Stand up
Stand up
Stand up proud on the soapbox
U got something to say?
Say it
Say it
Say it proud on the soapbox
U ready now?
Get up
Get up
Get up on that soapbox
(Speaker crackles)

Hi.
Crowd: hi!

My name is Prince L and I'm here to offend you.

Crowd: gasp!!!(Murmurs)

so settle down. it seems I can't reach your standards of presentation. is my hair to *****? are my clothes to cheap, hell anyone can see, I wear my **** proudly,

Crowd: gasp harder!!! He did not!

I did, oh **** I forgot I'm not supposed to cuss, o well too late, watch it unfold, my fate. this is my first time on the soapbox, let's talk about that, the box, is it needed? People use it as a trough to feed these stagnant ideas of life and how to live it. Why does everyone need to be categorized and seeded?

Crowd: hmmmmm....

The disparities between race in class are magnified cause we are gentrified, so we all feel polar to the other, opposite the fact we are born from another, check me I have love for you because you are you no matter your crew. O you have a conflict of view, don't matter unless u mad hatter tryin to riddle your way through the middle, cause in reality most of us are in this middle group, are you following? You're a regular sleuth.

Crowd: huh? We want truth.

Try this on for size. I think you might find, the separation between elite and u is a lot, spot the differences?  if you were part of the one you wouldn't be arguin with everyone. They got lawyers for that, they mouths stay strapped ready to ****** from you, so don't worry boo keep jaw jackin while the keep straight jackin, stealin, thievin, everything you see, reapin, the earth of its resources slowly turning it to hell. Its not a perception its a perpetual. why you think they always gathering, resources, yea they planning it, to own the world, don't be a fool.
Crowd: no way!!

I'm tellin you pray.  Appreciate the ppl who stand upon the soapbox, why? Cause they be fightin for every ones freedom. No matter the cause, no matter the fight,

My Second Letter to Allen Ginsberg
Dear Allen,
Almost five years ago, I wrote you a letter, and in
That letter, I purged my drunkenly woeful cries
That seem so first-world now and naïve –
The things I grimed over with luxuries I didn’t
Realize that rubbed against my plump limbs
Like millions of felines poised at the
Tombs of pharaohs.

Oh, Allen, I’m so tired –
These politics, and poly ticks, so many ticks that
Annoy my tics. Allen! I smear your name so liberally
Against this paper like primer because the easiest way
To coerce someone into listening to you like
A mother
or predator
tugging or nibbling on your ear –
Swatches of velvet scalped from a ****’s coat
Are you and I talking to ourselves again?
Candid insanity : Smoky hesitance.

Dear Allen, I’m so tired –
Yes, I love wearing my ovaries on the outside like
Some Amazonian soapbox gem glistening from beneath
The iron boots of what the newspapers tell me while
I cough at them with the hurdled delicacies of alphabet soup.
Give vegetables a gender and call them onions, Allen.
Sullied scratch-hicks pinioned feet from slapping
Society’s last rung on the ladder.
Ignore the swerve of small-town eyes.
Scapulas, stirrups, pap smears, and cervical mucus – now do you know who we are?

That fingernail clipped too short, Allen. We’ve all got AIDs
And AIDs babies, haven’t you heard? Hemorrhaging from the political
****** and out – they haven’t reached the heart.  
Since when have old white men given a **** about some
13 year old’s birth control? I’m riding on the waves of the
Parachute game and I swear this abortion-issue is just a veil outside Tuskegee University
Being further shove over plaintive eyes, swollen and black.
Pay up and
shut up.

I still remember my first broken *****, Allen.
Can you tell me all about your first time?
The vasodilatation that made veins rub against skin,
Delirious brilliance : unfathomable electricity.
I made love during an LSD experience, Allen,
And I am not sorry. I see cosmic visions and
Manifest universal vibrations as if this entire world is
A dish reverberating with textiles and marbles, and
All are plundering the depths of the finished wine
Bottle roasting in the sink like Thanksgiving Turkey.
The patience is in the living. Time opens out to you.
The opening, between you and you, occupied,
zoned for an encounter,
given the histories of you and you—
And always, who is this you?
The start of you, each day,
a presence already—
Hey, you!

