Poems Can't Revise - Thinking of Mike Brown and Ferguson, MO

As has been the case for most of you, I've been struggling with the death of Mike Brown. I can only imagine what his family and closest friends are going through. I've uploaded a video of a poem I just wrote trying to grapple with the feelings of loss and powerlessness. Below is the text if you prefer to ingest your poetry in written form. 

 

Poems Can’t Revise

Thinking About Mike Brown and Ferguson, Missouri

I can’t write this poem for you Mike.

Cause I’ve realized

poems

can’t

revise.

And no,

I won't say this poem

is for others,

future
others.

I can't write such an ignorant poem.

I can’t write a poem that can prevent

future, unarmed black men

from being killed

and I definitely

can’t write

a poem

that

can go

back in time

and

This poem is really about

a forty year old man

walking around

like a zombie

for days,

after

your

death,

crying

over a keyboard

trying to write
a poem
that
isn't

for

Is this a poem about survivor’s guilt?

I guess it is.

But that’s what happens

when you

write a poem

to a person

who you

can’t

It’s just that,

I wanna write you a poem.

A poem

that lifts

you off

the blacktop

and turns reality

into an awful dream,

cause that’s the poem you

The problem is Mike,

I just can't

write a poem

that can

do that.

Happiness

Around this time last year I wrote a post entitled Community.  I had attended the commitment ceremony of my dear family members G and T.  They chose to call it a "commitment ceremony" to avoid the patriarchal, homophobic connotations of a wedding.  I was asked to read a poem before they exchanged their vows to each other.  In honor of their one year anniversary, I've decided to share the poem I wrote for them, with all of you...

Happiness

We met him on a crowded city street in a non-descript city.

I can’t remember the day or year.

I just know that it was an autumn afternoon.

He said

“My name is Happiness, Happiness Santiago…

And the pleasure is all mine.”

He was half-Cuban, half Domican,

and was raised by Puerto Ricans in an Italian Neighborhood.

His smile was infectious, almost intoxicating.

“Yo Happiness, what’s good homie?”

A passerby yelled.

“Everything’s good my man.  I’m about to read a poem to my new friends” he said with a smile.

All of us laughed a little.

We had already been hooked.

“This poem is entitled the Auto-Biographical, Biography of Happiness Santiago.  It’s a love story for the most part. 

(And he screamed)

“Happiness”

It was one of those days, where everything lines up in the city.

The music from cars driving by move in step with

young people bopping their heads. 

The sun bounces from window to window

brightening the shade while the smells from

the various nearby eateries chose not to compete,

instead opting

to unify in the name of…

“I was born like y’all”

he continued. 

“I don’t think I need to explain, and everything else is history.  Like the essays of a wanderer with a full heart and warm mind. 

Breathing has been a pleasure from day one. From this very action

I’ve been brought to you. My purpose, to clarify the feelings that you’ve always understood in the far reaches of your sub-conscious, sub-zero recesses of the subway’s of the forgotten corners of your mind.  My heart’s been lifted to share the opportunity of your hopes and dreams.  Mine have been remembered in the reflections of the crystal ball’s you call your eyes.  I am a child playing on a jungle gym, running carelessly in the afternoon shade, not afraid to keep going until I collapse from the joy of satisfactory exhausted-ness.  And it’s obvious to me that you are no different.  In fact I can hear your heartbeats skipping double Dutch as we speak. 

“It’s important to note that I am not hiding.  That although I find it my personal mission to run through the wind while the river is running beside me, I am not running from anything.  I am flying towards my future and fully apart of the present.  As I look at what appears to be a tear building up in the outside corner of your left eye, I want to be clear. Make no mistake my brothers and sisters; I’ve seen some of the darkest moments that pupils could possibly bring into focus.  I never pretend differently.  I’m not frozen into submission by events that have already passed, implanting them, with my invitation, squarely in the center of my tomorrow.  I will have none of that.  And this is the only thing in life that I can control.  My lung capacity is temporary but my ability to carve a new path remains infinite as long as my name remains Happiness.”

