What The Fuck Is Some Poetry Gonna Do?

What the fuck is some poetry gonna do?  Gonna move me?  Gonna move you?  Move you to what?  Step on and step up?  Step out and dive in?  What the fuck is some poetry gonna do?

Words are the source of life.  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  But if your words don’t become flesh then what the fuck is some poetry gonna do?

So I been reading bout these revolutionary cats – Nikki Giovanni, Langston Hughes, Etheridge Knight – They say poetry is a reflection of the moment, they say its what we’ve seen in and been given by those around us.  If this poem is what the people around me have been giving me, someone put this poem in a brown flaming bag and drop it on a doorstep because this is one shitty joke.  What the fuck is some poetry gonna do?

The more words change, the more the ghetto stays the same.  Crack kills, dollar bills, Asses shakin, homeboys fakin, flags flyin, children cryin ‘cause they childhood cut short after they been given fleshly babies instead of baby dolls to dream about.  What the fuck is some poetry gonna do?  It ain’t gonna feed a starving baby, or sing it to sleep in in nurturing arms.  It sure won’t move that burrito from your plate to your mouth.  Shit, even though this poem is hot, it ain’t even gonna heat up your cup o’ Noodles.

Is this poem gonna connect you to me?  Is this poem gonna equally reproportion the number of colored children in the CPS system?  Is this poem gonna teach mothers how to love their children in a way that lets kids know love doesn’t come from the back of a hand, or the back of a head?  This poem won’t make men with children become fathers.  This poem isn’t funding education systems, training students with real life skills, reinforcing positive protective factors, or encouraging teens to abstain from a fucked up life.  What the fuck is some poetry gonna do?

Between individual and institutional racism, We don’t need drug and alcohol education; We need edukators well prepared to lead our youth to think for themselves.  But this poem can’t plan a lesson. Poetry won’t wrap its strong arms around you after the hard days and tell you its gonna be alright.  This poem won’t tell you what is important to you.  What the fuck is some poetry gonna do?

IS this poem gonna build you your own courthouse, beach house, whore house, dog house, waffle house, crack house, full house, lake house, Maybe a house of blues, or even a house of cards. No.  What the fuck is some poetry gonna do?

write legislation to restructure the monopolies in county jails, This poem won’t correspond with your beloved inmate, it won’t make your court appointed lawyer work any harder, it won’t let the DA see your sons case in a different light.  It won’t pardon you or the judge/guard for the seventy seventh time.  It won’t sing the blues or gospel til you smile and feel better.  It won’t kick your addiction to crack, gambling, alcohol, women, men, porn, or yourself.  What poem ever jumped off the page and fixed a damned thing?  What the fuck is some poetry gonna do?

Nothing.  You are.

You need to be warned.

On days when I can’t help it, there

seems to be this…

this…

Smile

stapled to my face.

I don’t think it is an accident but

I don’t know where it came from,

or why it insists on staying on my face.

I’ve tried to hide it

in a forest of facial hair,

in my pocket, or

on a necklace around my neck and under my shirt collar.

As a bookmark.

Once I tried to fold it up and stuff it in my sock like a boy with money but no pockets.

That was really uncomfortable.

Some people tell me to

wipe it off my face,

But no matter how much I wash, the

Smile’s still there.

I tried clamping each upturned corner

under the force of an index finger and thumb print

to yank and stretch the smile into a frown.

I tried opening both palms and

Dragging them down full cheeks to smear the smirk, but

Each time it seems a viral eruption of laughter

Pollutes the air, so I stopped.

I didn’t want to infect others.

Sometimes it happens while children play.

I think they think

I’m making funny faces at them.

Their joy pricks and tickles my cheeks turning

A stubbled desert into a lush valley with

Peaks that won’t abide.

Or a wave to ride, pushing pavement aside, I smile

Wild, tumultuous smiles at everyone.

They aren’t tame, but

They’re good.  Smiles

Are security. There is peace without violence.

A quiet, calming embrace

on your face.

Now you with the drap and stony visage,

I don’t mean to give the wrong impression.

I don’t want you to think I have

feelings for you

But I don’t want you to think I have no feeling toward you.

I smile at you to say,

“You are a person. I recognize your humanity

I recognize you in this moment. Hello

in this moment.” I need you

to know you are alive.  You

Need me to know I am alive.

The light inside me greets the light inside you.