Ah, Allen, if you are not safe, then I am not safe.
And where is the safest place when that place
Must be someplace other than in the body?
Am I talking to myself again?
You are not sick, you are injured—
you ache for the rest of life.

Why is it that I have to explain to my students that
sometimes what I'm spouting is prescribed by a pedagogical pharmacy --
but all they want to know is "what do the symbols on the television mean?"
I am completely aghast against the ghosts of future goners --
I am legitimately licensed to speak, write, listen like some mothers --
I am constantly cajoling the complex creations blamed on burned-out educators --
I am following the flagrant, fired-up "*******"s tagging lockers --
Pay up and
shut up.

Yes, and it’s Hopeless. Allen.
Where did we get off leaping and bounding into
The dogpile for chump change jurisdiction, policing
The right and the left for inherent hypocrisies when
Poets are so frightful to turn that introspective judgment
Upon ourselves?
We didn’t see it coming and I heard the flies, Allen.
Mean crocodile tears. Flamingo mascara tracks
Up and down : up and down: bow – bow – bow – bow
Buoyant amongst the misguided ******* floating around
In the swirlpool of lackadaisical introspection.
What good is vague vocab within poetry?
Absolutely none.
Would you leave the porchlight on tonight?
Absolutely, baby.

Dear Allen, would you grow amongst the roots and dirt
At the knuckles of a slackjawed brush of Ever-Pondering Questions
Only to ask them time-and-time-and-time-and-time-again.
Or pinch your forehead with burrowed, furrowed concentration upon those
Feeble branches of progression towards something that recedes further
And further with as much promise as the loving hand
Attempts to guide a lover to the bed?

Allen, I wish to see this world feelingly through the vibrations of billions of bodies, rocking and sobbing, plotting and gnashing like the movement of a million snakes, like the curves collecting and riding the parachute-veil.

Ah, Allen! Say it ain’t so! Sanctified swerve town eyes.
And everything is melting while poets take the weather
Too personally
And all the Holden Caulfields of the world read all the
*******’s written on the walls and all the Invisible Men
Eat Yams and all the Zampanos are blind and blind
And blind and blind and blind and blind
Yet see as much as Gloucester, as much as Homer,
As much as Oedipus.

Oh, Allen, do you see this world feelingly
and wander around the desert?
Colored marbles vibrating on the curtailed parachute paradox.
Lamentation of a small town’s onion. Little do we know, Allen,
That what you cannot see, we cannot see, and we are bubbling
Over in the animal soup of the proud yet weary. I can see,
However, how the peeled back skulls of a million
Workboots and paystubs may never sully the burden
Of an existential angst in miniscule amounts.
Pay up and
shut up.  

My dearest Allen, there is always a question of how
The cigarettes became besmirched with wax to complement
What was once grass, and
What was once a garish night drenching doorknobs.
The night's yawn absorbs you as you lie down at the wrong angle
To the sun ready already to let go of your hand
As you stepped, quivering, on to
The shores of Lethe.

"So why are you painting a woman in a bottle?"
The challenge. Handling all those quirky reflections and layers of transparency.

"She has phantom arms and legs, what about that?"
Yes, pretty cool. A Vitruvian woman in a bottle.

"I'm looking for Meaning: Don't paintings look under the surface?"
You mean, what does it mean, really mean? It's just a way to test my skill.

"But what are you saying with that?"
It's not feminist nor anti, it's just an exercise. Besides, there's a rope.

"But aren't you, as an artist, exposing reality, presenting emotions and feelings, seeing the soul?"
I'm not on a soapbox-- I'm testing my skill-- I paint and don't think about it too much. After all, 'Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar' or is it 'just a smoke'? *

"I don't like your message."
OK, I'll paint you in a bottle...
As a shrunken head.

