His Lessers

yes, he messed up in the checkout line
a little
but that’s no reason
for the woman at the cash
register not to just do what he
wanted.

she was an accented woman
just this side of girl like the manager
who tried to explain the policy
the cashier was enforcing.

and then there was the fat man in line
who tried to intervene
in their argument and calm him down

and all the other
people in the store
who yelled at him for being
an asshole –

lessers.  his
lessers, for whatever reason
he can find. how dare they.
how dare they. 

he sits in the car
with his core on fire
and his arms twitching
running the ought to have done list
in his head.

congratulates himself:
at least he apologized to the fat man
who seemed not as lesser as the others, somehow.

the others?  definitely more
lesser.  extreme lessers.
lesser in voice, knowledge,
lesser because they just are,
obviously.
he doesn’t need a reason.  
he’s a better.
a better by birth, choice,
obviously.

how dare they. 
how dare they.

 

Toward An Explanation Of Discontents

Working in black and white
is easier than doing
anything else, even
considering the shadows.

No need to try and name  
a color never before seen,
for instance, or a blend of two
or more, no need to explain
how they mixed by accident or
design. No need to learn 
how to treat them when they show up,
no need to even see them;

seeing only in black and white
is in fact more difficult
but can be mastered
if one has a early enough start
on the process.  

To be able to see
infinite, velvet grays
between the black and white
in place of color 
is not
entirely admirable
in a world
where red
exists, but it’s more parsable
and eventually (if shouted often enough)
may become the default.

Of course, red and all the other colors,
all hues and shades,
are not just forms of gray,
and you are going to fail somehow
if you live that way.
But no matter…just find enough of you who only see
the black and the white.  Shout them down.
Drown ‘em

right the fuck out.

The Archaeology Did Not Mean To Oppress

The archaeology
did not mean to oppress.

It did what it could
to be fair. When faced
with the buried walls of
palaces, temples obscured
by history, all it had to offer
was interpretation flawed
because it had a starting point
and endgame predetermined,

as did the arts, the nutrition,
the design — all
wrapped in innocence
of their status as
oppressors, they simply
operated. 

The racist
canon,
the sexist couture,
the elitist diet,
the reductive archaeology

did not mean to enslave,
did not intend to erase
truth in favor of
agreement, silenced
wisdom, stunt
voices.  What they were made to do
they did faithfully, dumbly,
and well. 
It was hard for anyone
to imagine
once they were done,
except for those who
slipped through
by chance,
by hard lesson,
or by listening
to the whispers
mortared into those original,
ancient walls.

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Quirks

King Phillip had a quirk:
he didn’t think much of
the bloody English. Out of
their concern for him,
the bloody English cut off his head
and put it on a stick so they
could peer into it from below
and see what was what.

Sitting Bull had one too,
a quirk that made him unhappy
about being kept in a tent. He wanted
to get out and dance.
Deeply worried about such longings,
his captors shot him down
to save him from himself.

Geronimo, that old smush-faced killer,
fell off the horse drunk and died
of his own accord while living
far from home — but that
was his quirk, that alcohol;
no one else to blame for that.

I’m sorry that the only tongue I have
with which to speak of these things
is English; I find it hard to count that single word
of Spanish as a saving grace.
Call it my quirk: I walk around all day
with a little head of rage
because you probably wouldn’t get this
if instead I’d been honest
and spoken of Metacomet, Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake,
and Gothalay. Call it my quirk
that even now, I’m not certain that you will. 
Don’t kill me
for feeling a little angry about that.

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Slam Poem To Learn And Sing #3: Identify This

Being biracial in America
isn’t new
and neither is the fact that
America doesn’t like me
I am split
so America doesn’t like me
Because I do not fit
America doesn’t like me
Half of me is one thing
Half of me another
One file folder won’t do the trick
so America doesn’t like me

I’ve read the history
It’s all about figuring out where to fit
Ever since we dumped that 3/5 rule
we’ve forced everyone to fit
through blood quota and careful record keeping
through skin and eye and cheekbone check
through legislated confirmations of all of the above
we’ve eliminated “all of the above”
as a check box category
so America doesn’t like me

