// F R EEMAN WO RD//
LOVE PROPAGANDA
HATE POLITICS // F R EEMAN WO RD//
THE TITLE HAS TWO INTENDED INTERPRETATIONS. Other interpretations are not denied, only unintended.
(1) Love propaganda, as in deliberately love information with an agenda while simultaneously hating politics. On one end, information with an agenda, or propaganda, is always that which has its goal made implicit in its form. It has a hidden agenda. On the opposite end, to politicize is to make an implicit agenda explicit; it involves putting the agenda ahead of the information. The hate is directed at politics as pertains to the politicizing of human issues. If one is to love information with an agenda, politicization––the act of making implicit agendas explicit–– is always a debasement of the reverence of human love, since the sentiment of love must always be implied in act and never explained before action, or else it risks being considered wholly unreal. We must remember the unfortunate but convincing truth that information with an agenda is often more revealing to our psychology than informative agendas. Thus, we love propaganda (gossip, misinformation, narratives, mythology, emotional appeals) and hate politics (structured debate, logical argument, detached reasoning, removed declarations of love). (2) Love propaganda, as in the propaganda of love, information spread with the purpose of increasing love as an end. This information, to be effective must play on the politics of hatred, since it is the very politics of anti-love (i.e. hatred) which are a means to furthering love. It is from a focus on the ways in which anti-love is negotiated (the politics of it), that blind spots and weaknesses in our current love can be revealed. The propaganda portion only serves to fill our minds with what works well with our hearts. Thus, given (1), that we love propaganda and eschew politics, a healthy combination of propaganda for love and critiques on the politics of hatred are both necessary and sufficient to increase love in the world. So on one hand you are being presented a directive to “love propaganda and hate politics” and on the other hand you are being presented a dialectic on the “propaganda of love and the politics of hate.” There is interaction between the two of them. That is you are to follow the directive, with the intentionality of the dialectic. I PRESENT: LOVE PROPAGANDA // HATE POLITICS
CONTENTS LOVE PROPAGANDA PAGE 10
THE HUMANIFESTO AN ODE TO EVERYTHING ALWAYS DYING EVERYWHERE FOR THE FIRST TIME
PAGE 15 PAGE 18
PSALM OF SELF I AM THE SCALPEL A MEDITATOR’S MIND WHEN I LEAVE WHAT HAPPENS TOMORROW
PAGE 20 PAGE 22 PAGE 23 PAGE 25
HATE POLITICS PAGE 29 PAGE 30 PAGE 33 PAGE 36 PAGE 38 PAGE 41 PAGE 45
HONESTY ON PHILOSOPHY CLASSROOMS THE 7 I’S OF OPPRESSION I AM THE BULLET THE BOY WHO CRIED NIGGER THE RAVEN AND THE WRITING DESK THOSE WHO BIRTH HOLLOW
“Art for art’s sake is an empty phrase. Art for the sake of truth, art for the sake of the good and the beautiful that is the faith I am searching for.” — Baroness Dudevant, or Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin, as pseudonym “George Sand”
My goals as an artist:
(1) To convince people of the feasibility of a life based on love in the absence of domination (by gods, creeds, or others).
(2) To inspire people to believe in the honesty and integrity of the guided human spirit and the mastered and disciplined self.
(3) To demonstrate the power of coherent language and thought, so that one should always seek recourse to spilling the blood of a pen before the blood of a person.
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LOVE PROPAGANDA
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Prophet 1: “I have been contemplating why the world has become increasingly secular. Faith is lost in the multiplicity and convolution of modern religions. What is needed then is a base spirituality that can be widely appropriated and is intuitive to human psychology. What do you think?” Me: “Yes... Love Propaganda.”
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T H E H U M A NIFE STO
PREAMBLE. Imagine if we only held hands while crossing streets. Imagine if we crossed boundaries as often as we crossed swords. Imagine if we broke the mold as forceful as when we break promises and hearts. Our days are an exercise in imagination, the precondition for empathy, we wake worlds with wisps of words; wide-eyed. Our days are numbered, our development obeys a chronology, ancient attempts of astrology and anatomy; antiquity’s anamneses. There is a law to the order of human being and a series of contradicting laws to the disorder. These laws do not always coincide with the laws of the state. I write now, A document sealed and signed by love, to all those who mistook the human heart for a bloody pulp, for a thing that beats and breaks under love. Herein, A single proposition fulfilled by small acts: We need compassion thus We heed compassion. ARTICLE I. The truth: you own so little beyond your naked body. But you can choose what other bodies to be naked with. Earth-children, born in the womb of the sea: Trust in the humanity of others.
