12.09.08
this poem is a metaphor.
a meta-formality of postmodern poetry.
this poem is written from a third-person point of view,
but a first-person state of mind.
[that second person interjects sometimes.]
this poem is a form of the verb “to be”:
irregular and imperfect, yes, but also the
foundation of all characterization.
this poem is, was, were, and will be.
not will.I.am but will.I.be.
like will I be your soul’s cryptographer,
or its translator?
will I be the Darfurian mother at yet another son’s death-bedside,
or the UN bureaucrat who says “it’s not a genocide”?
will i be the effigy you noosed from a tree,
or the innocence the burning image stole from me?
will i be the truth i know is real,
or only what I want to feel?
this poem is linguistic decapitation,
a guillotine for verbal thieves
who ransacked the vaults of congressional testimony,
who told us mistakes were made and pipes were laid.
Poem drops the blade,
painlessly killing those who stainlessly stole language’s innocence.
this poem is a slave master.
it forces words to work in ways they weren’t meant to
leaves them out in the scalding sun without pay,
harvesting the seeds of cotton dictionaries and tobacco thesauruses.
and if any try to make their own meaning for their verbal lives,
it meets them with a shotgun at the gate.
this poem wrote its own story,
sprinted down the streets of North Philly at 3 am looking for its drugged-out mother,
ran through the alleyways of Kensington to escape the gunblasts from the lyrical 9,
boarded up its windows in Germantown to avoid facing the fact
that when bullets are flying time is abstract.
this poem sees itself in you.
this poem is strength and weakness.
margaret said, “a word after a word
after a word is power,”
but in the bell tower of liberty where poetry cracked the gong of deception,
our linear conception of english vernacular deconstructs itself.
this poem is a murderer.
it held its gun to the head of a pen.
its hand shook.
the pen begged.
mercy.
but it had broken its promise.
to only write that which is right.
the poem fired ten shots.
the pen blots and bursts.
spilling the ink.
that formed america’s unthinking.
the ink slides down the table.
covers the granite with a thin black layer.
a coat of arms that only the CIA bore.
this poem will now deconstruct spelling.
here goes.
S-P-E-L-L-I-N might seem incomplete. but come on G,
you know what’s complete is never discreet,
like the broken beat
that beats faster than the ecstasy-laden Bourbon Street raves
called human hearts.
this poem may seem depressing.
but as we reach the end of our poetic Journey,
remember that i
don’t stop believin
in the power of our vernacular to evolve.
but it’s up to us; we were naturally selected.
we are poetically expected to review the disconnected.
those disrespected by this right-brained world.
we are looking for internal links between
letters and words,
words and phrases,
phrases and life sentences.
because life is the jury who sentences us,
who reviews the facts and chooses the truth.
but i… i refuse to give in,
refuse to abuse this beautiful language to judge
those who have yet to find their artistic muse.
this poem is not a metaphor!
this poem transcends paper.
this poem transcends mind.
this poem is as real as I am.
this poem is real because I am.
this poem is life, liberty, and the pursuit of poetry.
this poem is not a metaphor!
i am a metaphor!
this poem is me!
so grab that blood red pen.
this poem has only just begun!