Angry Poet - 12 Month Revision

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 souls to curl 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



And twelve months later the nonsense is still playing
Everyday into our ears
Asking us to forget cuz its too hard
move on cuz its too far
Hold out til it matters
Slippery slopes are two sided
and ain’t just the christians gotta worry bout getting butt fucked in the night,
cuz prison rape ain’t about love
Its about power, and strength
Its about beating you down and making you forget you are human
Stripping you of your conscious voice
Wrapping it in a conch shell and shoving that conch shell up your ass
You see, twelve months don’t make it better
Twelve months just make it clearer that four years is a long time
That four years is long enough for you to die
Twelve months is long enough for Brad to adopt Angelina’s babies
Even if it ain’t long enough for him to marry her
Twelve months is freshman year, is sophomore year
Is the year you forgot what it meant to be angry
Twelve months is time enough to realize
To forget
That what you said matters even if it was them that won out
Cuz we won out here in California
Cuz teenage girls still got possession of their bodies
And Teachers are getting benefits they deserve
Unions still have the right to organize politically
And presidents are still accountable to their constituents
There is not time to be complacent
This is no time to be calm
You still have a voice and an obligation to use it
I was a poet once
A poet who thought I owed it to you to entertain
Thoughts of your own self-worth
But damnit if you don’t have a word, you ain’t a poet yourself
And there are too many silences surrounding us for the canvases to remain blank
The silence of whiteness oppresses me
Two thighs pounding into you at night and you think not screaming is sexy
Perplex me
And know that I am a poet, a mad poet who cannot forgive, not forget your silences
cannot let them go unanswered
There are answers to be had, benefits given, time qualified and ears rendered deaf by the weight of our cries, rendered open by the softness of our lips
Mad Poets Disease: Spread It