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Believe in the goodness of a stranger’s smile. Believe in the depth of a random hello. Don’t wear your fears as a fetter. Don’t let the chain gang of your phobias beat the dying dawn out of your dreams. Spend no nights awake in bed, with nightmares taxiing the runways of your sleep. Take off those shackles. Dance in the living daylight. And your words. May they reminisce prehistoric. May they tell of truth with no distortion, before the taint of lies landscaped the world. Use them wisely and well. ARTICLE II. So many hang from their family trees. So be wary of whom is called your “brother” of whom is seen as your “sister” The shared womb does not link so tightly
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T H E H U M A NIFE STO
as to be inseparable. I’ve seen inner circles twist into hangman’s rope. Still, be reckless in your gratitude. Write the Earth a thank you note twice a day. Once when waking, once when laying down to bed. This isn’t Marxist, Feminist, PostModernist, Socialist, Communist, Idealist, Atheist. This doesn’t fit in a box. This won’t adhere to the status quo. This is soul distilled in text. Universal compassion in slow symphony on the heartstrings of the Universe. Know this. The Human Condition. We won’t wear corporate banners against life. We won’t swear allegiance to causes that don’t serve our love. We ha-ha at ourselves. We more than subsist. We exist. We exist in a continuum of selves. What can separate us? Class, gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, nationality, disability, religion, diet, or species offer no distance. We only grow closer. We only Wake up. Welcome to the world. ARTICLE III. What is the extent of a science in warfare? Is there any truth in genocide?
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before we unlearn “I love you” before the words are spoken with numb tongues to deaf ears, before we hear them in a hue of gray sky We must relearn to differentiate the babbled speech of a decepticon with a Trojan horse heart from any accomplice of sincerity. Vacuum your carpeted conscience free of the filth of prejudice. Dust mites from times of darkness nip at our now. Shake tradition. Peace be our precedent. Open doors for strangers. Not because their womanly arms are too weak to pull gates ajar But because you think our doors ought to mirror our minds and hearts. ARTICLE IV. This world isn’t always a cheshire grin. Keep a circle of friends so tight the devil can’t sneak in. Society can make Gravity seem like a metaphor for oppression. They say, “If you speak the truth, be ready to run.” They say, they’ll martyr you. they’ll MLK you from a balcony. they’ll Malcolm X you while speaking. they’ll JFK you in a convertible. They say and they say and they say. All some people have left to give is anger.
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T H E H U M A NIFE STO
All shoulders have blades. Cold shoulders brandish them. I promise, For every action, there can be an equal and loving reaction. Thank them. Trade them curses for compliments. Apologize. Love is a practice in forgiveness and apology. ARTICLE V. There is life before death. There is thriving after surviving. The universe is my nation, all life is my kin, and to do what is best is my religion, This I consider Common Sense. This I know to be humane.
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AN O D E TO T H E EVE RY THING always dying everywhere for the first time
From the blood cell that sickles itself into oblivion to the bold star that winks goodbye to the galaxy giving in From the red wood splitting its side and diving earthward to the earthworm that shrivels under the weight of sunshine-curse-words From the black boy blood blotching bare backbone to the whole worlds crushed by a crumbled ozone From the prisoner of war tortured into false truths to the gum-line of the senile that has lost its last tooth From the scalp of the small girl scalded by a perm to the bloodied child soldier that refused to serve From the open-casket martyr lying stiff, looking patient to the rumpled up bomber with limbs disintegrated From the single woman starving who looks nearly transparent to the short shrub that shrinks when the land becomes arid From the alpha to omega From infinity to beyond From the methpiped mother to her aborted young From the rebels to the liberators From the beggars to the king From the nothing and the never to the all and everything This is For Everytime The violent sirens lead to a Violin’s silence with zipper bagged bodies and zipped shut eyelids
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AN O D E TO T H E EVE RY THING always dying everywhere for the first time
cries of the innocent tears of the guilty jeers from the ones who have reached out to kill thee I’m sorry for the discounted prayers that didn’t come with receipts I’m sorry for the pain and its abundance in the last waking moments I’m sorry for life’s brevity, for the wars, for the wars, for the worst of the world, for the worth of whatever they poached, I’m sorry. Survivors scream mercy from the pews of their lungs knowing empathy is an echo but slit throats sing no songs Love is the distance between anger and injury, That’s why we call the ones that we hurt ‘close.’ and death has no lullaby just a stillness and quiet So I will apologize until this ballad for silence
