Velvet" on a continuous loop from 6 am to midnight. For PURPLE I wore purple clothes pin nipple clamps all day. For WHITE I wrote the number 108 on my forehead with my boyfriend's semen. EACH color EACH day found me anew. This was a visitation with each CHAKRA. Each day, before eating the color, drinking the color, hum a LOW, DEEP HUM, sit straight in a chair, feet on the floor. Reach into that day's chakra, RED the root/sex, etc., GREEN the heart. The notes you take will want out naturally. Work with a clear quartz crystal gemstone. On the first day, RED, meditate with the quartz on your groin. Each day move the stone UP your body as you investigate the next color. There are samples of my color poems HERE.