Chris Barickman

Musician/Writer/Painter - USA 

(living in Czech Republic since 1999) 

 

I live reflected in dew drops

clinging to web strands.

 

Velvet Revolted I found

and  foundered Brno,

the glowing cathode,

a cappella in a shaken globe.

 

I often look back along

leaf-shadowed power

lines girding painted hamlets

glittering sixty miles north

of my Vanishing Brooklyn.

 

 

The “Normal” Story

 

It may seem precious and affected to write a poem as a biography, but I didn’t do it to be “artistic” in the often unfortunate sense of the word.

The “factual” story is that I was born in New Haven, Connecticut and moved at ten years old to a small town suburban to New York City. I read a lot of books and played a lot of games and wrote songs and played concerts and recorded and moved around a lot until I found Brno. I studied at many different colleges and universities until finally getting a BA and worked in a lot of restaurants and book stores.

I taught a lot of English as well. I drank a lot and chased women and due to manic-depression and other forces seemingly, at the time, beyond my control, acted extremely, to say the least.

I have lived in New York City, Boston, Dublin, and El Paso among other places.

Until I stopped drinking, around ten years ago, I called myself “Chris Black.”

I now live in Brno with my wife and daughters.

None of this information says anything interesting about “me,” whatever “me” is…

For now, this poem is the best I can do, as well as some of the songs and paintings I have done…