They'll use Martin Luther King day to sell anything from mattresses to cars.
Even he has been ripped up and replanted,
capitalized, like Christmas or Easter,
by the people who give us images of a white Jesus,
but you bet they don't pay everyone equal.
We have boulevards, schools, and libraries named after King,
but streets over, we have Confederate soldiers carved into a mountain,
we call 'em heroes, that's what I was taught,
the ones who fought, the ones who ate lead,
But, they aren't talking about who really put a bullet in Dr. King's head.
What the **** is wrong with us?
America will go see Selma in millions,
this weekend, go back home to their all white neighborhoods,
thinking about how it was bad then, but now, it's all good.
Who are we really trying to fool?
Stand up for the pledge in school
Put your hand over your heart and forget
all this country denies you
telling you that there isn't a heart of a human beating inside you
because you're gay, you're black, you're not like that,
She was a flirt, she wore a short skirt,
Every day you try to heal the hurt
Justice for all? Like are you kidding me?
There ain't such a thing here as liberty
Do you know where you stand
was Native American land?
Ripped from their bleeding hands
And don't even get me started on Iraq and Iran.
You know that mountaintop?
The one I was talking about,
Did they tell you it was a KKK meeting spot?
Bet not.
I wonder, is the clay here red from all the blood?
We hide our history,
sing promises of liberty,
say that racism ended with slavery,
and it's Stonewall Jackson, he's a hero, they say
but never speak of Stonewall Riots any day
and I'm afraid for our children and what they will learn,
in classrooms, will they be silenced?
Come here kids, let me tell you a story,
of Ferguson, New York, Hong Kong,
about how people will look back and see they were wrong,
But some never did, some died with hatred,
some died because of it,
Let me tell you about homeless LGBT youth
Let me tell you about all these issues
Let me tell you the truth
And there are different ways of seeing it,
but only one way to say it,
you and I both know,
You just have to listen for it.

They lay on Normandy.
Two hundred miles away, the empty shells of humans
Who lie below the streets
Felt the poison that lurked above.

They shuffled out of the underground,
Boarding trains and ships like corpses
And dropping bombs from miles above.

A little French boy is spared.
His brother whispers “Bon courage,”
As the rest of the family are taken out back
And shot like mad dogs.

Twenty years later, he stands on the beach
With his young wife
Watching their sons roll and play in the sand.

His tongue tastes a warm salt
That couldn't come from the ocean.
All he can taste from the ocean is blood.

I can see my grandfather clearly
With tears falling down his face
As his mother shuts the piano.
“There will be no music,” she says quietly.

She is an immigrant
And I wonder if she questions the choice
That brought her son to a country where he might lay down his life
For strangers, four thousand miles away.

I can feel him now
Hiding in the apple trees,
High above the others.
He is in Sainte-Mère-Église, and there are enemies below.

And now I take them in my arms
Cradling them like children
“Je vous embrasse, les deux,”
And I lie down on the edge of the ocean at Normandy.

I exhale and hold them close.
The sun is shining, and I do not cry;
It is nothing but salt and water to me.

Sylvia and Vincent
Won't you come visit
me in the night
He'll paint and she'll write

Tulips and sunflowers
I am counting down the hours
Till I meet you
But you are hard to get to.

She put her head in the oven,
he put his in his hands
but you're not so different,
Sylvia and Vincent.

Her pen races, his brushstroke
how did they know
what to say, what to paint
Did it come from their pain?

And you may never see the reward,
the effect on the world
of your gripping emotion
and how it made time frozen

But this comparison is nonsense
only two creatives plagued by madness
and so, like them, I hope for acceptance
from a world that barely notices.

lipstick, mirrors, mysteries
i have a secret i can't keep
and it grows inside of me
til it is too deep

i see the ghost's grin, manifesting
through the glass, maybe
you were just a dream
when i slept in class

i know your name, but it doesn't fit
nothing could possibly contain your essence
through a hole in the fence
you saw me in the garden on a bench

and sometimes i pretend
this is all my imagination
break a dish, put it in the cupboard again
as if it never happened

watching the olympics
talking about who'd win
everything is a war these days
it's time we work out an armistice

you said, "you're not afraid to love
you love kittens, you love rainy weather,
you love shakespeare and sweaters
movies and being kissed
on the tip of your nose
new york city, you love beaches
and the few times it snows
you love crime tv, you love poetry
so why is it that when it comes to me
you feel hesitant?"

i said, "i will tell you, the reason
that i am guarded
yes, i love all of the things
that you listed.
but shakespeare never wrote me a sonnet
and then disappeared, leaving me stranded
new york city may drive me crazy
but it will always be here, you see
poetry may tear me apart
but it won't look me in the eyes as it does
do you have an answer, now, to your satisfaction?
please listen, believe me,
i do not fear rejection.
i fear giving up all of my secrets
only to find you've painted yours
on someone else's skin."