I’m not calling out black or white
Or red or brown or yellow
Stupid simple labels that say nothing
Color fields don’t tell the tale
of growing up with one foot in one grave
and one in the other
and the best explanation
of why America doesn’t like me
is that in a country built on bipolar thinking
folks like me scare everyone
They make up stories to cover the fear
“You look like this, you must be this”
Oh, America will not like me
when I say that being split creates a new whole
and a new hole in the armor of convenience
Here’s the secret of that new whole
(America doesn’t like me
for saying this
but it needs saying)
It’s not some living thing, this America
It’s just another box
Everyone’s got a box they call America
and they’re either in it or they’re out of it
and every box called America
looks different from every other American box
Someone keeps building these boxes
and makes us think we need them
But I think they’re made from the same stuff
the emperor wears
in that fairy tale
No boxes at all when it comes down to it
except the ones the con men built and talked us into
and it’s going to take someone like me
or a lot of someones like me
Someone the rest of you call half and half,
mutts, breeds, mixed bloods,
crossblood interruption in the boxing of us all
to say that the boxes aren’t real

and America may not like me for that
but standing here with both feet solidly
nowhere near a box
and my mouth wide open
I like me just fine

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Between The Lines

Jimi Hendrix
had huge hands,
his vast natural reach
explaining his gift.

Andres Segovia, though,
was a genius.

Michael Jordan,
some kind of freak, some animal
bent from birth for basketball, was laden
with natural talent.

Larry Bird, though,
was a genius.

They say that Robert Johnson
was a bad player, disappeared
for a while, came back
astonishing.  They said back then
he must have sold
his soul to a devil
who gave him his music.
They still say that.

They said the same thing
about Nicolo Paganini, in his day.
No one ever says that now.

But they do say that someone
built the Great Pyramid
for the Egyptians. 
Someone
from Sirius gave the calendar
to the Aztecs. 
Someone
in a flying saucer
drew the Nazca lines for the ignorant Indians
down in poor old Peru.

Stonehenge, though,
that ring of stone
to mark the passage of the year –
now, that was a work of pure genius,

with the emphasis usually
placed most definitely
on
“pure.”

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Tags: poems, poetry, race

Chupasasquatch

Meet the New Colossus.

It’s coming to suck your marrow,
kill your livelihood,
wreck something you built,
and probably wants your women too;

builds its nests in woods
and swamps and hollows
where you were planning to build
a condo development;

shows up in your headlights
when you’re trying to get somewhere
and leaves its thick hair all over the place.

According to legend

it has either been here since before
the first white settlers,
is a recent entrant
from across the border,
or was dropped from on high
like a curse from aliens;

the only thing you know for sure
is that you’re terrified
and you need a name for what scares you
so you’ll watch some television show
and some authoritative voice
will offer you an explanation
so you’ll seize on that

until a scarier one comes along.

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On Privilege (expanded version of old poem)

1. Definition

It’s an oil,
a white oil,
that gets on everything.

It clumps in dark corners
where it’s obvious
if you put a light on it,
but
spread it
and it becomes invisible,
almost intangible
until you try to grip something.

If you’re born coated with it
you forget it’s there.
The ones who came before you
and know the stuff
teach you how
to work with it, how to make it your friend,
how to make it stick where you want it to stick.
You won’t even remember it’s there
once you get the knack.

It’s no wonder
that you’re insulted when people
calls you “slick”

as they try
to make you see how
it shines so evenly on your skin
while on their own
it’s just a mess of smears and blotches.

No wonder that when you try to touch
those exposed patches,
it comes between you. 

2. The Clean Up

The wells that pump it
are deep.  Pulling up the pipes
is not like pulling teeth:
it’s more like pulling roots.
Long roots. Nearly infinite roots.
Roots that cross the lawns; pull them,
and the lawns come up with them. Roots
that have spread under the roads; pull them
and the roads crack and split above them.

They’re always leaking.
The oil is everywhere, it seems, and people
can’t see it sticking to them.  Scoffers abound
even as they slip and fall on it.

You can’t see it
on yourself either, and it’s so scary to think
of where it has come from.  The depth
of those reservoirs is like unto
the Hell you’ve heard so much about:
there is fire, there is ice, there is
the Adversary who rules it
and oh, he says he loves you, his slick
bastard.  How could you hurt him so
by rejecting his slippery gifts?

He’s not going to be happy,

and neither are you
as you scrub and scrape and
scrub and scrape and are scrubbed
and are scraped.

You will bleed.  There will be
scabs and scars.

3. Aftermath, in brief

I wish I could tell you
anyone really knows what a dry world
will be like,

but at least
we’ll be able to touch and not slide apart,
so we can hold on to each other as we are learning.

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The Tree

Division returns
us to ourselves.

One cannot praise
oppression, but it
at least makes us
take a stand and say
“this is who we are
and as we are this
let us celebrate and mourn
what we alone understand:

that there is a tree
in a cleft
in stone
in a desert
and while the tree
would have been stronger
had it sprouted
elsewhere with more soil
and water, it still
stands and everyone
wants to touch the tree.”

