Coneybear by Christina Osborn

Wrapped up in a cloak of Leaf

As unknown factors multiply

Or subtract, a common thief

The number changes, selves divide.

Open stage is treasure cave

Bubblegum between the lines

As the sneakers misbehave

Florescent planets realign

Kid, you've got no business here

All my brothers in your laugh

Reminding me that nothing's dear

But sly memory's epitaph

And although you'd see me not

But for the movement of my arm

I must admit my heart is caught

By Coneybear's unruly charm

Eulogy: Remembering a Funeral by Christina Osborn

I prefer to have my own words read because that’s the only way I can imagine myself represented. I’ve been writing for years and I swear to you I wrote until the strength in my hands failed. I don’t know why. Maybe I had a lot to say that I could never convince anyone to sit down and listen to. Maybe it’s yet another symptom of my many-layered neurosis. Maybe it will do someone good someday. This is all I can hope for.

The most beautiful funeral I ever attended was in the convention room of a community center. There were no flowers on the walls. There was no casket. John had been buried earlier that week up in Idaho on family land. But he was there, and perhaps his presence was made stronger by the lack of any actual physical evidence of his body. It was like we were all waiting for our bright, beautiful young friend to leap out of the next room and tell us it had been a cruel and complicated practical joke.

As each friend, most of them middle-aged men, broke down at the microphone, each spoke almost exactly the same words. How reliable, how crazy, how strong, how handsome, how drunk John had been; was, for he was there with us, holding each of us, whispering in our ears in his rumble of a voice. Each of the two hundred people in that room were suffering together. I loved every person in that room, most of whom I had never met. I loved them because John loved them and they loved John and he was so strong, so there in every moment of his life, that his love was etched in each of us. We had been marked by this incredible human being and to be marked was to be part of a family.

When I meet the eyes of someone who was there that day, I know we’re thinking about the same thing.

I left the Springdale Community Center that day with one wish: that if I achieved nothing else in my life that I should be loved like that by the people I left behind. The only way I know to do that is to find the best way to love each person I am given. Each person I have ever loved has been a gift to me, has changed me, has made me examine myself and try to be a better person. I dreamed of perfection and sainthood when I was a young woman, and now I dream only of the arms of those who have held me. I love you, every one.

Welcome Everyone!

This is a blog for artists. My name is Christina Osborn. I'm a songwriter living on the edge of the Mojave Desert in a small town famous for its magnificent red rock canyons. I have often felt that my analog outpouring of ideas was futile, especially in the digital world we now find ourselves in. Scraps of paper with poetry scribbled on them were forgotten in boxes, stacks of unseen paintings built up, fragments of songs remained half in and half out of the ether. My friends and  I spend enough time on our little creations that I wondered what the point was unless someone could see them. I could never have launched such an effort on my own behalf, so I thank the artists that have inspired me here in the desert, the writers and poets and painters and musicians that will appear here on this blog. In the words of my friend Taylor Stucki, 

"Everything flows back to the point from whence it came.

'Til another soul picks up the torch and starts with new name."

This is the beginning. We are under construction and I suppose we always will be. Keep coming back and we shall have new creations up as we create them. Thank you for providing us with a reason to do what we do.

-c