*My attempt at a sort of slam-poetry, free-form whatever. Better (in my opinion) if read aloud. Saul Williams, Michel Foucault, Blackalicious, Pablo Neruda and Zapatista inspired. Enjoy...?:
Why are there never tanks on Pennsylvania avenue?
No tectonic quakes to stain the White House with our dissident hues.
No words to greet dead soldiers, freeze dried and plastic wrapped,
travel-safe in their banner-draped sarcophagi of plexiglas.
Why are there never any question marks tagged
on fluttering, Made-in-China American flags?
No petitions signed, then resigned, then underlined,
then dropped from the skies--oh! populist decries--
to carpet bomb the hypocrites and metaphorically kill
the entrenched conservative bourgeoisie on capital hill?
Is the silence of our voices an act of democratic will,
silent citizens in what they tell us is the most free nation...still?
Or have they simply found better ways of oppressing me,
of dislocating and frightening, of quieting and deafening me?
Force feeding me what I have been conditioned to crave,
then withholding the fix just to pull on my chain...
this brave new world, puppeted by bible-preaching, capitalist Cains
with prices at the pump to mirror third-world pain.
But it’s all part of the mathematics, the forgotten calculations
of Archamedes on midnight, bathtub acid trips.
The inevitable progression of a conquering class unable to grasp
the inescapable reality of its own heinous past.
The cycle of ignorance bred, and inbred,
from a history tilled with the fertilizer with uncountable, unnamed dead,
a story that cannot be acknowledged or whispered
without tearing and ripping at the salted, gaping blisters,
or without dismantling the fables of imperialist glories--
those we offer for the fiction of All-Amerian bedtime stories--
constructed of the bodies and the skulls and bones
of those once-proud then persecuted indigenous foes
those very ones who, in irony’s greatest twist,
we denied the basic dignity to even exist,
but who preserved a communal disposition within spiritual resolve
that our industrialized world has since sought to belittle and dissolve.
The plastic separation of a man from his soul,
the great artificial gods that we now ingest to fill the hole.
The blindness of open eyes in a pitch dark emptiness,
illuminated only by the sterile guise of petty fluorescence.
We are proletariat taxidermy lining the walls,
filling the streets, decorating the halls
But for elite dinner parties is our persecution recalled
a washed-up, sold-out version of all
that our forefathers were too idealistic or naive to sense:
that human greed consumed faster than love could repent.
That a racist, splintering ideology sold more papers.
That just stereotyping and labeling our enemies makes us feel safer.
That bombs in far away lands help us sleep at night.
And that, in the interests of national security, any amount of violence fits
the established paradigm.
Its sickening, at times, but consuming at others,
as the optimist inside me continues to struggle and stutter.
I type words for the sheer sake of hearing a simple sound
of the thoughts and ideas of resistance drumming aloud.
I am not numb, I am living, all seeing, all knowing
because I choose instead the path shrouded in forests,
the river still flowing.
Have we forgotten the sun and the yellow tinted dawn?
the redness of the sunset as it surrenders it’s pawn
to the queen of the night with its full white moon
and the fact that that morning is always soon.
Its a great time to be alive and a better time to be living,
lest we overlook and ignore those subtle changes of the seasons.
Lest we sit when we should stand or walk without asking questions
or ever become complacent or of a submissive complexion.
I find hope in the simplest of respites from the world.
Within myself, within the tossing, tangled love of this girl.
The rise and fall of her breast, the touch of her skin,
the beauty and blessing of falling in love with a friend.
There is a fire, for sure, and it stokes my coals
and drive me mad as it consumes my soul
with a passion for being at the front of the fight
and to love and be loved hasta los plenos de la night.
My friends, my friends, it’s a good time to be alive.
from Paraguay,
little hupo
Why are there never tanks on Pennsylvania avenue?
No tectonic quakes to stain the White House with our dissident hues.
No words to greet dead soldiers, freeze dried and plastic wrapped,
travel-safe in their banner-draped sarcophagi of plexiglas.
Why are there never any question marks tagged
on fluttering, Made-in-China American flags?
No petitions signed, then resigned, then underlined,
then dropped from the skies--oh! populist decries--
to carpet bomb the hypocrites and metaphorically kill
the entrenched conservative bourgeoisie on capital hill?
Is the silence of our voices an act of democratic will,
silent citizens in what they tell us is the most free nation...still?
Or have they simply found better ways of oppressing me,
of dislocating and frightening, of quieting and deafening me?
Force feeding me what I have been conditioned to crave,
then withholding the fix just to pull on my chain...
this brave new world, puppeted by bible-preaching, capitalist Cains
with prices at the pump to mirror third-world pain.
But it’s all part of the mathematics, the forgotten calculations
of Archamedes on midnight, bathtub acid trips.
The inevitable progression of a conquering class unable to grasp
the inescapable reality of its own heinous past.
The cycle of ignorance bred, and inbred,
from a history tilled with the fertilizer with uncountable, unnamed dead,
a story that cannot be acknowledged or whispered
without tearing and ripping at the salted, gaping blisters,
or without dismantling the fables of imperialist glories--
those we offer for the fiction of All-Amerian bedtime stories--
constructed of the bodies and the skulls and bones
of those once-proud then persecuted indigenous foes
those very ones who, in irony’s greatest twist,
we denied the basic dignity to even exist,
but who preserved a communal disposition within spiritual resolve
that our industrialized world has since sought to belittle and dissolve.
The plastic separation of a man from his soul,
the great artificial gods that we now ingest to fill the hole.
The blindness of open eyes in a pitch dark emptiness,
illuminated only by the sterile guise of petty fluorescence.
We are proletariat taxidermy lining the walls,
filling the streets, decorating the halls
But for elite dinner parties is our persecution recalled
a washed-up, sold-out version of all
that our forefathers were too idealistic or naive to sense:
that human greed consumed faster than love could repent.
That a racist, splintering ideology sold more papers.
That just stereotyping and labeling our enemies makes us feel safer.
That bombs in far away lands help us sleep at night.
And that, in the interests of national security, any amount of violence fits
the established paradigm.
Its sickening, at times, but consuming at others,
as the optimist inside me continues to struggle and stutter.
I type words for the sheer sake of hearing a simple sound
of the thoughts and ideas of resistance drumming aloud.
I am not numb, I am living, all seeing, all knowing
because I choose instead the path shrouded in forests,
the river still flowing.
Have we forgotten the sun and the yellow tinted dawn?
the redness of the sunset as it surrenders it’s pawn
to the queen of the night with its full white moon
and the fact that that morning is always soon.
Its a great time to be alive and a better time to be living,
lest we overlook and ignore those subtle changes of the seasons.
Lest we sit when we should stand or walk without asking questions
or ever become complacent or of a submissive complexion.
I find hope in the simplest of respites from the world.
Within myself, within the tossing, tangled love of this girl.
The rise and fall of her breast, the touch of her skin,
the beauty and blessing of falling in love with a friend.
There is a fire, for sure, and it stokes my coals
and drive me mad as it consumes my soul
with a passion for being at the front of the fight
and to love and be loved hasta los plenos de la night.
My friends, my friends, it’s a good time to be alive.
from Paraguay,
little hupo