We all soaked it in mesmerized by the words of a stranger, slightly embarrassed at our obvious vulnerability.

“I love all of you”

He said with enough conviction that it felt completely sincere.

“I love men and women and the more the merrier”

Each of us blushed at his clear lack of inhibition.

“I’m here right now with you my friends, aware of all of the complexities that make up the human existence.  Or at least as many aspects as I’ve been introduced to thus far. If I had only one sentence to say, merely a handful of words to share, I would say remember me.  I apologize if my thoughts come across as arrogant.  That is certainly not my intention.  It’s just that I am very certain that I am you.  And if my intuition is true than you will never forget yourself.  And you will cherish each other.  And if I never see you again, it won’t matter because I will be remembered in the beat of your heart, your reflection in the mirror, in the reaction of your cells as you raise your hand to touch your cheek.  Don’t worry anymore.  Because tomorrow is alive in this unique second and you are alive.  The same way you have always been.  I expect that it feels different but the difference lays in the possibilities, not in your present smiles.  Your light-heartedness is the consecutive addition of a million separate moments and they’ve convened with us on this afternoon at this intersection of concrete and flesh.  And we wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Each of us looked at each other and we realized the moment was about to end.  Our conditioning compelled us to try to hold on but our collective identity had already discarded expectations as afterthoughts.  It was if we were standing in front of a fire, except the flames were the mingling of identities on a city street corner. 

It took a second for us to notice that Happiness was already on his way.   He began to run and he yelled:

“Remember Happiness Santiago” as he jumped and gently kicked a concrete wall that propelled him towards the distance.  His light feet and curly hair were tattooed to the portraits in front of us, long after his presence was beyond our site…

I remember that day.  The day we met Happiness on a non-descript city street corner on a random autumn afternoon.  And I remind you to remember him too, not that you could have possibly forgotten.  It’s just that we have a handful of moments when time stands still and waits for us to choose our destination.  And I ask you to run through the wind and fly towards the future while fully involved in the present. 

And don’t forget Happiness because Happiness remembers you.

Attempting to Grieve

I don’t think anyone can comprehend what you meant to me as a child.

You were a Superhero.

In retrospect, it makes sense.

You were released from prison around the time

I started having coherent thoughts. 

My mother had an old chair and the back had fallen off.

It had an hour glass shape and I decided to use it as a canvass.

I remember drawing a picture of you wearing Adidas sneakers.

My mom must have gotten a chuckle out of my attempt.

I was never much of a visual artist. 

I don’t expect my drawing of you to

appear in a museum or gallery anytime soon.

But it wasn’t supposed to matter…

Because you were suppose to live forever.

When I received the text message,

I felt like a six year old.

I didn’t understand the words.

I asked for clarification.

Your death was confirmed.  

You see Lolita,

I’ve never once imagined a world that you weren’t living in.

I laid two parents to rest in my early twenties.

They were both admirers of you.

As difficult as it was to let them go,

it was something that I knew was inevitable,

even if it was earlier than expected.

As much as I loved my parents,

I knew they were mortals

and would eventually be forced 

to succumb to the same fate

as the rest of us.

You walked into congress with a gun and said

“I did not come here to kill,

I came here to die for Puerto Rico.”

You did not die that day because

you couldn’t be killed.

This became evident when you were released thirty years ago.

You roamed the island of Puerto Rico

 for most of my life,

a free woman.  

Who else could have accomplished such a feat?

Only a Superhero.

Rumor has it that RFK Jr once begged to meet you.

To think the progeny of the former Attorney General

would desire to meet you, 

when most politicians make a living these days

trying to scare us about people like you.

The truth is that most political leaders can’t understand true patriotism.

They can throw the names of George Washington 

and Thomas Payne around.

But they would never have the courage and conviction to defend this nation

the way you’ve fought for our little island. 

And that’s the problem.

Who is supposed to protect us now?

The capitalists have grown their

tentacles across our enchanted home.

But you were there to fight for us.

To stare them down,

daring them to take one more step,

to lay one more brick.

I assumed you would always be there. 

You would never abandon us and leave us mortals to defend ourselves.

Please come back to life Lolita. 

