Ben Kowalewicz (spoken): Hi, my name is Ben Kowalewicz and this is Billy Talent.

Well I tripped, I fell down naked
I drank from a cup of lead
I hugged a skunk, it peed on me
Yesterday I joined Scientology

Steal a Camaro, then **** Jack Sparrow
Try stupid ****, try stupid ****
Jump in a dump truck, smell **** and get stuck
I cannot read, I cannot read
**** on computers, then drink some pewter
Die sanity, die sanity
Marry a cheapskate, gain ninety pounds weight
I'm really dumb, I'm really dumb

I'm stupid, it's my fault, so daft
I like to play in the garbage shaft
The best sport is Parkour, **** straight
I arrive at work five hours late

Drink a deep fryer, eat some barbed wire
Try stupid ****, try stupid ****
Sleep in a fireplace, burn your entire face
I cannot read, I cannot read
Cinnamon challenge, go on a chalk binge
Die sanity, Die sanity
Bike into traffic, pose pornographic
I'm a *******, I'm a *******

I ate some poo!

I'm stupid, it's my fault
Try
I'm stupid, it's my fault
Lie
This bad song don't make sense
Pie

Get a Prince Albert, snake blood for dessert now?
Drink some Everclear, cut off your own ear now?

Go back in time to, forties as a Jew
Try stupid ****, try stupid ****
Do *** and rip off your right knee
I cannot read, I cannot read
Find the KKK, put on some blackface
Die sanity, die sanity
Locate a pervert, then take off your shirt
I am a twit, I am a twit

I am a twit, I am a twit
Try stupid ****, try stupid ****
I am a twit, I am a twit

I had that recurring dream again last night.
Awakening with a start.
Perspiration was
Pouring down my face.
The car, the children,
Molly my wife.

The heavy truck spinning in front
on the icy new York   freeway.
Explosions so loud they deafened me.
Then the silence the total quietness
as they drifted away.
And i was left alone.

I moved out of the tiny inner-city cottage.
Is was now over  two years ago
but I just left it the way it was.
The kid's toys strewn on the floor.
Bread and cookies on the table.
I would never return there,  never.
Not even to get my beloved alto sax.
the key for me to making a living.

I followed the cop every day?
The one that pulled me from the wreck.
I did not know why i did this,
Sure she was pretty enough.
But that was not it.

I was once told that if you save
Someone's life they belong to you.
Well, she could have his life.
He did not want it anymore.

She entered the bank
He saw the robbery before she did.
The robber lifted his weapon before
She had time to move.
Without fear or forethought,I jumped
in front of her
and took a bullet for her.

It was in the arm straight in and out.
She put three in the perp,
dropping him dead.
before he could fire another shot.

I fell down she held me in her arms.
As I was bleeding out.
Why did you do that, she said
I would have been killed.
That's why
I whispered.

She visited me in hospital
Brought me grapes
I hate ******* grapes.

She had no idea who I was
When the car wreck happened
I was covered in blood and EMS
Ran me to the hospital.
Names don't stay with people
Only faces.

When I got out of the hospital.
She appeared at my rented room door.
With a coffee and doughnuts
I don't talk much since…..well just since.
Who the **** are you she asked
A God ******  Angel.
I said I don't think God dams his angels.

She seemed to like me.
**** knows why
I wasn't nice to her.
She started looking for me on her shift.
Grabbing a coffee and suggesting dates.
I told her no offense lady
don't arrest me.
But I don't date anymore.

But she was a New York cop.
and a woman,
******* relentless.
She said she would make life hell for me
If I didn't take her for a date.
******* women.

I gave in and said I would join her
At the blues club nearby.
We got there at 10 pm after her shift
She looked ******* hot.
Not like a ******* cop anymore.
The blues were playing
I heard the alto sax wailing
It cried tears
like my soul was feeling.
But my souls eyes were dry.

