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