I was a poet once
An angry poet
With flames jumping from my paper whenever my pen lit upon it
I shouted at the world and screamed Injustice, oppression
And a chorus of chinga tu madre pendejo huero,
perhaps more aimed at myself than at the supposed man
But time and temper, broken and remembered eventually only smolder
Flames capsized upon themselves expel the red and yellow of romance and turn beneath the ashes to brood and to collect their thoughts
I was a poet once
A desperate poet who cared enough to force the rhyme in every line to cheat you of your conscious thought
Who forced a beat to bubble and brew beneath every carefully examined and crafted phrase
Who knew you well enough to know without so much you would not care to listen
But empty pops and silent drops are not enough to carry me today
I was a poet once
A poet who thought I knew you well enough that content could not muster the strength to tell you what you knew and only through flattery and through rhyme would I convince you that your life was not worth living this way
But you went red and taught me that we were different
I was a poet once
A poet who spoke as though there were one populace and I was it and you were me and all we had to do was share the wealth
Of information for everything to be alright.
Cuz you were me and I was right and, no, not that right, but writing words upon a page that would frame tomorrow in hopefulness and clarity
That would stop the senseless dribble that makes you laugh but leaves you empty and leaves you
the same.
You see we were poets once, but then He stole our hope
Stole our faith in words
Cuz his language is no different than ours when he uses it that way
Cuz small words dropped in carefully crafted ways
Upon willing ears who know he must be preaching something
Will believe him when he says he did
And the more I say nothing the more you listen and the less you think
The more I spill rhythms of alliteration mixed persperation the more you dance like I were singing real music
and sometimes I wish you would dance when I spoke plainly
The man lied and no amount of poetry will change the fact that you nodded in agreement
You see
I was a poet once
A hopeless poet with bad rhymes and cheap turns, but with conviction and fire and hope that what I said mattered
But you have taught me that words are cheap and votes are cheaper
You have neglected my words and they long to turn inward, to nestle up in a space too small for cats but perfect for balls of fur and sleep
my poet’s heart is torn by eleven states saying they won’t allow my love
while my soul is abandoned by a home that asks for a repeat on that violence and falseness, violence and falseness
that one man preaches with conviction
while a tall white man with none concedes with grace
I didn’t vote for a good loser
You see
I was a poet once
A storytelling poet who spoke of men with valor
But when there were none
And when there were no words worth speaking
No one to listen to them anyway
They continued dancing to the nonsense