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Fear Of A Brown Planet

Noah invited no insect pests onto the ark, but they came anyway;
flies and roaches, gnats and ants, covering every square cubit
in a seething, confident carpet of stubborn, resilient brown.

The buffalo, once endangered, now have grown so numerous in spots
that they are leaving Yosemite to roam their old prairies, leading to calls
to thin them out by gunning down some of that mass of stubborn, resilient brown.

In the Gulf of Mexico, frightened men drop chemicals and lower booms
against the torrent pouring from the depths, a torrent they once sought to own.
Everything is futile.  They stare in despair at the mass of stubborn, resilient brown.

In Phoenix, water pours from sprinklers into the dry soil
and now the desert is held at bay by lawns of green and golf courses;
but let the effort lapse just a bit and soon will come the stubborn, resilient brown.

South of the city, along a border that men have made, soldiers stand
in camouflage and stare south into that shimmering oven, guarding against
the surging numbers moving north — the always present, stubborn, resilient brown.

People here sit and wait in houses of white and gray for their dread to subside.
They do not dare to say what seems obvious — that what they are most afraid of
is that their pastel world is changing back to a stubborn, resilient brown.

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Regarding White Privilege

1.
Walk out your front door
and into the street.
Look up and there it is:
your sun, won
on the last hand last night; the jerk
told you it would be yours in the morning
as soon as he could get to the bank
and the safety deposit box;
now he’s gone and there it is
hanging over you, out of reach.

At least you know it’s yours
even though it’s beyond command;
you can always trust the word
of a fellow gambler, after all.

2.
This sun of yours
crosses over myth
as you watch.
Do you own the myth as well?

3.
A street’s only as good
as its sidewalks:
having a pair of solid paths to parallel the main line
is crucial.  Places
to walk safely, more slowly
than the primary traffic.
A curb against which
to butt tires,
or crush jaws.

4.
Take your rabid imagination
to the street, stare
at your possession
and decide to own everything
it illuminates as well…

5.
In fact, this sun
belongs to no one,
lights everyone’s road,
warms every face.

Your deed to it has only the weight
of a shared perception
that it’s a valid deed.

The paper burns when the rays pinpoint upon it.

6.
Night follows day.

You made no bet
regarding the moon.

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A Brief Comment On Race Relations

My cat don’t know
who his daddy is –
probably a dead cat by now.

He’s getting old.
Sleeps a lot, but always did.
Likes fish.  Likes my blanket.
Purrs, and sits in the window
(where he usually falls asleep,
surprise, surprise.)

He knows who his mother is.
I do too.  Took her in pregnant
and kept the both of them.
She’s a long hair tortie,
he’s a patchwork shorthair
in grey and white.  She’s tiny,
he’s…not.

Doesn’t seem to care
about heritage.  Mom’s
a mutt with fur between her toes,
he’s not.  Must have got that
(or not got it)
from his dad. 

He’s a cat, just that:
sleepy, furry, old, and fat.

Never showed him, never tried
to get a ribbon, don’t know
who his daddy is. Mom’s a mutt,
never tried to prove she was
Siamese or Russian, didn’t care.

A cat’s a cat to another cat,
figure I should feel the same.
I let him be. He lets me be.
Furry bastard fat mutt lump
with a big purr and a bigger butt
he likes to have scratched –

works for me. 

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The Promoter Looks Back

Shaved for battle,
they used to say,
those bullet boys
with the rippling ink
and the no-quarter eyes.

Where are they now? 
I used to see them at all the shows.

All we wanted was hardcore and metal.
We knew the attendant politics would follow
but we thought we could steer the noise to safety.
We hired a bike gang
to keep the kids safe
from their warfare
and it mostly worked.

One night I ended up
rescuing a scrawny little racist
from the bikers
and drove him home to Clinton
where he and his brothers in arms
rented a farm.

On the way he told me
how it had started in Miami
where he was beaten daily
by Cuban kids
until he found the Hammerskins
and their cradle of white.

I told him I was of mixed race.
And I asked him how he felt about me.

He paused a long time and said,

“I still think it’s wrong.”
And then,
“I know that’s bad, but…yeah.”

Shaved for battle he was,
and his head shone in the moonlight
as he walked from the car to the driveway.

I did not wait to see if he waved,
throwing gravel as I spun out of the driveway
into the quiet road.

And I never saw him at the shows,
ever again.

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Total Recall

Reposted from a few years ago, by request.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

TOTAL RECALL

1. (in an office at work)

“they hate white guys like us.”

