Wednesday, July 16, 2003
I am words. I am a gift. I am the voice of the artisans of this age. I am slam. I am beat. I am rhyme and meter, sometimes sloppy, sometimes neat. I am in San Diego trying to learn to teach Yoga and struggling to cope with the rage. I am the writing on the wall as well as on the page. I am torn into trying to figure out what to do with what I am learning and what I know. I am an ex-pastor named Joe, who wants to stand up and be seen. Who loves the machine, and the lights, and the stage. But loves the truth more than his own video age. I am an edge-walker. One who sees the buildings as just another wilderness. One who sees the trees as part of a concrete forest. As the cities dumbs down, his awareness is heightening. A modern day primitive, as rare as autumn lightning. Or maybe I’m an English American but mostly Mexican sociologist who is also a Kung-fu master. Like some kind of twisted Shao-lin burrito in a fortune cookie made of plaster, served up in a vegan restaurant smack dab in the middle of the ghetto. With a fortune in the cookie made up of a cynicism sometimes so brilliant, it blows my mind. Or maybe I’m a sniper one who still doesn’t know what he’s trying to find in making that shot.
What did you feel?
The recoil of my rifle.
What did you feel?
The light they were trying to stifle.
What do you feel?
Hope. Love. Peace. Beyond anything you can dream. Picking his shots on the battlefield, only now it’s with his soccer team. Only “dead” he had to learn was the lyrics to the dead head songs he learned on tour. As he finds that it’s up to his head if his heart is pure. Or maybe, maybe I’m fighting the good fight and feeling like I fail most of the time. As I watch the world around me that covers up the crime and I won’t take it. Maybe I’ll carry the child in my womb to the prisons I teach in and write the words on the walls of the tomb they keep free speech in. And I will fight for the strong women who haven’t found their strength yet until they do. Because it is far too long that the world goes barefoot when I can give them shoes. Or maybe I’ll see the day coming when one to many of my friends are dead or in jail and I realize it’s time to say what the hell and cut my losses. Realize that maybe I wasn’t supposed to be all that I could be in the mind numbing prison of the U.S. Army, but maybe I’m a little more blue than I deserve so I find a reason to protect and serve. And maybe I’m a brother, taking one more shot to the chin of that white boy who thinks he can spit, cause his pad and pen and race don’t fit and his words won’t ever amount to shit. What if I’m a poet laureate with just enough slam to make her tough, who fights disease, and family, and ghosts, like she just can’t get enough. And maybe she doesn’t pray to above, but her prayers got answered when she fell in love. And maybe she’s a single letter of the alphabet at the top of a letter that just runs on and on but hey, Mmmm. It sure is good. Or maybe you had to push the pause button on the tape recorder of the music of your life to learn the words to the song of your daughter and wife, learning once and for all that, that is true music. And maybe you’re a bum just looking for a meal. Or maybe you’re a dealer, trying to make that deal. Or maybe you’ll shackle me happily, grinning in your power. But you can’t cage my tongue and you can’t stop the hour. And we all got time. We’ve all been around the block. And maybe we’ll laugh it, or cry it, or bleed it. But get to it. Now. Write your story down. The rest of us need it.
¶ 12:53 PM
What did you feel?
The recoil of my rifle.
What did you feel?
The light they were trying to stifle.
What do you feel?
Hope. Love. Peace. Beyond anything you can dream. Picking his shots on the battlefield, only now it’s with his soccer team. Only “dead” he had to learn was the lyrics to the dead head songs he learned on tour. As he finds that it’s up to his head if his heart is pure. Or maybe, maybe I’m fighting the good fight and feeling like I fail most of the time. As I watch the world around me that covers up the crime and I won’t take it. Maybe I’ll carry the child in my womb to the prisons I teach in and write the words on the walls of the tomb they keep free speech in. And I will fight for the strong women who haven’t found their strength yet until they do. Because it is far too long that the world goes barefoot when I can give them shoes. Or maybe I’ll see the day coming when one to many of my friends are dead or in jail and I realize it’s time to say what the hell and cut my losses. Realize that maybe I wasn’t supposed to be all that I could be in the mind numbing prison of the U.S. Army, but maybe I’m a little more blue than I deserve so I find a reason to protect and serve. And maybe I’m a brother, taking one more shot to the chin of that white boy who thinks he can spit, cause his pad and pen and race don’t fit and his words won’t ever amount to shit. What if I’m a poet laureate with just enough slam to make her tough, who fights disease, and family, and ghosts, like she just can’t get enough. And maybe she doesn’t pray to above, but her prayers got answered when she fell in love. And maybe she’s a single letter of the alphabet at the top of a letter that just runs on and on but hey, Mmmm. It sure is good. Or maybe you had to push the pause button on the tape recorder of the music of your life to learn the words to the song of your daughter and wife, learning once and for all that, that is true music. And maybe you’re a bum just looking for a meal. Or maybe you’re a dealer, trying to make that deal. Or maybe you’ll shackle me happily, grinning in your power. But you can’t cage my tongue and you can’t stop the hour. And we all got time. We’ve all been around the block. And maybe we’ll laugh it, or cry it, or bleed it. But get to it. Now. Write your story down. The rest of us need it.
¶ 12:53 PM