Please! This is not a funny prank.

What are we suppose to do?

Words can’t express the power

of the tears trapped behind my eyes at this very moment.

There is no way to explain the feeling inside me to

a stranger that has never heard of you,

but strike me dead if what I am about to say is wrong.

There are thousands of Puerto Ricans that feel exactly as I do,

who understand that you breathe rarefied air,

that know you could come back to life if you wanted to.

Perdóneme Doña  but I don’t know if we can go on without you.

I’m serious.

I might kill myself right now

if you don’t come back to us.

Please Doña

I’m begging you.

Please!

…Lo siento Lolita.

Please excuse my self-centered arrogance. 

I know that I’ve been way out of line.

I just never imagined that you wouldn’t be in this world,

standing as a shining example of grace,

strength and Puerto Rican Sovereignty.

Your loss is almost too much to bear. 

I understand that the struggle for liberation is in our hands now.

I realize that you’ve entrusted us with the mission to free Puerto Rico.

The first step in that journey will be protecting your legacy.

You're not Black, You're Puerto Rican

I wrote this one a while back and never edited it. I don't have time to do so now so I will just give it to you as is, your poem of the week:

“You’re not Black, you’re Puerto Rican”

The words of school children both black and white.

I’m Puerto Rican:
Rice and Beans Conga rhythms and Plantains

What if I declared myself to be Native American,
Maybe the kids would have said:
“Yes you are,
You are the descendants of Arawak people colonized by imperialists-“
and then again,
They probably would have said:
“You’re not Native American, you’re Puerto Rican”

Children’s words move in sharp contrast to the words of my white mother,

“You will always be Black”, Malcolm X said so.
But school children didn’t know Malcolm X in the eighties.

But they did know the word nappy and bestowed that designation on me
Hey “Nappy” they would say in the hall.
I wore my name on my head like a round dunce cap
Afro’s weren’t cool in the eighties
But I could remember the seventies
My father sported a black beret with an Afro hangin’ out the side and his skin was Black

One day he picked me up at my friend’s house,
Their father stared at mine,
They were white, my father was Black,
And so I was told that I couldn’t hang out with them kids anymore,
Their daddy didn’t want them hangin’ out with no nigger kids.
I guess he hadn’t noticed that my high yellow complexion and “Nappy” hair
Might be a sign of a dark skinned ancestry.
But then again
We weren’t Black, we were Puerto Rican.

Children’s words brought me to the barber shop
“Cut off my locks, I don’t wanna be called Nappy.”
My head was sheared like a lambs wool coat
And my spirit was domesticated like
A grooomed poodle
The truth is you can’t love being black
If you’re not black…

…I stared into the casket at my my father’s dead black face
My spirit traveled generations back in time and I saw
Africa
I met my great, great, great, great grandparents
In a dream,
They were shackled and dragged aboard boats
Extracted from their home and transplanted
To the island of Borikken,
AKA Puerto Rico,
They fled their so-called masters
And built a maroon called Loiza-
This was where my grandfather was born
And he spoke Spanish,
And he was blacker than most Black people.
I saw him board an airplane with
The same fear that his ancestors felt
In the middle passage-
He would come to know a new middle passage
On an airplane between San Juan and JFK
And live in a maroon called the South Bronx

History and Truth almost became clear to me
As I begun to understand myself and my history

I forgot that Confusion
Is always sitting around the corner,
Lurking in memories
A crafty theoretician,
Always armed with doubt
The ammunition of oppression,
Realizing that words can do more damage
Than fist or shackle or whip

My dream was interrupted –

As I slowly began to come to consciousness
I stared into the face of an African,
I believe he was my grandfather,
And he said to me…

“You’re not black, you’re Puerto Rican”

Another poem

This is part of a whole collection of poems I wrote about five years ago. Their sort of like Deep Thoughts by Victorio Reyes...

I love breathing air.
Not the act.
It’s actually kind of repetitive
Breathe in breathe out
and than I get paranoid and
wonder what would happen
If I forget to breathe.
Until I forget that I was worried
about forgetting to breathe air.
And then I love it again.