This is why you smile back,

Or look puzzlingly at the odd shape between my nose and chin.

So store clerks operating registers, anyone waiting tables, if you are driving and I am walking by, if you are walking and we are crossing paths, if you hide behind sunglasses thinking maybe I won’t see your eye contact through the shade, callous neighbors, former students, greeters at Wal-Mart, friend or foe, even the person in the mirror be warned:

Sometimes I smile at everyone.

I’m told nothing in this life is free.  I disagree.  You see, I believe whatever you be – rather wee or thee or he or she – none matters when we pen words like scree on a de/tour from our restrictions literature forces down our throats on chaos versus organization to please the masses into general thematic plans set in place by people who need who thrive who abide in contradiction. For those who call yours “wrong,” “erroneous,” “incorrect,” or “poor” must never have had a luscious forbidden forkful of Triple layer Chocolate Mousse Cheesecake before dinner.  They belong to a cult who never smeared a digit along the side of a brownie bowl to gather as much raw, rich gooey goodness left behind by the rest of the world.  Feared or forgotten.  A fullness that rolls out over the tongue – like words – that finished products cannot articulate. Raise up your tasty language to announce to the world they are about to receive a face full of recalcitrant chocolate verbage, full-faced and ashamed but ever so delicious they will (secretly) want it again and again.

Free writing from the cage of the 113-page political agendas, Free writing from the stage of , Free writing from the rage of , Free writing from the wage of , Free writing from the page “return to sender  – to be lived concurrently as the enactment of your own imagination.

I am

Free from limitation.  Free from punctuation, capitalization, discrimination, socialization, Halted only by my own imagination.  If I wanna use a semicolon, fuck it; I’m gonna do it.  Who knows how to use those anyway.  I put ‘em all throughout this poem; what bitch. If I wanna capitaliZe the ‘z’ midword, even though the Microsoft man tries to imprison my thoughts with corrections and alterations, I drag my middle finger across the scroll pad to declare “This is writing is FREE!! Change back to … whatever.  I’ll spell it how I want.”

Red lines, green lines

Free righting.  I evol to free right.  It screams of creation.  Like God, its writing on  a dark palate the newness, the freshness, a light on nothingness.  White paint on a black wall.  Subversive beyond repair.  Under the skin, under your shirt.  I long to create words on a page like keys on a piano; slamming and sliding, slinking across to pronounce, catharsis of the soul, pouncing on the strings and breaking fingers too the tune of the Holy Spirit.  Klsdfklasdasdkl;saklasl;jkkljaklj;asdfskldsdkla; fklsd sakl;djslkjasl;kkl;sdjsal;kdjdjklas;sdfhjklasjfdajkhgjfsdfghjks;aifludktytrxcyugihojdjhfaushfiusdkl;fgjhsdsdkljdsjklsdl;kksdjeojeiojsl;dkn svnvklsdieioijols;dlsnmvvdkhjsiohslkkxncvjkldijoewop;l’zlnvjkndlv;klsl;ksdlksioheknjvkl;xkl;jdfkhsdhjknvklxkldjsdkf;heiohgklnxzl;alk;asoibdn lksljkjosi;joeijknddknlsdvklnsdvklndfjkdsfiodfjknfnsdfpjojsdklsdfsdaoihsadewknjdfbhbuihdfjkerjvdfjklsddklnsdfoisdfkl;ndfgdf;il

Gotta tell you bout these bears erybody calls gummy,

You can get em from your pops, you can get em from your mummy,

All you gotta do is let em know you want some-y.

They don’t make a lotta noise but they a bag full of funny.

Bite off they head, stick em on a new tummy.

Don’t be a dummy; go get some g bears.

All the homies want em, they be beggin me to shares,

Po-po try to rob me, they be shootin off they flares,

Road block won’t stop me cuz I’m stepping like stairs,

Up to the next level, take a look of theres.

I know what your thinking, it just ain’t fair –

Kstizzle’s rhymes, they just so rare.

Back to them tasty, snacky, bouncy g bears.

Open up my mouf n pop em on in.

We’re so close, I love em like kin.

[sing to the tune of  we are family, I got all my sisters with me]          we are family, mama papa baby gummy.

That’s when I saw goldi sneaking in her yellow locks,

Quiet like a ninja, creepin in her crocs

Sneaking through the window so I pelted her with rocks (or busted out my gloc)

I said “these aint for you, leave me alone,

Don’t touch my bears, they is my own.”

