poetry does not live

it does not require breath or consciousness

or anyone’s recognition

it exists

it exists simply like the stars of galaxies

that are as far as light is fast

beauty is poetry

I wish I could slam.
I wish I could pull out my innards,
spew them for the world to see,
to gape, to gasp,
to react,
a reaction as a consequence of making passion
palpable.

I wish I could slam
so that even my visible spittle projectiles
will move you.

Because I have been moved and I have
felt pain, but most of all,
I have hope–
–hope that beneath our botox toxicated skins,
beneath our waxed high brows,
beneath our violence politicians spin to win,
beneath our nominal, virtual powers over each other’s degrees and titles,
we share the common denominator of being kin,
human kin.

So today, I try
to slam up the spirits that have been slammed down
and to rehydrate the tears that have dried
so we can all taste the bitterness
and rejoice in the beauty of pain inside
as one once denied but now one voice to decry.

We know, what it’s like
to be second class.
We’ve been ching-chonged back to the yellow devil’s kingdom come
and we’ve been slashed and slit into eyes that can’t see but submit.
We thought education cured racist ignorance, but the intellectual elites dish us just as many dirty glances,
just as many shot down advances,
just as many half of half hearted chances.
My child, born in this country, in this culture, in this land of the free,
thought he was white.
He loved his country, his culture, his land of the free,
but he was unrecognized.
Even when he self-baptized in an attempt to disguise his skin with his speech,
he was disenfranchised
over and over,
openly and unchastised.
Even the sworn defenders of justice,
given money, given the enticement of righteousness,
were biased, callous, and just
bogus.
They crushed my child with trauma
and I could not protect him,
the ultimate failure and pain as a mamma.
My child is defenseless against the darkness
that enters the white man’s retina,
defenseless against the unspoken dogma,
destined to the bottom as omega,
deprived of the right of merit achieved alpha.
And I watch my child cry
and talk of wanting to die.
How is it that try, cry, and die rhyme so nicely?

As much as I fear the cliched and trite,
there is no originality in the words I spat.
Racism is old, and stubborn in its ways,
but you must forgive my format,
because I need to hear myself scream.
I need to hear myself scream for vindication,
scream for validation,
scream against the violation of my child,
scream to hear,
for once,
to be heard.

God felt my pain and spread my favorite orange on the sky, the ocean, the rocks. The black volcanic bolus softly gilded with my joy.

But I wonder. Do these people who sit with me on this precipice also carry broken hearts? Do the tireless, violent waves also remind them of love’s unproductive pursuit? Can they also see their sorrow in the lingering foam of the broken waves? While that gorgeous orange has chased away the ocean lovers along with the warmth, it has also chased away my nostalgia. Beautiful, gilding sun of my favorite.