Always in the corner
She hopes that one day she will find out
Yet the madness of the moons takes over
Flustered and paranoid
She doesn't stand a chance
Only because she never knew
But now she does.

Ignorance is strength.

I have a dirty habit of not paying attention
I don't take into consideration the emotions of others
Almost like an animal
Reaction and instinct take over.
Now, I'm here to say sorry
Since the animal took over
The alter ego's Id is responsible

The wind blows
in the trees
and It exists - this I know -
because science
can show wind
is just atmospheric flow.
Condense it to a liquid
and separate it to gas
and see atoms of wind
through a microscope's glass.

Ignorance bows people
to their knees
and He exists - this they know -
because men
wrote a book
a long time ago.
condense it to faith
and separate it from reason
and blissfully accuse
anything different of treason.

So you're saying you're proud and
Grateful to have so much freedom, opportunity and wealth
Well, I'm not.
Sociocentrism is an ugly, unnatural state
Everything we have takes away from someone else
We try to pretend there's no connection, that the plight of others is cause by their own failing
That we are deserving
Convinced that this is all here for us
We take and take and take
But every terror we inflict on anything "else" is a terror upon the self
We protect our so called civil liberties with wage slavery, chemical abuse, and ecological terrorism
Profit baby, profit über ales
Well congratulations to us
This is nationalism at its finest
No, I'm not fucking proud of it
If you want to take credit, be my guest
Just ask India about policies of profit over regulations, about denim and dye and death
Ask Mexico about farming, their take on the "Fair Trade Act"
Ask the rainforest if it remembers what it was like to have trees
Try to find an Arawak to ask anything
Ask 63 countries what it feels like to have a US military base keeping watch
And what would happen if another country tried to build a base on this soil
Or maybe ask why you never learned shit about any other country
Much less about your own
Back in History class
Survival of the fittest, you say?
A dog eat dog world?
Alright, let's play
This country is overrun by dogs, that's true
But honey, we're not eating any other dogs
We're eating poison and calling it food
While our leaders give Monsanto handjobs under the table
We are "the world's leading nation" and we're dropping like flies
No, not dead
Just into hospital beds and prison cells
Our country is filled with poverty, racism, violence, and terror
Not to mention obesity heart disease depression anxiety and PTSD
We're over-medicated malnourished and spiritually starved
We're pissed off at a whole lot of bullshit
That means nothing in the scheme of anything
Fully engaged in the myth of a two-party system
Even though most of what we see and hear is merely distraction
Thank you, media, all 6 of you big beautiful monoliths
I'm so lucky I have the opportunity to be informed!
We're a nation divided by details
While our leaders run in circles pouting fat fingers at each other
Engrossed in this thing we call "politics"
Highly effective
I'm really glad you're proud
They say ignorance is bliss
But I think it's more like a shiny polyester suit
Holding together a parasite infested mess
Sitting in a recliner after a hard days work of trying to stay afloat on a mountain of debt in a drowning economy
Bottles of medication on the table, GMOs in the fridge
Quietly doing what they're told
Never wondering why
Falling asleep to the glow of the TV whispering fear and terror, us and them, buy and buy and buy
The sweet purr of "freedom"

They say we only fall in love
Once in our entire life
What if Love walks through those doors
And we fail to recognize?
What if we already lost that chance?
Flung it out the windows
Thinking Love was already by our side
The bliss ignorance
That Love can only come in the form of a husband
True but not quite
Maybe Love was all along there
Waiting for you to see
We can never quite see Love
Because we take Love like water
Easily granted
Steady flow of it always
But when we do see Love
It's always in our darkest moments
Our loneliest times
Then Love steps in
And that's when we can see it clearly
Who is Love

I wear the letters NYU sprawled across my chest as my individuality is asphyxiated.
Lungs choke under the weight of the added pressure. 

The thought of college plus my complexion,
Equals complexed looks that ponder my intellectually-heightened direction. 



Will you think a little bit more of me, with my conformity?



Attempts to better myself meet enough ignorance to even cloud the vision of God.
Segregation and alienation cause mental spasms the strength of lightening rods. 




I guess you're just a product of the environment to which you were exposed. 


But I'm always trying to fight the stereotype that black people are ultimately foes.



I am the ant and the kids of rich parents are magnifying glasses. 

Cremating me with the solar power of son's who were taught that their existence was worth more than mine. 



I lay motionless, in bottomless quick sand pits, itching to alleviate my stomach stitch, engulfed by set standards that could not be met. 