By the time I finally got her out of my home,

I didn’t much realize, she stole all my chrome –

24 inch rims, diamond plated grill,

I caint make this up, this story’s fo real.

When I turned around them bears was bouncing all over.

Had to get some more so I sold my range rover.

I got it bad; they come in all colors

Chewy n tasty, I’ll never get sober.

Do you hear what I’m saying, this aint no fake stuff,

Hit my knees praying cuz I can’t get enough,

Reach in my pockets, nothing but FLUFF.

Holla’d at the wolf, Homie can I get some luv,

Started talkin’ mess, he huff and he puff,

He just be frontin’, fulla hot airs,

His story all about pigs, he got no g bears.

(fade out while repeating) Bears, bears, g bears

I hear what you’re saying, bro;

You are a lone soldier.

Can’t no body take your pride, can’t no body hold you down.  Oh no, you gotta keep on movin’.  From fight to fight.  From couch to couch.  From girl to girl.  Not woman to woman though; ‘cause no real woman gonna play those juvenile games, or mess around with juvenile gangs, like the one you claim.  What color was it?  Blue, or red, or Black? Or white.  Who cares.  You are a lone soldier.

A lone soldier with one hell of a weapon.  Eradicating as an AK, terminal like that first taste of crack.  Your anger is a natural disaster, an infectious torrent destroying the lives around you, past on so they can destroy the lives of people they once loved. Speaking of love, you’ll be surprised when I bleed, but it won’t be from the piece you squeeze, rather I’ll give you my kidney so you’ll can have a piece of me, how about a piece of my mind, to let you know in kind, the rhyme I find is whole, not benign like the cracker jack smack you flapped in the corner when you timed out.  Like a kid pretending to be Bruce Lee, fighting out of imitation because that’s all you’d ever seen, but since your moves were cheap, that didn’t keep you from getting hurt when you skinned your knee, you didn’t just cry, you weep still – don’t lie, I know its real.  I’ve been there.  Spitting off verbalized bullets of fears at anyone, bullets that cut and run like the tears carving hollow canyons down through your stoned/, hardened, emotionless mask trying so desperately cover that salty taste and weld on a face of indignant disobedience for every teacher, principal, officer, store clerk, neighbor, gramma, lover, aunt, uncle, mailman, gangsta, bully, friend, homeboy, homegirl, girlfriend, homeboy’s girlfriend, preacher, mother, father, Savior.  Who cares you’re a lone soldier?

You should know, my weapon is bigger than your weapon, if you know what I mean… but maybe you don’t know what I mean because all you’ve ever seen is a hate and anger on your team, and that makes me wanna scream from the top of my lungs to the depths of your soul, like creole, call it Cajun cause you been ragin’ so long, nobody wants to hear that song, I know.  So grab your bong, and hide away; or move along and hide your shame; OR step up and become something tougher than yourself maybe redefine wealth or maybe recreate health… care in America, Mr. Future President.  Can you read what I spelt?  It’s a new word, take notes.  I’m not the teacher, just a classmate showing the ropes.  This is how you spell survive – L – O – V – E.  But who cares you’re alone, Soldier?

A lone soldier has one dangerous prayer.  For years you been praying for the Unknown to make something be grown, say a rose that grows from concrete leaving cracks in the street like the one you paved on your heart so heavy it lost its feeling from every time your fists greet another jaw or cheek bone or teeth thrown from lips.  Another chance blown, standing proud in your place, getting past in the race.  Proud of yourself?  The scars on his face are not from you or knives or knuckles, hold your chuckles, he hates himself like a child hates belt buckles, slung by old men wishing for back when they were lone soldiers too, who, might choose something different for themselves, break the cycle, start a revival of men who hate hate and love their child.  But that didn’t happen for that solitary cap’tn.  He took the easy way out, or should we say in – incarcerated, inebriated, incapacitated, infected, incited, inflamed, insane, intimidated, intoxicated, invalid, invincible, more like invisible, in between a rock and a hard place.  Now you’ve looked into the crystal ball to see what you could be.  Feeling me?  No, feel again.  Reach deep in these wounds, put your hand in my side.  It’s for you that I die.  And I’ll do it again, and again.  I care that you’re alone, Soldier.

