In the land of
Pharaohs
we are
compelled
to celebrate
a national
holiday to
repression

we refuse to
mark the day
our chains
were forged

we refuse
to partake
in the worship
of penitentiaries

your hand cuffs
are not our
prayer beads

your prisons
are not our
cathedrals

graven images
of a dictator
are not holy
icons

the glorification
of storming fascists

the swoop
of truncheons

the kick of jack boots
firming on our necks
pressing our face
into the sand
covering our eyes
with the dust of lies
coercing us
to adopt
a litany
of shallow boasts
the lying psalms
of repetitive
propaganda
you alone
swear as truth
enforcing fealty
with the blows
of terror

we reject

we have called
for a mash up
meet up
on Facebook

we have
poked
young
comrades
into action

we will
flood the
streets
dancing
in witness
to our
revelation
of freedom

we declare
ourselves
exiles
from your
prisons

the youth
of Egypt yearns
to show our faces
to the faceless fascists
that dominate and bludgeon us

we reject your endless
state of emergency
it has grown old

the ceaseless flux
of perpetual dominance
must be laid to rest

the imposition of
your ridged stasis
stunts our growth

we can no longer suffer
your authoritarian
paternalism

your urgent repression
no longer stills us

your vigilantism
no longer intimidates

your corruption
no longer cowers us

your laws protecting your privilege
we no longer recognize

we rip to pieces the constitution
that guarantees
our serfdom

we burn the books
that immortalize your fictions

your force designed
to immobilize
now stirs us to action

go back to your gulags
in urgency

call an end
to your emergency rule

clasp the handcuffs
of razor blades
around your own wrists

know that the time is now
the trilling grows

we unhide our faces
to the extremists
that dominate us

we offer our cheeks
to the sadists
who live
to bash
away the
innocence
of children
taking perverse
pleasure in
leaving an
indelible
slash
to
mark
lessons
of citizenship

we decline
your gambit
torpid head fakes
of a despots
shell game

secret police
make plans
in the morning
by afternoon
make excuses
covering tracks
begging
ignorance

Mubarak
has entombed
the nation with
non-stop lies
incessantly
droned from his
national broadcast
company

the youth of Egypt
marches to the funeral
of this dictatorship

we carry with us
holy embalming
spices to
fill the vapid
cavity of its
soulless
corpse

the youth
have commenced
a Hajj

clothed in
denim Ihrams
our Umrah
leads to the
presidential
palace

as we circle
we throw stones
at the devils den
unraveling the
bandages
covering
the wounds
you have
inflicted
on the body
of our nation.

We are
determined
to circle
the palace,
wrapping
the threads
of blood
stained
gauze
around
Mubarak
and his
fascist
police
until the threads
completely
bound them.

We promise
not to rest
until they are
laid to rest,
entombed
with fellow
mummies,
lying in state
under the
burning sands
of the Sahara.

Music Selection:
Police, Rehumanize Yourself


2/13/11
Oakland
jbm
(WIP)

Standing there in the intensely chilled room,
trying to keep a straight face because if I
cracked she would know...
I was lying.

My mother the independent single
mom of three kids, who worked eleven
hours a day always kept a tight leash on me,
and the tighter it got the more I thrived for the
freedom that wasn't there.

Everyone must be willing to pay a price
for freedom... mine was remorse.
Remorse for being egotistical, for how hard
my mom worked and how I neglect the life I have;

Because I spend too much time
finding other people to blame.
To much energy finding excuses for not being
what I am capable of being, and not enough
energy putting myself on the line.

Freedom is the right to question and change
the established way of doing things.
I was not graced with this luxury.

In my house you do what your told, don't talk back,
and hide any feeling of frustration or anger.
I thought I was like the people in my books about freedom.
However their fight for freedom was ways more significant than mine.

They lied for their family and their life.
I lied for what I assumed I deserved.
But the trouble with lying and deceiving is that
my efficiency depends entirely upon a clear notion
that I, the liar and deceiver, wishes to hide.

Because the best liar is the one who makes
the smallest amount of lying go the
longest way.

Although freedom is not worth having if it
does not include the freedom to make mistakes;
it is better than feeling

the cutting air across your neck,
trying to keep a straight face,
because the last thing I want to do is...
Crack.

I falter,
and you tell me,
you love me,
if only to rip me apart,
to cause more confusion,
in a wayward heart.
and I sink,
I've been waving my flags,
but I cant even properly surrender.
All I know, i think ,
is that you seem like the first one to want to see me,
and Im vulnerable to the lies you seem determined to mirror.
and i know of love ,
this can't be it,
I dont know where that puts us,
I dont know where I am.