Lit league anthology

I am so tired of waiting,
Aren’t you,
For the world to become good
And beautiful and kind?

Let us take a knife
And cut the world in two –
And see what worms are eating
At the rind.

You didn’t like the last story in your life’s book,
so you wrote yourself another one.
In this story,
you do not wear your body as an apology.

Instead you wear it like a quiet revolution,
you carry the future in the back pocket of your jeans,
say girl, say glory
each step forward is an amen

Like you I
love love, life, the sweet smell
of things, the sky-blue
landscape of January days.

And my blood boils up
and I laugh through eyes
that have known the buds of tears.

I believe the world is beautiful
and that poetry, like bread, is for everyone.

And that my veins don’t end in me
but in the unanimous blood
of those who struggle for life,
Love, little things,

landscape and bread,
the poetry of everyone.

I wear my heart on my sleeve,
or rather both sleeves, since
it’s usually broken.

Sometimes when I join my hands
to pray, the jagged edges
briefly touch,

like a plate that fell and cracked
apart from being asked
to hold too much

Ten Hail Marys, I meditate for practice
Channel nine news tell me I’m movin’ backwards
Eight blocks left, death is around the corner
Seven misleadin’ statements ’bout my persona
Six headlights wavin’ in my direction
Five-o askin’ me what’s in my possession
Yeah I keep runnin’, jump in the aqueducts
Fire hydrants and hazardous
Smoke alarms on the back of us
But mama don’t cry for me, ride for me
Try for me, live for me
Breathe for me, sing for me
Honestly guidin’ me
I could be more than I gotta be
Stole from me, lied to me, nation hypocrisy
Code on me, drive on me
Wicked, my spirit inspired me
Like yeah, open correctional gates in higher desert
Yeah, open our mind as we cast away oppression
Yeah, open the streets and watch our beliefs
And when they carve my name inside the concrete
I pray it forever reads

Freedom
Freedom

I can’t move
Freedom, cut me loose
Singin’, freedom! Freedom! Where are you?
‘Cause I need freedom, too

And when they sat down in the morning
to bowls of cold cereal, each in turn
would notice the blades of a ceiling fan
spinning at the bottom of their spoons,
small enough to swallow, yet no one
ever mentioned it, neither looking up
nor into each other’s eyes for fear
of feeding the hunger that held them there.

I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – too?
Then there’s a pair of us!
Dont tell! they’d banish us – you know!

How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog –
To tell your name – the livelong June –
To an admiring Bog!

I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I’ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.
Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed—

I, too, am America.

I tend the mobile now
like an injured bird

We text, text, text
our significant words.

I re-read your first,
your second, your third,

look for your small xx,
feeling absurd.

The codes we send
arrive with a broken chord.

I try to picture your hands,
their image is blurred.

Nothing my thumbs press
will ever be heard.

What we did to the earth, we did to our daughters
one after the other.

What we did to the trees, we did to our elders
stacked in their wheelchairs by the lunchroom door.

What we did to our daughters, we did to our sons
calling out for their mothers.

What we did to the trees, what we did to the earth,
we did to our sons, to our daughters.

What we did to the cow, to the pig, to the lamb,
we did to the earth, butchered and milked it.

Few of us knew what the bird calls meant
or what the fires were saying.

We took of earth and took and took, and the earth
seemed not to mind

until one of our daughters shouted: it was right
in front of you, right in front of your eyes
and you didn’t see.

The air turned red.    The ocean grew teeth.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –

And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm –

I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet – never – in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of me.

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.