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sounds like a prayer for peace This is For Everything wearing a noose For Everything, Everywhere with the Life leaking out of it That Ever Had to Suffer Living in this world of worlds, where we measure progress in prophet’s blood. where we hear utopia as a slur. Tell me speak my piece but not my peace. Three questions for the universe: What are the Holy? What am I? Are we not an inside joke between Cruel Gods? We who call wishes prayer come into this world screaming; the cry of children sounds an awful lot like apology Humanity, learn to take the crosshairs out of obituaries Christ, resurrect in the twilight of our violence To everything, Lest we forget ourselves, may we rest in World Peace 19
P SA LM O F SE L F
I am, but a freckle. A pore on the face of eternity. An open apology to the ever-expanse of time. I was innocent once. I wore a coat of inhibitions. Then, the sweet of me unfurled like a rose in the dearth of autumn. I am stern in the face of distrust. I tell jokes to the living, at funerals, so the dead don’t have to cry. Many know of me. They have heard stories. My mouth. You think I have teeth: a lattice of white lies holding in secrets. My tongue. A rose petal; I lap lovers’ necks. I am a mystery novel about myself. Read between these li(n)es. I am the black pepper speck in the pot of honey, the unexpected bit of spice in everything sweet. I was written by someone else. I am the homunculus behind the real man. I’m sorry. I am a lion; I will die for my pride. I’m sorry.
(an apology)
Shower heads jut microphones. I sing in the tempered rain. I see the sickle-swinger before he comes. Mirrors make me vain. I am this enigma by accident. My eyes peruse ancient texts out of habit. Out of cellular memory. I tell you, Many knew of me. I am a repeat offender. I’m sorry. I know passion more intensely than most. I hug back. With twice the love, but half as hard. I know the camaraderie of an empty room. I sent unanswered text messages to your God. I don’t believe. I don’t believe I ever text anyone back fast enough. Sometimes I don’t text back at all. I’m sorry. I mean it every time.
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Bottles empty themselves in my presence. Cigarettes stare at me with their single red eye. I saw alcohol poison my dad’s conscience. (I don’t drink.) I saw weed slow Danny’s wit. (I don’t smoke.) I watched my child hood pet get euthanized. (I wet her fur with my tears.) I don’t eat meat and I haven’t cried since. I’ve seen meditation mend broken minds. I walk slowly and breathe. This is my way. I’m sorry. I hate eyes that lock onto mine. It always means two things: fight or fuck. I always apologize. I always hurt people. I always tell the truth. I’m always sorry. I don’t know how to cry. I stopped going to funerals; space stares into me. It does so blindly. I tell you, It always means two things. Sometimes it means both.
I talk too much. My conscience is a noise box of apologies. The chatter of different me’s entangled in contra– diction. I am a walking regret. The wandering child of antiquity. This is no autobiography. (I recollect too few happenings and none of them remember me the same.) The world knows me less than I know myself. The people in my life, I sit outside their timelines like eternity’s shadow. I am never enough for them. Always too much. Always too many. Many knew of me, I tell you. (I’m sorry. They hear stories.) This I swear by, my truth: Only few ever knew me, and none by heart.
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I AM T HE SCAL P E L
I am the scalpel The hopeful hold me Patients know me as the one to bring them home free So long as I slice and bite hard with my teeth I will bring them to life and cause heartache to cease I am the scalpel I am a butcher in reverse I have cleaved new life into the dying. I come from a violent family — I do good with what I was given. People only remember me for my mistakes. For my history. I try. I’m sorry. I am the scalpel I have dug trenches into your loved ones. I make bad first impressions. Everyone reacts to me differently. Some say I am a sword, or a shank, or a shiv: I am none of these things. I learned the tricks of Lazarus and never forgot. I scratch-scratch-cut remix bodies like a DJ.. They never thank me while the party is going. They only pay homage once the music stops.
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I am the scalpel I meet everybody tonsil-first. My love is a subtraction, a fast-paced take-away. I am immediately intimate. I know no shallow kind of touch. I am the scalpel I am a hallejlujah blade Modesty is not my forte I teach lames how to walk, I teach the blind how to see. I have made a miracle of every flesh. I make red rivers run. I am the scalpel Forgive me I am sharp I am the scalpel Forgive me I know no other way to help you. I only know SLICE.
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A M E D I TATOR’S MIND
The mind of a meditator is an om-ing thing. It resonates at the frequency of a deaf child’s hum. It sings, in the tune of a portly angel. It knowingly begs the question of existence. We are here because we are here.