“i’m not white.”

“what do you mean?”

“my father’s Mescalero.”

“oh, that doesn’t count.”

2. (in a bar)

“you’re a conquered people
and you’re just going to have
to get used to that.”

3. (at my nonni’s house)

“your father steals from me
every time he’s in my house.”

“no, he didn’t, nonni.”

“he does. he stole a knife. he stole money.
i no understand why
your mother want to be
with those Indian peoples.
it’s good you look like her father.”

4. (my father’s way of saying how bad pain was)

“i’ve got a headache
that would kill a white man.”

5. (at school)

“your dad brought two colored kids
home for the weekend to stay over?”
“yes.”
“did they smell funny? do Indians
get along with them? i didn’t know that.”

6. (at the office)

“oh, i love Indians! Indians
are so beautiful — i love their feathers
and the way they dance. do you dance?
do you have feathers?”

7. (at school)

“hey brown, how come your sister
looks like a chink
and you look like a wop?”

8. (driving with my dad)

“i’m never gonna marry
a white girl.”

“son, your mother’s white.
it doesn’t matter sometimes.
marry who you love.”

9. (outside a club)

“don’t you really hate seeing these kids
running around with mohawks
when they’re not even Indian?”

10. (in a coffee shop)

“take your glasses off.
oh, yeah, i can see it now.”

11. (at work)

“now that your hair is long,
i can really see it.”

12. (too many times to choose)

“now that i know, of course,
it’s obvious.”

13. (at school)

“i’m really surprised
that you have to shave.
does your father have to shave?”

14. (during a performance review)

“aren’t you a little old
for this? i mean, aren’t you supposed
to have gotten over this, had a vision quest
or something when you were young?”

15. (too many times, too many bars)

“should you be drinking this much,
i mean, you know, fire water and all that?”

16. (at work)

“when your mother makes lasagna,
does she use buffalo in the sauce?”

17. (third week, introduction to anthropology, freshman year)

“so, you’re Italian and you’re Indian?
god, you must have a temper.”

18. (junior year, private school)

“jesus, put away the knife! what are you — crazy?
it’s just a word.  I mean, you are a half-breed,right?
that’s what you are, right?
i’m sorry, jesus, i’m sorry, i didn’t know,
how’m i supposed to know that?
you’re fucking crazy!”

19. (being interviewed for someone’s grad thesis on people who grew up in interracial households)

“so, how do you describe yourself?”

‘i don’t, i guess. not really. not anymore.
i guess ‘poet’ works as well as anything.”

“which side do you get that from?”

20. (first time in Italy)

“my mom’s family’s from around naples.”
“but this isn’t Napoli. why you come here?”
“because i’ve always wanted to see Venice.”
“you should see Napoli. you should see.”
“next time, maybe.”
“yes, next time. something there for you, maybe.
maybe home.”
“yes, maybe.”

21. ( first time on the rez)

“i’m looking for records, anything.
my father was born here, was sent to a residential school
and joined the army after,
he lost touch with every one, never came back.”

“there are no records, though. everything was lost in a fire back in ’67. i’m sorry. you’ll have to do some work to prove it, if you’re interested in being enrolled –”

“no, that’s not it. i just wanted –
something.
anything.”

“well…welcome home?”

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Fade

It’s past time
for the fade
to begin:

watch us
pretending the lines are stark
and obvious still, that answers
and decisions are clear
and unambiguous.  We can’t
live as we have, we can’t even be
as simple as we’d like to claim:
black, white, left, right,
right, wrong…simple boxes
that won’t hold our outcroppings
and amorphous truths.

Truth is they never did well
by us, forced us to compress
and cut and try to stuff ourselves
into plain cubes,
but we did what we could
and denied our ornery natures
so we could fit;
now that the boxes themselves
are shown to be fragile and breakable
we’re at a loss to explain
ourselves.

If there are no
boxes that fit us, how will we
get along in such a demanding world?

The answer is that we will fade,
let our deceitful edges
disappear into the general,
let ourselves get lost in the Big
and accept that unique
and easily definable shape is a myth
made for containment.

But we’re not ready
just yet, and we’ll remain solid
and square looking for our square holes
while everything around us gets rounder
and larger and nothing stays in one place
for long.

We long for days
that never existed
except by agreement,
and now that the agreement’s broken,
we have to learn to fade,
become obvious ghosts
who will not refuse
to acknowledge the freedom
of the death of category,
even as we deny
the new joy available to us:

the tingle of pleasure
as we pass
through all those walls…

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