She saw the tears welling in my eyes
And held me to her soft breast.
Tell me what it is
Is it me she asked?
I was just silent.

The owner of the club saw me.
He said, Tony
where the ******* been man.
It's been two years since you came here.
We miss your sax wailing boy.
He said where's your sax?
Don't you have it anymore?
I shook my head it was a lie
But I had my reasons.

He grabbed the alto sax
from the band playing.
Make it weep Tony.
My heart needs to hear you play man.
I moved quietly to the stage.
And the room went silent.
Just as if the Angel Gabriel
was going to wail his horn.

They remembered me they stood up
and clapped for five minutes.
Blues people don't change.
They just get ******* older.

I said nothing.
But played nature boy.

Peggy got up and took the mike
She wept the words as I played.
Tears falling down
her old sad blackface.

……..There was a boy
A very strange enchanted boy
They say he wandered
very far, very far
Overland and sea
A little shy and sad of eye
But very wise was he…….

My cop was crying too.
She said I don't cry ever see.
I am a cop I see ****.
Who the **** are you she said?
But I let the sax wail for my words.
It poured my sadness into the night.

She got my full name from Peggy.
She says that boy needs a woman.
But then a woman is Peggy's
answer to all men's problems.

She run the info though the computers
at the precinct.
those ******* things
Know every leak you ever take.

She saw the car wreck
the body bags.
Me, covered in blood.
She knew it all.
I was exposed.

She even found my mother in law's place.
And went there.
She said he's heartsick honey.
He won't go home.
Won't let anyone in.
He blames himself.
He's never cried once
It's eating him inside.

She said I can't find him
Do you know where he is?
He's over at the cemetery.

She missed her shift change over.
And went to the Park Lawn
I  was kneeling by a family
grave talking to my kids.

She went to me and slipped
Her arm around me
,I turned my head
Into her breast.
she kissed my head.
and I wept and wept.
I sobbed like my alto sax wailed.

She kissed my eyes.
Let it out, honey
Let it all go
Don't stop let it go
.
She drove us to my house
The mess was on the floor.
The stale food stank.
It was in a mess a disaster.
The kid's toys spread everywhere.
My sax on the hall table.
saying nothing
she started cleaning it up.

She said quietly.
Did I not save your life right?
I  said yes you did.
And you saved mine right
I said yes I did.
She said
Unless we both say  that
we're even stevens.
You know what it means.

He nodded
Yeah...I know.
It means
We belong to each other now.
You got it straight McGraw she quipped.

Two years later
Tony came back from his gig
at the blues club.
He had a recording contract in his pocket.
The money would come in real handy
What with their second baby
coming in a few months.
Kids were pricey little buggers.

just as art
is not
the external
sadness
of one's
inner
monologue

this poem
is not
an apology

for blackface

Lookin' back on a memory
I seen the treachery scorn from.slavery
No realness that's what I feel.in me
blacks performing without the make up
take a look around you coonin' for you
the audience is the trick elites can **** a ****
if that ain't feelin' my ****
I shake up Hells Pits
I'm telling the truth open up ya eyes
I can't compromise
this new ******* settin' us back centuries?
Did Malcolm Martin and Edgers
die for free???
Naw lookin' at the black community
with an hawks eye view look how the new media spew
pawnin' off all this garbage *** new pop
emcees whites wanna be like me
so bad they glamorize off us
cause they kids can't feel us our real **** bust
play only old school records
that's my taste
eradicatin' smiles off corporate elites
pushin' Black face



