Why I decided to become a photographer
When I was a little boy I saw a cartoon
and in that cartoon was a house that was
mist that was wrapped in a beautiful
color – it wasn’t exactly yellow or brown
or caramel or oat or buttermilk or hazelnut
or oyster or sand dollar – it was a little of
each of them but not all of them put together
and with more life and meaning than ever
and so striking that you can’t help but
think of it every time you are shopping
for a car or a hat or a dog or a motorcycle
or when you are going to you get your hair
bleached or dyed or buy an umbrella because
of the rain and in the shop window there is a
wedding ring and with your last breath
someone is holding your hand and you
don’t know what to say when they ask
“What is it that you want?”
Passing Fancy
I watch rock video after rock video and say “I think I am in love with X”
with each passing video, X being whomever I happen to be watching at
the time but truly I am not in love with anyone so I can’t imagine why I expose
myself to these rock videos until at long last I see Bill Haley & His Comets
playing ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK in THE BLACKBOARD JUNGLE
in 1955 and I think to myself “he kind of looks like my Dad” and then I think
to myself “and my Dad was a good man who knew how to play the ukulele and
how to fish especially for snapper and grouper and blowfish and my Dad knew
his way around a camera and a hibachi and an Oldsmobile” and then I realized
well yes I really did love somebody, somebody who looked just like Bill Haley
even though if you think about it he didn’t look like Bill Haley at all, he is just
dead, just like Bill Haley.
Ricky Garni grew up in Miami and Maine. He works as a graphic designer by day and writes music by night. His latest work, A Concerned Party Meets A Person Of Interest, was released in the Spring of 2019.