I am tired of trying to be what you'd like to see.
Astute, respectable, young black man-just so you can approve of me and hopefully think that we are not all "up to no good."



Say it loud,
I'm black 

And I'm,
Not going to lie,
The proud part is kinda hard to say. 


Because I walk down the street and see my face in the homeless everyday. 


I fill the prisons and I'm famous when the news reports crime. 

And when I show up early to interviews,
they look confused to see that I,
Don’t run on Colored People's Time.



I don't hate black but I hate the fact that black means that sometimes I have to find alternate routes to success. 



While other people's roads are already paved, I suffer from all the stress. 



I try my best but I'm always categorized as less, then a man. 


And I'm trying to change perceptions but I still feel like a visitor on American land




And the poor are physically trapped so I relate mentally.

We both suffer from the oppression and accept the hatred like it was meant to be.




Society has led you to believe that blacks are not worthy of equality



But take a long, hard look into my eyes and tell me that you don’t see my humanity.

The first time I saw
Betty Grater swoon
and heard Ms Arnault sigh
in expectation
I knew I had found the answer
that all young men seek

Instead of good looks
and the scent of money
I realized that the tippled sound of Thomas,
the piston drive of Cummings,
or shroud and mystery of Rimbaud
could accomplish what fumbling
postures never could

They could make a button come
undone and stay that way
part a leg and have it
remain languid
see an arm brushed
and not pulled back

Ah, but women are not
so easily wooed
You see, poetry is but a beginning
once is never sufficient
and Cyrano found
he was forced to return
and return
to keep those fires burning

Soon you discover it is not enough
to merely sing another’s tune
and you  must learn the art
whose muse is not so
easily tamed

So the new poems to Emily or Mary Lou
are steeped in ignorance, stumbling tongue
and emotion that knows only extreme
a Dickinson hodgepodge of flowers,
spring-rain and metaphor trampled
by testosterone expectation

And as these women grow
you discover the magic is fading
that they have learned these lures
and their virtue will not part quite so easy

Ah, but art is ever inventive
and for those hard to dissemble
there are the more obscure songs
of Baudelaire, Jefferson and Yeats
these will free even the firmest
of corset-strung objections

But to truly reach the promised land
there is need to create one’s own
to wrestle the evening with nature’s muse
and tease a line between the sheets
Then, if you've still a mind
you can glance to see
if her clothes have been shed

But the sad and beautiful truth
is that poetry’s muse will suffer no others
rarely will that graceful form stay the course
she will leave to find yet another
that can keep them
coming

America, the beautiful
Home of the brave
Or so it used to be
Before it became
Home of the selfish and lazy

From sea to shining sea
Once a cape of good hope
Until the tidal patterns shifted
And eroded the shores
Of her dignity

Born American, patriot by choice
Is how the saying goes
But what's a patriot really
If patriotism is measured
By the size of one's collection of faded bumper stickers
(As if bumper stickers would revive us)

Land of the pilgrim's pride
But on this trajectory
We'll soon be
Land of the pilgrim's regret
From every mountainside, let ignorance ring

I cringe to think of what we're reduced to
A hollow shell
Made of fashion and fake money
Nothing keeping us truly alive
Each generation weaker than the one before

                           Please, no more.

Someone speak for all that's good
Do what our leaders never could

My country, 'tis of thee
I plead, awaken, open your eyes, and see.

Open your mind
I swear I'm about to burst
How can some of you be so blind?
With your looks of ignorance; lips all pursed
Who the hell are you to be so quick to arbitrait?
Come and take a dip into my Universe
Find the silence that penetrates, dive in and meditate
Everything evolves from a dream
Awaken your awareness, stretch the fibers of thought
I am, you are, and this world is so much more than it may seem

you.
me.
him.
her.
us...
and them.
classification.
an act of separation.
put the pieces together for sanity,
unaware of truth,
reality.
battles between us with no intent,
your god, my god,
he's gay...and she's not.
living beneath a blindfold.
a dark, heavy blindfold.

but, ignorance is bliss right?
well, then why do I lay awake at night
dreaming,
eyes open,
dreaming,
of the vast ocean where
creatures,
bazaar creatures of the deep
live...no,
thrive with no sleep,
in a world within a world.

I wonder if they dream of us too.
can they imagine me..or you?
or do they dream of worlds unseen?
where souls matter more than green,
where limitations do not persist,
where us and them,
do more than coexist,
where no man has a use for blow,
there,
there is where I'd like to go.