A Poem About My Rights

Ain’t nothing that I’m gonna do
And you can’t ever make me
Blackmail, email,
I ain’t never talkin’ to thee

Why you gotta add this pressure
To an already heavy heart?
Stop it please; I’ve had enough
I’m gonna fall apart!

Ain’t as easy as Sunday mornin’
Not peaceful as the night
Don’t worry—get off your high horse
So?—The bruise is from a fight

Why you cryin’ huge-ass tears
All fallin’ off your face?
You don’t know the half of it
So let me find my pace!

Ain’t ready to cross the finish line
How dare you push me through?
No trophy won, no medal gained
I ain’t doin’ this for you!

Why I wanna keep inside?
Some things are just for here.
Go away; leave me alone
Don’t focus on my fear.

Ain’t you getting’ off my back?
Forget you ever seen this.
Cut my strings off of your heart
For me don’t give a piss!

Why you even bother
Makin’ me part of your life?
Leave it be; and please fuck off
You got your own damn strife!

Ain’t I gonna do somethin’?
And you can’t ever know
Witnessing—you call tonight
To me—another blow.

1-15-08

(Lately inspired by June Jordan’s 1989 poem, “Poem About my Rights")

In writing my critical essay on Stephen Crane’s poem, “A Man Said to the Universe,” I was inspired to compose the following:


An open letter to Love: April 21, 2008

Love,
Are you the meaning of life? If I asked the universe to help me find you, what would her answer be? You puzzle me . . . muzzle me . . . and yet I still return. Why? Because are you not the nature of existence?
When I think of you, I hear every word you’ve ever spoken in one incomprehensible sentence—the sentence of death? Why? I see you as the scar on my soul, your image seared to the core of my being . . . my existence. I fear you while seeking your name: Love! Love! I call. Do you answer? I exist! I am here! Do you feel obligated to me?
You’ve created in me a cove in which I cannot remain. So many restrictions! Inhibitions! Contradictions! Why?
Love, do you hate me? I must know before I am born; are you the meaning of life?
Skeptically,
a fetus

Haiku. They’re simple in form yet complex in meaning. It’s because of their seeming simplicity that they’re often disregarded as masterful wastes of time. But to the poet they convey everything that ever needs to be said; for the most intricate thoughts imaginable can be articulated perfectly, magically, beautifully through three lines of verse. What cannot be said in seventeen syllables is not a strong enough emotion in the first place. A haiku communicates beyond the language of literature. It may sound ludicrous, but haiku express what cannot be said in words. They’re short so we can glance at them and instantaneously feel overcome with the ardent ambiguities or potent passions implicit in their auras. Sometimes a glance is all we need to understand. “Sometimes irrationality is the only clear, healthy choice.” We’re finished before we’ve begun.

Where do I begin
With seventeen syllables?
And where do I end?

jesus-christy, crusty capitalism

christ in concrete
immobilized,
immortalized,
enshrined in the stone-chiseled heart of Industrialization.
Automations,
we pray AMEN to McDonalds and Wal-Mart
to our father who art in Starbucks.
we GENUFLECT at the gas pump
eat COMMUNION of capital punishment
entreat the Almighty Dollar to save us from the American Delusion.
dream on, dream on
of a day father don’t drop down offa his tree
climb from his cross to take a swipe at me
FATHERSONANDHOLYGHOST
christ at worship’s whipping post.

4/7/08