Art can, and has changed the world. Art is the unrecognized mirror where self and culture is reflected. One book can change a society, one painting end a war, one song start a revolution. Sometimes art reaches out to fondle, sometimes startle, and sometimes to shake awake those asleep. Sometimes it's gritty because to be kind wouldn't serve. Sometimes poets can't afford to be soft with words and the poem can't reach out only to shake hands with a limp and faltering grip. Sometimes poets are precise and stark for the truth they tell must necessarily shatter. This is one of those sometimes. ~B
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Until They Have Stopped
Until they have stopped dragging Michael through their dungheap of slanders;
truth metamorphosed into a sewer of slime and piss-haze hanging -
for no other reason than their cold, sour fear
of his decency, generosity, and love
that would have changed the world;
Until they have stopped lynching him
with their nooses of smiles and jokes -
Until they have stopped calling Michael a freak and a woman;
their hateful speculations about his self-image, clothing, weight, and lips –
accusing him of not wanting to be BLACK -
when they wanted to take his passport;
I will not desist from saying, “No.”
Until they have stopped their pornographic insinuations about young boys,
contorting his sincere care for our next generation into
teargas smoke and shit-stained mirrors,
because they couldn’t call him coon, commie, or nigger;
Until they have stopped their gleeful fantasies of hopeless, slurring, nodding, drug-addiction;
and claiming that he wanted the empty, silent death of selfish suicide
instead of his children’s kisses and songs;
Until they have stopped hauling out their sludge of “man-child,” asexual, and faggot,
as if he didn’t have a cock and like savory pussy;
I will not desist from saying, “No.”
I saw his masculinity, smelled it –
hot under the lights that made him glow gold and godlike -
touched it hard in my sticky reveries
of his large hands and intelligent, black eyes ….
Because they are not confused.
They conspire to blindness and mute stupor -
intending to “misunderstand” and spread their disease of malice
to the world he loved – to me.
They like blood-soaked music -
want me stained with its sharp, rancid stink and
slurping his sweat like honey
because I’m a stupid cow.
Here I stand.
I will not desist from fighting them.
I will say, “No.”
Anonymous 3/2011
(with apologies to Sarah E. Wright, and in appreciation of the actor, singer, and humanist,Paul Robeson)
We Are Here
They prepare a sweet feast, and bid us, “Covet.”
They have dressed the table in
snow-soft linen;
each place gilded with
silver flagons, crystal salts and
plates of porcelain, placid blue.
Thin consomme bowls
shine in coppery decadence.
They tease us with the scent of sugar;
trifles of cake and pink-berry cream,
tins of iced caviar, with spoons -
mirages of serene seas.
They have numbered all his bones;
accounted, weighed, and measured
each humiliation, loss, slice, and stab.
His loneliness and despair
chilled, gelled
to delicate aspic.
Dine with us.
Dine on Michael Joseph Jackson.
Dine on beauty, compassion, faith and charity.
They bid us, “Sup.”
Sup on creation;
On the father,
brother,
son;
On God’s child;
his genius and talent,
sweat, joy, generosity;
his pride,
his courage, strength
and frailty.
Sup in vampiric delight.
We see the glaring shine of glass,
and glint-sharp knives,
illuminated in gorgeous, changing hues.
No.
Their seductive invitations
and predatory smiles are
salaciously bold and droning.
The droning
burns our bellies,
dries our mouths,
stills our hearts, and
stupefies our souls.
We will not dine
on Michael’s bones.
We cannot touch the marrow spoons:
long and sharp and narrow,
like the fingernails of a
succubus.
We cannot eat his
beauty
sauced with our
shame.
Forgive us.
We will not sin,
although the dulcet music
soothes us
dizzies us.
It is the symphony of
his self-completion.
We will not trespass.
We will not feast
on the hostage of siege.
We will not -
no matter how famed the
abattoir,
titillating the lies
or,
sweet
the flesh.
We will not sin:
compound our sins
of ignorance,
indifference,
abandonment.
We will bear him up
gracefully,
gratefully,
gladly
our beautiful king, true friend;
and give him succor, safety
over our heads.
We Are Here.
God’s muse,
Vessel of His message
of child-like wisdom, forgiveness, and sincerity,
caretaker of His divine garden,
our earth.
We thank him.
Lift him up, hold his hand,
tell him truths, and
with empathy, share his pain.
We cherish,
bless
and heal.
We accept his failures,
his jealousies,
his anger.
We love him more.
We Are Here.
Here to carry him home
to his three doves;
their lovely eyes
bright beacons -
and kisses
and tears
of happiness.
10/2010
Anonymous
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