Now some say the past is the past
how when I keep gettin' a newsflash about the past
twelve years a slave the help now the butler
I despise the ******* muthaphukka
and they say I'm racist I spit the truth
so what if it comes out chopped tooth
blowin' brains on the roof
once the topic is dropped **** all these phonies givin' them.props
I swear these nigguhs be actin like cops
steadily plottin' and waitin'
See a brother rise consciously he's suddenly
look down upon as an enemy
to America's epitome
yo I don't let the ******* worry me.bury me
with no name no tears to follow
I'll be remembered today but forgotten tomorrow
but my young thugs you can make.a change
powers in mind and pistols my word hit like missile
blowin' minds like land mines watch me climb
to the top though I'll be labeled
as a hater lil deebie riff raff iggy is straight up trash I know there greater
talent on the earth my own kind can get the shine
but these white youth puttin' Hip hop on the flat line
**** these company's pushin' Black face without the make up
look at Andy and Amos straight racism
now wake.up
black America they lockin' us down
and we ain't even makin' a sound
sometimes I wonder if it worth dying for my peeps
I rather conversate with the dead
like they still here feelin' no no fear

in this black face world

I met Virginia in a wave of sleet.
On Decatur, a hundred winters ago,
with a black iris, black hair in ponytail,
with a tongue like a nightcrawling widow,
Virginia whispered tornados behind the backs of the
grey-suited saxophone players, going blue in the cheeks,
under their blackface.

Under a flimsy sheet of moon sliver sky and a dim streetlight,
Virginia kicked a soda can along the cracking concrete.
With each bar we passed, I hollered, "Thank God we're alive!"
and danced a shapeless jig.

Near Williamson cemetery, Virginia's white knuckles laced into mine.
"The amount of time we have cheapens whatever purpose we have,"
Virginia hissed.

I caressed her serpentine neck.
A lone car's high beams
made Virginia's silhoutte tower above the cemetery gates,
made Virginia's black irises madden to poisonous yellow.

She loosened my grey necktie.
I let down her hair.
A sea of collected strands fell
like a closing curtain.
The distant saxophone ascended to heaven,
leaving me below,
leaving me below,
leaving me to spend the night bellowing for above.

halfway home from
that concrete-bowl arena
teeming (heaving) with
stinky-sweat-soaked rednecks
layered in sawdust and grease

      a messy blackface mob
      spreading spit tobacco
      over their naked bones,
      they sneak around
      through the drafty back hallways
      casually scattering
      dad’s old shotgun shells
      fresh cigarette ash
      mamma’s whiskey labels
      and let-this-be-broken pregnancy tests.

      rusty dogtags clink together
      sliding between camouflaged denim
      mocking quick African rhythms

      circular saws scream over
      the echoing footfalls of
      steel-toed boots padded with
      suspicious glances

and my lonely power lines
are laying lazy across the
sweet, forgiven sky

honeysuckle weep
as they hug the barbed-wire  

the sunset smells something like grace

The next time you want to ban
brown skin from your white land ,
consider the crimson floods spilt
on burnt clay from red flesh.

You want brownfolk in this country
like we wanted pox in our quilts.
As our history is ripped to tattered patches
and replaced by a white silken sheet. 

But this is the land of the free
and this is the home of the brave.
And when I say brave
I don't mean that caricature
drawn on the front of a baseball jersey,
with buck teeth,
a bird feather
and  a tomahawk motion.

I mean the brave souls
that took a last stand
against the Custers
and the Mayflowers
and colonial white powers.
I mean the Sitting Bulls and Geronimos
who’s histories are rewritten
in Old Spaghetti Westerns.
Where John Wayne is always the hero,
and our people aren’t even cast
to play our own roles. 

Hollywood won't stoop to blackface
but red face is PC. 
Perfect Aryan models advertise American Apparel,
one authentic-looking headdress
and fifty-dollar native design
crop top tank tops
are like spoils to the victor.
It's enough to make one sick.

This is America,
where they steal your culture
and sell it back to you
at ten times the price.
Those faux hide moccasins,
**** on old tradition,
turn centuries old struggle
into a fashion faux-pas.  

I once had a conversation with a girl
whose skin was made of privilege.
She said, ”I thought Native Americans
wanted to live on reservations..?”
Let that resonate. Repeat.
as if we were getting a room
at the Four Seasons.