Stand up on your soapbox
Say the words you think
Study what you believe in
Hear what’s being said
So maybe you’re opinionated
But no one cares what you post
You believe in something
Say it with a voice    
Get up early morning
Sacrifice the time
To protest or make a noise
In reality and time
Step outside a tweet to
Really speak your mind
To sing a song
All along together
Stand up on a soapbox
Really speak your mind.

soapbox man has
measured the moments
in the the small wood floor room
she dose a wet step soft shoe little hip swing dance
to music only she and god can hear
and to her soapbox man is god
as she slides slowly thru the dense air of his self contained contentions
in the the small wood floor room
its freedom to her
soapbox man has come and she is here
to get her fix
of his brand of guns to subjugate the dead
and iron fist rusting in a vacant lot brand of rule
its freedom to her

echoes down the bridge road between realitys
a woman laughing in slow motion
the tread of boots on marble
oddly distorted pieces of conversation
that are appended to soapbox heroes
who preach
that those not with us are against us
and should be punished for their cruel foolishness
this is not heaven
its a place that wears the face of grace on earth
it wears the mask of memories warm and kind
its peace and freedom to her
its a lie
this is the nature of the human beast
what reality we dream is pleasing
no matter how toxic

in the the small wood floor room
she dose a wet step soft shoe little hip swing dance
to music only she and god can hear
and as time passes
and it eats from within
she falls to the floor
and crumbles to dust
a fragment of humanity
on a pergo floor
and its freedom to her

The man stood on a box
In the middle of the park,
When people walked by
The old boy would bark
“It’s in the Bible,” he cried.
And some people would ask
What is in the Bible, sir?”
Prepared to take him to task.

“Everything’s in there, friend!”
He answered with a smile
Feeling the people there
Would stay and listen a while.
“Well, that’s an easy answer!”
One of the onlookers said.
“You have left nothing out!”
The orator nodded his head.

“The Bible has answers for you
To any question you can say.
It will be your salvation, sir
No waiting until Judgment Day.
It tells you what to eat and then
Tells you how to choose a wife.
It tells you how to go to heaven
When you reach the end of life.”

The questioner replied, “Yes, sir,
And it tells of women made of salt,
And a fellow who walked on water
Another brought the sun to a halt.
It tells of a boat quite big enough
To have two each of every animal.
And people floating up to the sky.
Don’t you find these things incredible?”

“Not all,” the soapbox man said,
“God can do any holy thing at all.
He has made the planets, the sky,
The heavens and the waterfalls.
God knows everything and he is
Who speaks to you in your heart.”
The onlooker shook his head, said
“So, when does that stuff start?”

“What stuff, sir?” the orator asked.
“The part where God speaks to me.
I haven’t heard a word from God
And I have been listening, you see.
That would be a truly wondrous thing
For this God person to finally do.
But, if God speaks to all of us
Why the hell do we need you?

If this is all there is
If everything I've seen so far in life  
Is all there is to live,
And you are never ever coming back
Then let me be happy with it.
Because I so desperately want to be happy.
Let me see every new new day like
A mother sees her child, eyes open wide
Staring at something I had a hand in making
That could just as easily go wrong as it could right.
Let me hear every seven AM wake up call as
The bells of St Peters to the ear of a choir boy
Calling me to worship with unquestionable faith.
Let me eat every burnt slice of toast like
A convicted criminal ensconced in solitary
Devours his last meal on death row.
Let me feel laughter as something other,
Than just the vibration of vocal chords.
Let me always speak with the conviction
Of a dreamer, a believer, an activist
Shouting every syllable
From the pinnacle of an overturned soapbox
And treating every street corner like a stage.
Let me stop trying to predict rain
And accept that if there are going to be downpours
There are certain seeds I need to sow.
Let me stop watching the television screen
As though all of life's mysteries
Can be answered by documentaries.
And that I can finally tune in, by connecting with fictional shows.
Let me see wonder
Because for a long time now I've been dreaming in colour
Its real life that seems trapped in monochrome.
If this is all there is
If everything I've lived in life has taken all I have to give
And you are never ever coming back.
Then lets get it over with.
Because I so desperately want this to be over.
Let me breathe in smoke for the rest of my days
Until tar spills from my lungs, to my heart
And burns my capillaries with that nicotine flame
Let me make heartbreak an art.

Because it reminds me of you
And I don't deserve any better.
Let me walk like I'm walking on eggshells
How I always used to do for you.

My voice is louder than the amphetamines that pump through my system,
Like a myriad of violins,
preaching on a soapbox.
Surrounded by self-proclaimed writers,
who control their mindless devotions with their pen to paper.
They believe,
not only in themselves,
but in the system.
They don't challenge what's really happening,
and is instead,
hazed by propaganda.

