Plunder

Sebastian Vrancx [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Seething greed
like platelets
of blood, thick mud
like chains and bracelets,

chokers and gauntlets,
mesmerized and haunted,

too many serpents
wrapped around

innocent harlots.

Wish and wash
the basement,
the lowest place
to place it.

You slither
like a rattler
like running with news
to the tattler.

I move smooth
and jump finesse.
No stress,
I'm blessed with jest.

I joke about
the bedlam,
the pain you cause
for children.

The days you raise and fill them
with fear geared up for millions

of others like them.
They obey
if not

you strike them.

And I just sit in wonder
how people help you with your plunder. 

The Day

Charles-Édouard de Beaumont [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

It was the warm day
that brought me here.
I heard the leaves in the trees
and saw the wind so clear.

Just when I was on the brink
of a big mistake,
I could see it so clear
and it shook me awake.

The story
is inside of us so deep.
We would see it
but when it started, we went to sleep.

The same way I saw you
in the dust and debris,
it was the same way
we were trying to be free.

I realized, all of a sudden
that I love you,
because when you see me, you smile,
and when I see you, I smile too.

It's not the first time
there was a love that couldn't be.
Do you really think
that changes anything for me?

I still miss you
when you are away.
I still want to see you
every day.

I still don't know
what will be.
I still want both of us
to be free.

Colonialism

By Bain News Service (copyright register, photo taken by unnamed Bain employee) (http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ggbain.05019) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

They don't affect me
with identity they put on me.
It doesn't get to me
or the energy.

I keep it under,
to keep the wonder,
to keep myself
from being torn asunder.

I turn their hate away,
every provocation,
all the hate and the way they blunder
on the way to my annihilation.

I'm their nightmare,
when they dream of me.
I was produced from the lynchings they performed
on every cell and seam of me.

My cells are colonized,
split and divided.
Strung up and nailed down,
controlled to be derided.

I've confided
in every confidant and comrade,
to paint this town red
like the Siege of Leningrad

I shake them violently,
but secretly and silently.
Like Nat Turner giving answers to his owners
and their property.

They're on top of me
but not inside of me.
I'm still absorbed by
something that's abiding me.

I know they hate me,
but that's the way they are.
They came to colonize,
I came to raise the bar.

But not the way they do,
their standards are related to
who they will obliterate,
it could be me or could be you.

But I confiscate,
everything they instigate,
like the way they perpetrate
lies that vacillate and oscillate.

I take it all away
and put it in its place,
the way they subjugate,
every class and every race.

I take disgrace
and turn it into roses.
I make movement
out of posturing and poses.

I've taken trash
that you seem to want to heap on me,
and turned it into fancy works
to counteract everything you keep from me.

You don't get it
and you never will.
I shoot to live,
you shoot to kill...

Fraudulent

By kwankwan (http://www.flickr.com/photos/kwankwan/193384939/) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

I give up
like a man who's had enough.
You can put up
anything in my face, I use grace, I'm off the cuff
against a fist, a gun, a knife,
it's like my life
is on the tip of the blade,
I had enough of the stress and strife.
Like I'm exhausted,
like it just cost too much
to give a fuck what you think
of how I lost it.
I get accosted,
I get embossed in
a matrix of fake milligrams
of vitamin monsters.
I'm on the roster,
the teeter totter,
topsy turvy
from the quake of workplace mobsters.
It's through my veins,
it's like a lane
with Mack trucks on each side
of my electrical brain

waves.

There's no direction
but clear perception,
it's like explosions
in the midst of resurrection.
There's no conception,
no middle management.
I destroy what's in the middle
where the damage is.

It's like they're vapid,
I go flaccid
when introduced
to their hate and itchy fabric.
I don't need static,
I don't need magic,
I don't need to be told
what I know is automatic.

Like Crispus Attucks,
I wonder why
I fight on the side
of people planning my demise.
They lie and try to spy
the Eye of Horus,
but looking through
a pair of pupils too porous.

I got my fill,
I know the deal,
I could be killed
by the red or the blue pill.
I want the red
and when I'm dead,
it will be death rites
for that mess they put in my head.
Is it me?
Is it you?
Is it true
that we should do
what we're supposed to do?

Human History

By Baker131313 (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Sacco and Vanzetti,
Guthrie and Bulosan,
four good men
a long time gone.
Then there's you and me
on a quest to be free.
I just want to let you know
there's no other place I'd rather be.

Because it seems
there's no end to tyranny,
and no end to those who fear you
and fear me.
And no end
to the quest to be free.
If there is an end,
well, I just can't see

it.

Well, I imagine
they ended those four men.
Will we end that way
or just begin again?
One sure way
is to end this trend
and find a new way
around the way they contend.

Four good men
and then there's you and I.
Two good people
trying to find a way to get by.
One wretched system
that make a strong man cry.
One good reason
to ask the question, Why?

When the Mind Revolts

By Bryan Tong Minh (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons

All of their references
are from movies and books
That's why when they see me
they give me funny looks
Because I'm an original
inside and out
They want certainty
and I fill them full of doubt
Some of them only do
what the pastor says so
I harvest crops like my kin did
from Salinas to Fresno
That's a real reference
not movies or theory,
but real lives, real people,
real ways to see clearly
They want to get complicated
and wordy,
but I obliterate their path
like I'm Jiddu Krishnamurti
I feel no need to be clever
with a Hollywood reference
and I don't treat any authority
with fearful deference
I was raised up
by a snap of the tongue,
a back lash for my back slash,
the way brown men were hung
That double entendre
is too much for their ignorance
I'm Carlos Bulosan tied to the tree,
getting whipped for his innocence
But that's a remembrance
What's happening today?
Profile me for my looks?
No wonder you need to pray
Whether Karma or God
your actions have results
but there's no cause or effect
when the whole mind revolts

The Days I Found You

By Chmee2 (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC-BY-SA-2.5-2.0-1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5-2.0-1.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

I didn't expect to miss you
when I got there.
That place we used to go.
You're not there anymore.



It felt like you were
but still out of reach.
The booth, the bar stool,
the Sex on the Beach,



it was still there.



But where were you?



Those nights on the town
in a haze.
Those days I found you.



But where are you?



We held hands
like electric,
like vibrations of sound.
The dance, the town,



the days I found you.



You wanted to see me,
I wanted to see you.



I couldn't



past the days I found you.



The days and weeks
and months into years



going on



way past those days I found you.



Your number's in my phone
but I just sit there alone



gone



way past those days I found you.



The music in my ear
so sweet when you were near,



now just a melody
to remind me



of those days I found you.



The crowd round me cheer.



I sit in the booth
going nowhere



in that place I found you.