It was called the trail of tears
not the trail of whimsical wonder.
But in this white washed world
invasion is called settling
genocide is industry
and poverty is tax-free.

Our heritage is endangered,
our veins are *****-diluted
but at least we have those scholarships
which, I suppose, we’ll use
to cram our brains
with a history
that never belonged to us.

Perhaps, all of those centuries ago,
we should have thought to build a wall,
you know, to keep the immigrants out.
We could have stood at the border
with picket signs of self-deluded righteousness
lungs filled with hate
for a different colored human
shouting, "Go home, Alien,
your dreams are illegal here!"

Excuses Excuses...
So MANY EXCUSES... !!!

For The Type of Looseness...
That Has Embraced NOOSES... !?!

EXCUSES For THIS...
EXCUSES For THAT...

EXCUSES For Plans...
That Have CORRUPTED Man...

BAD EGGS In The Batch... !!!
Where Policeman Are Hatched... !!!

Oh YES Bad Eggs INDEED... !!!
Is How RACIST Cops Be...
When RACISM Feeds...
Their Motives On Streets...

And In Turn How They Deal...
When They’re Using Their Knees... !!!

And Using Their... GUNS...
Like These Tasers That Stun... !!!

And Choke Holds That DON’T... !!!!!
When They Leave People COLD... !!!

Excuses UNFOLD...
Even When They Are Shown...
To Move... So Much SICKER...
Than Those Known As KILLERS... !!!

Excuses Come QUICKER...
Than Confession Sinners... !!!

Because of Protection...
These Bad Eggs Be Getting...
From Those Who NEED VETTING... !!!
BEFORE They Pass Sentence... !!!!!

These Excuses I Mention...
Are Those With DEFECTIONS... !!!

That Need REAL CORRECTION...
That’s Neutral And... CENTRED... !!!

Like... Natural Selection... !!!

There Are Others That SMOTHER...
...... Historical Blunders...... !!!
Like Those Now UNCOVERED...
About... CERTAIN Brothers...
Who Sold Their Own Mother’s... !?!

For... Colonial Masters...
A... FACTUAL DISASTER...
That’s Been So Well Plastered...
That EXCUSES Run Talk...
That IS STUPID And FLAWED... !!!
When It Comes To The Past...
And YES... Slavery Paths... !!!

You See Some EXCUSES...
Breed... MORE THAN Denial... !!!

They Hold Certain Files...
That Are TRULY OBSCENE...
Within... Black History... !!!

Like Those Now EXPOSED...
About... Certain White Folks...

Who’ve Earned Money For Shows...
With... BLACKFACE Videos...
And RACIST Themed JOKES... !?!

That Are FORCING These Peeps...
To Make... APOLOGIES...

As If They Will CLEAN...
Their Slates With Black Peeps’... ?!?

And Of Course Yes EXCUSES... !!!
For Things They’ve Been Doing...
That Lacked... Racial Prudence...

So Just Like The Others...

These Excuses PROVE LOOSENESS...
Is Something That Humans...
Exude In Their Movements...

And In... CERTAIN CHOICES...
That Have Done MORE Than POISON... !!!

Yes... HUMANITY... !!!

When... ACCOUNTABILITY...
Is What NEEDS To INCREASE... !!!

Because These FALLACIES...
Are What Make Some Heads Feel...
That It’s Best To... "Conceal"...

Themselves Behind LIES...
And... FRAUDULENT Deeds... !!!

And The Need To Keep Choosing...

To AVOID Being TRUTHFUL...
Instead of Indulging...

... In All These...