2008

Hey y'all,

So here is my most recent poem of the week. I actually wrote it in 2006 or so... It was pretty cool because I had written it and forgot about it. In 2008 I found it and literally had no recollection writing it. In fact if it wasn't for the fact that it was in my hand writing and exactly the type of thing that I would write, I would have thought someone else wrote it. Anyway I made some adjustments to it at the time and renamed it 2008. I guess I'm just ahead of my time.


2008

It’s been 9 years since Seattle
10 years since Jericho 98
7 years since the killer cops got free from their 41 bullets
8 years since millions screamed brick by brick wall by wall we’re
gonna free Mumia Abu Jamal.

I hope this hiccup of a movement isn’t over
Cops in riot gear, anarchist with bandana’s covering their faces,
People wreckin' shop from San Francisco to Brooklyn
Let me find out that the modern day protest era is already over,
Swallowed up by liberal former peace niks,
With a legitimate war to protest and democrats to endorse,

I remember the streets of Philadelphia during Y2K,
Food not bombs, the three-ring clown circus, and MOVE in Clark Park.
These images stand in contrast to the vote for Kerry pins
Brandished by protesters in NYC 2004
Tell me it’s not over,
Tell me I’m not condemned to here the new rallying cry of the left
“Vote for Hillary”
I don’t want to hear about Supreme Court justices,
And which candidate would send how many troops to war,

I want to hear about class war,
And the poor taking the fight to Greenwich, Connecticut,
to Fifth Avenue,
Taking it to the North Shore of Long Island.

Say it ain’t so.

Please don’t tell me that all I have to be happy about
is the mid-term elections and the hopes that the
lamest political party in history might do something
different than the most sinister one.

Please tell me there is a voice out there that says

Smash the starbucks,
Destroy wal-mart,
And remove the slumlords.
I pray that voice is still alive in the subconscious of our people.
I pray that the propaganda machine of the system has only
Strengthened our convictions.
I pray that this lull in political action is the calm before the storm.

Tell me we are not gonna wait for judges to tell us Mumia is guilty.

Tell me I’m gonna get off my ass and demand that we don’t.

Tell me that I’m not gonna be a lazy leftist waiter, republican hater, policy reforming, peace loving, conflict fearing a-hole.
I can’t take that image of myself.
Please tell me that my current trepidation is grounded by wisdom and sound strategy.
Tell me I’m still gonna fight, die if I have to.
Tell me I’m not so afraid of death that I will accept
This Fahrenheit 451,
big brother watching,
cops searching me for no reason,
Phony, civil liberty violating society.
Tell me I won’t wait for the constitution to save me from the injustices I encounter everyday.

Please don’t tell me I’m gonna miss Sandra Day O’connor.

Cause if that is all I have, than I have nothing.
I have nothing without my unquenchable thirst for liberation.
I am nothing without my unbendable will to overthrow oppression
In all its forms, by any means necessary.
My children will have nothing if they inherit a legacy of capitulation,
An estate of apathy and …
My children don’t deserve a life of wage slavery
in order to buy food, clothes, shelter, gasoline, knick-knacks at the dollar store, ipods, cell phone cameras, 401k, dental insurance, and corner store diets.

My children may have no choice.

But I do.

I can fight to free them from the chains
of the most rotten filthy empire known to humankind.

Or I can die tryin’.

Or I can accept it.
Please tell me I won’t accept it.
But don’t lie to me.

I’d rather accept the truth than believe in a lie.

I'm not sure

Hey y'all. This is a new thing I'm going to do from now on. It's the poem of the week. Let me know what you think. Peace.


I’m not sure where to go from here…
I have plans, just no idea how to execute them.
Just type, Just type
… Taking a sip of green tea…

I’m searching for a way to escape melodramatic metaphors
But they seem to be stalking every keyboard stroke.
In some ways that’s what it comes down to for me.
I’ve written countless poems and I don’t know how to write anymore.
I don’t forget to breathe but I often forget to think.
What is this feeling?
I swear I wish I could describe it for you.
My inability to articulate what I’m going through
is my greatest frustration today.