I am told that confidence is one thing,
and being self sufficient is another.
But i think they amalgamate to each other,
like the rivers do in my head.

We wonder,
what if the dust on the moon really is acidic?
what do we do then?

I give my money to my hierarchy above,
and I challenge what really is happening.

Simplest of names,
So plain, But how I love to say it
A promise for warmth in igloo block prison eyes
And tone of Daria,
just whelmed enough to respond
A chance of sarcasm is air
Venom in plain daylight.

Plain tone.
Plain mood.
Plain old abuse.
And most would take it from her.
As she would and certainly has taken it from us.

Petit feminine fighter with no haymakers or KO records.
****** face, that rested war and peace between chin and brow.
Baroness of motherhood or is it the queen of hearts and depression?

Stars and music always forever
Anchor tattoos with a key to a heart, now a predator.
Forever enchanted by the la-de-dah and bleeding heart affairs
A savior in no motion or fashion but I dare not call you hypothetical

But a standard broad, beauty and-
So shameless I celebrate seeing you, awkward and so ****
Cleopatra, to be a bit dramatic-
Yes Cleo-mantra, I collectively disintegrate all charm and physical form
And you,  unfazed or unimpressed with either detail of romance

My friend, compromised by style and NO amusement.
There is much more to you than ****** faces and belittling arguments.
There is more to you then practicing soapbox rants in your kitchen.
There is more to you than a shallow mothers intoxications and material.
There is more to you than the new hair dye or the wigs you collect.

The things you store in the boxes cluttering your room with everything not in those boxes
The clothes on your floor, decorations from your teenaged 3rd or 4th personality.
The smell of perfume and coffee and more perfume all over,
stuck to papers, next to wine bottles, borrowed and never returned books, unfinished snacks,
used paper towels, lipstick stained mugs and glasses, your sons toy I stepped on 4 times,
pictures of gone lovers and notes, your license; now found again after the second time ordering a new one.
And…it's expired,
Then finally under the aftermath of years, doubt, clutter, your cell phone vibrating in the fray of sheets.

"found it."

Least we forget that, as we forgot we are both in this room together.
You are so much more than this mess I picked up for you countless times
And though I complain I will pick it up for you and not ask your permission
I won't scold you, I can only exhale failure and help.

Staring blankly into your screen discussing all genres of worldly horror and ways to divert.
Such plans and opinions but no federal funding!
We would pay homage to girl power and the early 90's and call her G.I. Jayne-
(Or not cause she doesn’t have that kind of sense of humor.)
But imagine a solider, a true solider of the meek.
That is theoretically, G.I. Jayne.
Has all of our best interest at hearts, our hero.
Songs of children are said to give her strength-
(She really doesn't like this kind of humor, I must move on.)

My friend truly distressed by the world she can't control from her tiny screen.
I place all comfort I can to her and understandably rejected like a stranger making rounds.
No trust comes from her nowadays, None for me at least. I can't speak for all.
I try to climb over the steep absurdity, alluding to her self-mutilation and task this is
but not going as far as just telling her this is ******* killing me.

I have no lesser or sophisticated words.
I'm dying every time we reach these altitudes.
Fingers and my tone raising at every disagreement .
How you can break me down to my atomic core and decimate miles of friendship.
My closest star in the sky, use to bring me morning tea, flowers and maternity
We now stand in quasar as our space and stardust find mass in thousands of millions of years in development
For me to be sent to the loony bin and you to prison like our heroes from Clinton to Lazaretto.

-
crack another thermometer open
on the broken bathroom sink,
pour yourself into me like mercury
and pan the bed of my stomach
for multitudes of gold flecks
like however many myriads
of sickly pill bottles in your
dresser drawer of socks.
-
see all
the shredded speckled petals
i ripped up before i'd let
the deer get to them;
i'm colorblind,
and i can't tell
the sun's reflection from plastic,
or tulips from the broken
pottery outside my front door.
-
and far least from another beer,
and another fifth of whatever
could be fit under your shirt
-
and never a chair pulled up to speak,
from standing like a soapbox
more suited to cleaning
than to preaching.
-
pour yourself into me like mercury,
because it's so much easier
when my veins weigh me down
to distraction, than being able
to think of hydrangeas again.
-