......... “ EXCUSES “....... !!!

they forgot... i said: i feel sedated... i don’t feel drunk, i feel sedated... but there’s you with a horse’s head telling me otherwise... high on ketamine.*

as expected,
the local highstreet is changing,
a new shop opened, a café,
serving all day breakfast,
and it donned the union jack proudly on a pole,
made me think about marching to war for a bit,
but then i walked past the local estate agent,
and, guess what,
it actually allowed the travelling circus’ posters to hang
on its windows next to unaffordable housing...
(usually these posters are reserved for dilapidated buildings,
you know how people, when it comes to gypsies with make-up
acrobats and elephants)
well... unaffordable... unless you’re a sheikh or
a rich scamming nigerian;
now that’s lucky for a giggle... a union jack above
the café door and circus posters in the estate agents... ha;
it’s like i’m watching the third partition of poland,
although here it’s not the habsburgs prussians and the romanovs
but the jazz singer blackface clowns, the regular clowns... and the mimes.

"Sometimes I think to myself that if I owned a gun I’d blow my brains out the back of my head. But since I don’t own a gun, these bottles of whiskey will have to do," Richmond told the Arab man behind the counter of Bob’s All American Convenience store. The Arab man nodded politely and counted the money Richmond laid down on the counter before putting it in the register.

Richmond leaned against the counter staring past the clerk and past the cartons of cigarettes and boxes of condoms and blunt shell wrappers that fooled no one of their intended use. Richmond stared past the convenience store walls and passed the ****** blowing a John in the back alley by the dumpster and past the man beating his wife in front of their children and past the 13 year old girl that just found out she was going to be a mother and past the block that only worsened every day and past the city that was crumbling beneath corrupt politicians and the debt they incurred and past the country that hid the truth from its citizens.

Richmond stared past it all and felt his eyes begin to water as tears started to fall down his face, tracing his age lines, tracing the scars that scared away children, tracing the laugh lines he no longer used until he could taste his tears, salty and wet, first on his lips and then his tongue. Richmond cried for the first time in a long time and began laughing at the thought of himself crying. He did not know what brought it on and when he tried to pinpoint the thought or feeling or emotion that triggered the tears he was met with a migraine.

The Arab man behind the register looked at Richmond with suspicion and reached beneath the counter top and pulled out a baseball bat that had nails protruding from the top half and told Richmond that he needed to leave, that this was a place for business and not weirdos. Richmond wiped away the tears with the ragged sleeve of a flannel that he had found in the dumpster earlier that morning. He feigned a smile the best he could to show no hard feelings and grabbed the brown bag containing three small bottles of whiskey and left the store.

The air hit Richmond’s tear stained face and instantly cooled him and he felt the bitterness of winter coming even as he heard the air conditioners running and the taxis honking and the birds over in the park a block over chirping. Richmond walked along the sidewalk, ignored intentionally by everyone he passed, and found an alley way unoccupied except for the rats digging thru refuse and slid his aching body down against one of the buildings brick walls and took out a bottle of whiskey and uncapped it and brought it to his lips and felt its amber courage wash over his tongue and down into his belly creating a warmth that he hasn’t felt since the doctors told him that his wife and daughter had died in the car accident that had only left him scarred badly upon his face and chest.

Richmond thought about their deaths and felt the pain as if it had just happened and not seventeen years ago and drank the first bottle of whiskey gone until the numbness overtook the ache and he watched the rats scurrying thru the garbage before a cat crept down the alley and coughs one of the rats off guard and began toying with it as cats do. The other rats took off down various holes and behind whatever coverage they could find so that they could live another day.

“Smart rats" Richmond found himself saying allowed. He opened the second bottle and drank it as he watched the cat tear open the flesh of the rat with its sharp claws on its paw and tear chunks of insides out with its feline teeth. He drank the bottle as he watched the cats white face become red with blood from its **** and he drank as he watched the cat lick and clean itself until it was a white cat again and it left the alley. Richmond stood up slowly using the wall he was leaning against for support and he stumbled his way out of the alley with his one whiskey bottle left hidden beneath the left side of his flannel. He cradled it like an endangered animal and continued his sluggish, stumbling walk towards the park where he found a bench and laid down and closed his eyes.