Since you’re still swinging, let me hit you with this word.  I’m not saying change who you are; but do you know who you are?  So some thug said something derogatory about your mama.  So what?  Your mama had people talking mess before you were ever a wet spot on your daddy’s pants/dreams, and she got along just fine.  Just cause you wanna feel some power or pain to check your pulse or rid tired soul of numbness, don’t blame your actions on others.  At least call it what it is.  Your anger is a defense weaponism, a pathological condition.  For the sake of humanity, I know you’re not a fan of me, but what you’re doing is insanity. So keep pullin’ up your shirt, and show us the only hard thing about you.  Or do the hardest thing in life – lay it down.  Live for someone else.  That’s where life gets tough.  Selfishness is easy, kid games like Parcheesi .  Wanna be a soldier? Learn to die that others might live.  Love somebody.  Hell, love everybody.

We meet in ice cream shops, and coffee shops, and burrito shops.  Often adorned in the robes of these local favorites as if to stick it to “the man”– HEB, Nicki’s Swirl Shop, Sharky’s Burritos, Texas Rangers, AHS, but occasionally a sharp dressed button down shirt, just because you can.

Hey Kyle, w..w..wat u doin’?  Where u ben?  Guess wat.  I.. I.. I.. I got girlfrwen’/guwlfran/job/new phon.

I don’t have to ask if others know you, they greet you as kin when you walk in.  I might be offended at the way friends treat you, but you have become one of us, a friend, an expected and beloved piece of a beautiful and oddly shaped puzzle.  We laugh.  We fight.  We serve each other food.  We wrestle.  We cry.  We find creative ways to wake the other from a nap, careful not to press too hard lest one gets a little too angry.  We use each other’s phones – well mostly you use mine and I steal yours to get you up to follow me to the car so we can leave.  Solid.  Simple.  Shared. Certain I’ll see you on the flip side.

You stuttered unabashed or aware that we were listening, nonetheless became a defender, declaring your rich relationships with each of us.  “Kyle work for Se(re)nity House.”  Pause.  “Aaron…Aaron’s my bes’ friend.” Quiet. “Wes, he my bes’ friend. An… an… an… an he cook with me.”  Now we’ve neglected a fully engaging movie to anticipate the next declaration.  We burrowed our snickering and uncontrollable school-age giggles in elbow crevices and t-shirts collars and blankets corners, or poorly behind fingers not really eclipsing the upturns of situationally prohibited smiles.

Though our conversations about the past are ambiguous and muddled at best, I find freedom with you, as you take me for who I am.  You care not about my wrinkles, iq, dance moves, book choice, ninja rolls, pocket content, dietary restrictions, music collection or abilities to cook duck flambé.

As you are a rotund, chocolate, jovial yoda, I seek your knowledge, Teacher.  Call me grasshopper and impart your ways – persisting with ninja speed, the Viking guffaw, teddy bear intimacy, dogged loyalty, and the willingness of the morning sun.

Always loving, always there, always giving, always receiving, always laughing, always looking for a way to get from one place to another, always in the right place at the right time… snoring, always a friend, always able to eat one more bite.  But never gullible enough to let me snag a secret spoonful.

The Spirit of Abilene, what would this town be if not you?  You are the mascot, the mile marker, the meanderer, and the martyr.  I would ask for your autograph but its etched onto my heart, and I think somewhere on our kitchen table.  Thanks T.  Keep keepin’ it more real than we really get.  We love you, brother.

Some may read that as a failed attempt at transportation.  Truth be told, he played unwittingly into my master plan. Some time wandering the dusty, smog-filled back alleys…cough, I mean… crowded, loud… cough, I mean… chaotic, crumbling… cough, I mean…   …  … pristine, ideal streets of the Egyptian capital city did indeed (despite my sarcasm) act as odd, faithful teacher in the art of foot jockey appreciation.  Billboards begin to make more and less sense.  New shops and restaurants simply appear.  Values rearrange and people must be engaged or ignored.

Dr. Martin Luther King

Mother Teresa

Mahatma Gandhi

Desmond Tutu

Nelson Mandela

Muhammad Yunnus

Albert Schweitzer

Bob Dylan

Bob Marley

Playing for Change

Chewing on that confession, another ingredient added to the stewing rumination: If I have tasted forgiveness, I first must have swallowed my pride.

Food for thought.