Tea with trump 2017

Tea With Trump

yasser musa

Tea with Trump is a poetic happening that occured from 5:00 am to 10:00 am on Thursday 20th July, 2017 inside Katie Numi Usher’s LAB4 at the Image Factory in Belize City. Artist Yasser Musa spent five hours compiling, editing, and publishing this e book Tea with Trump and a 10 minute video with the same title.

Published at Katie Numi Usher’s LAB4 91 North Front Street, Belize City, Belize 20 July 2017 5:00 am - 10:00 am

cover art: Donald Trump

by Michael Gordon, acrylic on canvas, 2017

LAB 4: 11 text: Katie Numi Usher

Much earlier than I was able to arrive artists Yasser Musa and Micheal Gordon had started the LAB event Tea with Trump. When light was slowly caressing the city. Some out exercising, some sleeping and others, the early morning workers, already an hour into their day.

I arrived at 6:30 a.m. and Briheda Haylock, Michael Gordon and Yasser Musa were inside the Zen like space. This space which Yasser had actually set up the evening before with Gilvano testing the light and also, mounting, deciding how to furnish a space of contemplation of the geo-political space since the orange one rose to power. When the space was ready, we three left, the day ahead would be “YUGE!” to quote Trump.

Invitation for Tea with Trump

And Yuge it is. Michael Gordon has been working on capturing the orange carefully. One must be faithful to a hue that is uniquely obnoxious. He has offered to brush to keen lookers, telling them to ‘katch wa ting deh” with a smile.

As flute meditation music plays, the ones I would play on youtube to quiet the thoughts and find sleep, Yasser has been diligently creating a pdf of his poem for tea with Trump.

Quite possibly the artist’s greatest poem. Great in its honesty, its rawness, its realness, its logic and poise in the face of provocation and raucous.

A bomb was dropped on the globe on November 8, 2016.

An infamous day and the rise of Trump. The rise of reaction, violence, misogyny, homophobia, intolerance, facebook rants and cyberbulling. The rise of class wars, ableism, sexism. The rise of all these ills to the commonplace, the mundane, the “grow up” and “get over yourself” if you seek redress.

Flags of anger, entitlement and hate fly high and hard in the breeze of the rise of Trump. Tall towers telling people if you are not white, straight, male, rich, you don’t have a voice.

This action by Yasser, this happening, inviting people to reflect and drink tea and commune in the face of reaction and isolation is beautiful in and of itself. This Zen is what we need in this POTUS-twitter-scarred and reflection-parched world.

Michael Gordon paints Donald Trump

Let us begin by paying homage to Andrew Jackson

You, Mr. Donald paying tribute at the Hermitage in Jackson, Mississippi I know you would want to go back in time To the Civil War What the intellectuals call the crossroads of the American being And make a deal To Slave or not to Slave Cut this land, cut this body This American dream born in red native blood Built with black bodies White wretchedness planted across plains and deltas

You, Mr Donald Sitting on a moonlit night in Marlargo On the Florida coast Your special guest Xi Jinping A super power summit You guys eating chocolate cake Your finger on the button Bombs over Syria

At your embassy in Belmopan A massive bunker A salute to the death of architecture Your government workers stamp cancelled On our Minister’s VISA But he has no interest in going to America He will stay behind your big bad wall Mr Donald, Let me pour the tea Between sex and Netflix Between Facebook and sleep What is this shame?

Vicarious living inside Your television civilization Textured with trillions of websites Sarcasm screens We watched your election night results But we still can’t vote We use your social media – That our fingernails twitch and break Waiting for comments To satisfy our edgy, needy desires for Hoping for an avalanche of acceptance

Mr Donald, Everyday you ignite the world With your words Sometimes I want to shoot the fucking TV You talk loan rass But this is not me And still Jake Tapper does not like you

You appoint your son in law To run the world at 36 “As primary point of contact for presidents, Ministers and ambassadors form more Than two dozen countries…”

To broker middle east peace Solve America’s opioid epidemic Diplomacy with mexico and china Reforming care for veterans Reforming the criminal justice system Reinventing the government and making it Work like a business We never hear him speak What is the sound of his voice?

Sipping green tea From a San Francisco shop It is easy to think from the West Coast How horrible the world has become Just months ago a beautiful black family Occupied the white house Just weeks ago the pride of the empire was Made to seem alright Then like an exit though the gift shop Artists without authorship Writers went into the artic to tell tales of Madding melting Penguins walking on thin ice The Rio Grande suddenly Became a crash point And who will build the wall?

Less than two hundred years ago The your empire started piling up new states

With names like Texas, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Washington, Oregon and portions of Oklahoma, Colorado, Kansas, Wyoming and Montana

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Soon sons and daughters Of the former confederacy Amass in their dusty trucks Along the new post-modern frontier Not since Qin Shi Huang organized his people Has a wall Become such a spectacle Of the global imagination Forced with rammed earth From spring to authum To protect the Quin Dynasty

Every day you are under indictment I love how you make Twitter your testimony How every afternoon your Republican friends Hide under their desks hoping the Republic Is recognizable on the outside Popping Percocet like skittles Across the mighty Potomac

Now Princess Ivanka must keep her cool As German journalists try to psychoanalyze Her daddy issues When she was pregnant She swam in the warm waters of Belize Blue green sea like deCaprio’s eyes I imagine she would drink tea with names like Iron Goddess, Oolong or Jasmine

Putin Hacking We live in a competitive world and we Are not among its leaders, first words on becoming president # 1 song – A Man Like Putin He is a very beautiful man - musician I looked the man in his eye Found him trustworthy I was able to get a sense of his soul– George W Bush

How fast is the news, now?

Breaking and bombastic Analysis is anal Thinking is tiring How do we grab a pussy And type at the same time?

Self actualize Pour One cup at a time Lightning inside our cortex Our attention is a commodity Our brain cells particles for electronic participation In ancient Japan, pouring tea Was a process An acknowledgement that time Is for negotiation

Ten years ago I stopped using my cell phone Now I am lost Disconnected Distant Detached So far all your tweets I’ve had to read From second hand sources Like MSNBC NBC National Broadcast Company They gave you your big break The world was your apprentice Your oyster Now the same Company Is crying foul Saying you are a monster A media concoction Post-modern Frankenstein

What if tea could just end The senate investigations What if tea could just end All the fake news What if tomorrow you suddenly and inexplicably Stopped tweeting.