When he awoke he saw a cop coming towards him. Wanting nothing to do with the law Richmond quickly snapped to and started walking in the opposite direction of the cop. He looked over his shoulder once or twice or three times after a good while of walking and did not see the cop anymore. He sighed. And laughed quietly.

Richmond walked some more with no path or intention in mind until he sobered up and realized he had walked to the graves of his wife and daughter. Richmond dropped to his knees and began sobbing and scratching at the dirt that covered their caskets some six feet below. He howled for god and asked angrily why them and not him. He laid his head down on the ground and cried and the dirt mixed with his tears so that he looked blackface in some spots. He wiped away the mud and tears and took his last bottle out and before putting it to his mouth told his wife and daughter that he would be with them soon and he pulled the trigger by drinking the bottle empty and laying down next to his wife’s grave and holding the ground where she lay dead.

The next morning the care taker was doing his first daily walk thru and came upon Richmond lying with the tombstones, dead, and with a smile on his face.

The actor burst into the bar
"Give me a double shot"
"And get ready with another"
"The strongest stuff you've got"

The barkeep, poured the whiskey
Pushed the glass across the bar
The actor downed the double
and put a twenty in the jar

"Tonight at my audition"
"As I finished up on stage"
"I was questioned by a fellow"
"Who was from a different age"

The barkeep poured another
And he downed this one himself
Then he turned for just a second
And grabbed a bottle from the shelf

The actor told the barkeep
Every single solitary word
The barkeep was transfixed
By everything he heard

"I came off stage...just to the right"
"There was a man there in the dark"
"He said that I was wonderful"
"Though his voice was rather stark"

"He said he didn't know the play"
"That I had just read for"
"I told him it was Webber"
"He asked if I'd done any more"

"I told him of my background"
"Phantom and Waiting for Godot"
"He said those must be recent"
"Those are two I do not know"

"He told me that he'd been working there"
"For almost all his life"
"He spoke of Ziegfields follies"
"That was where he'd met his wife"

"He asked if I'd done anything"
"Something maybe he would know"
"Something with some music"
"A gala kind of show"

The phone rang, breaking up the tale
The barkeep let it go
This tale was more important
Than anyone would ever know

"I told him, I'd done Joseph"
"Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice"
"He just looked clear on through me"
"He said that that was nice"

"He talked of all he'd seen there"
"Chaplin, and others out on tour"
"He told me of the strippers'
"And many, many, more"

"These were way before my time though"
"These were way back in the day"
"He mentioned shows in blackface"
"I knew not what to say"

"I tried to focus on him"
"But, I truly couldn't see"
"He spoke about the theater"
"He asked a bit 'bout me"

"He said this one's an old girl"
"I said that much was true"
"I said it holds a spirit"
"He smiled, like he knew"

The bottle now half empty
The words were pouring just as fast
The barkeep grabbed another
For this one wouldn't last

"I said I've heard the spirit"
"Sits up , right over there"
"In the upper level seating"
"Row three, right by the stair"

"He didn't look to see it"
"I'm sure he knew the seat by heart"
"He said to keep the theater living"
"We all must play a part"

"You, you are an actor"
"Though I know little of your work"
"But, it's part of the grand circle"
"It's a duty, not to shirk"

"Me, I'm ....well I' guess you'd say"
"I'm a caretaker if you will"
"I help to keep the status quo"
"Though I'm never on the bill"

"I moved a little closer"
"To where the voice was coming from"
"There was a coldness and a silence"
"And the old man, he was gone"

"I heard a seat get lowered"
"Three rows in beside the stair"
"And I looked and saw his shadow"
"In the velvet, theater chair"

"I may just be an actor"
"But, this spirit was my host"
"I'd spent nearly an hour"
"With the Bijou's theater ghost"

The barkeep, stood in silence
Two more glasses to the brim
"Are you sure that's who you talked to?"
"Are you sure that it was him?"

The actor pushed the stool back
"I am as sure as sure can be"
"I saw the keeper of the theater"
"And I know that he saw me"