Sit still with the stars tonight. Ask each of them in turn, “What shines brighter than the radiant glow of your skin?”
Each one will turn back, more brilliant than before, and Answer (a million echoes bright) You You You You You You You You You You You You
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W H E N I L E AVE
If I leave, a hollow in the space I used to sit, a crease in the chair I used to sink into, a crack in a heart I used to warm, a silence in the breaths I used to speak, a pause in the moments I used to move. If I leave, a crinkle in the hand I used to hold, a tattered friendship where there were strangers, a wealth of knowledge where there was ignorance, a spiritual kingdom where there was moral filth, a blank space where my name was once written, I will be gone but not crumbled. When I leave, my past will be an erasure, my future has been foretold, the disturbed universe will look at my life in contemplation the crust of history will lay thick upon the land If I leave, I will be gone. Thy will be done. One day, the ink in my pen will run dry the beats of my heart will lose their tempo My gaze will know a stillness that there is no multitude which does not diminish is a truth we all confront
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W H E N I LEAVE
This is the meaning of destiny: If time is a murderer, she is also the mother of anything mortal. and I have seen no single thing that does not live under her reign. When I leave, I will surrender to the Universe, the gods of every true religion will receive me with merriment, my eyes final shutter will be permission for the ones I loved to live their life without mourning me for the rest of it. And I will be gone, but not crumbled. And I will be gone, thy will be done.
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W H AT H AP P E NS TOMOR ROW
Tomorrow, the Buddha will reincarnate as the second-coming of Jesus And the 10th avatar of Vishnu will arrive as the fourth horseman of the Apocalypse. The savior will preach celibacy, and for that reason, He or she will say “The orgasm is a gibberish that no body can speak.” The world will end in one generation. The wicked will roam the earth in a state of spiritual confusion And the meek will inherit what’s left of the earth All of the children of the world will hum one loud “OM” Our God(s) will be that syllable.
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HATE POLITIC S
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Prophet 2: “I’m not you. I don’t believe love can fix everything. I don’t think peace is real. There will always be violence. I don’t believe a revolution is coming. If it is I can’t be a part of it because I’ll be a liability. I don’t believe life is valuable. I don’t believe poetry or music or art can save you. Those are only things you believe in when you want to pretend you’re not as fucked as you really are.” Prophet 2: “The goodness you believe in isn’t real. People aren’t good. People are selfish and angry and they hurt each other because they live on power and believe in god so they can blame their shit on the devil.” Me: “You may believe very different things from me. There are certain things we will have to disagree on. None of this makes you less valuable in my eyes. You are worthwhile. You have a right to be here. And as for me, I will strive for great things regardless of our difference.” “Yes, people are just flesh and bones. Poems are just words and syntax. Things are just things. That is true. But people, poems, and things are imbued with meaning and value. It is up to us to do so.”
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H O N E ST Y
Honesty. Christ Gandhi Huey P. Newton John Lennon MLK Jr. Socrates Rasputin Tesla Tupac Malcolm X Joan of Arc Lincoln Shaka The Baab Caesar et al. They call it a virtue. Death to the virtuous.
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O N P HILOSOP H Y CL AS SROOMS
We sit in Philosophy classrooms. We argue about justice. Hands rest against the skin of sides of faces or chins or bottom lips. Not everyone in the world has the fortune of having these intact. We stand upwrong in shoes, the weight of the fabric trembling against the arches of our feet. Our soles are planted firmly into sweatshops. We argue about justice pounding our feet into the ground so hard, trying to make our point, that we’ve forgotten how to walk in the sweatshops of others. We argue about injustice. One says Injustice is property infringement. One says Injustice is unwarranted intervention. We say Justice is Kant and Nozick and Rawls, or Rousseau, but not Saint Louis or Chicago. Not Amadou Diallo, Sean Bell, Oscar Grant, or Troy Davis. Not 50 paces of lead walking their way through unarmed black men. Not elitist universities funneling money into mountain-top removal. 33
In a poetry slam Anything not available to other performers is a prop. Let’s call this world a poetry slam. This microphone is a prop. These shoes are props. This shirt is a prop. I am a performer of injustice. I think Injustice is oppressive judicial systems I think Injustice is normative sexism We think Injustice is all of these things except the imported coffee in our mugs Half-way around the world somebody is washing the blood off our diamonds polishing them so clear that they don’t reflect our consciences back at us. Every Kiss begins with K and every K begins with A. AK assault rifles weigh 11.5 pounds empty A child soldier weighs between 65 to 90 pounds. Where is this extra weight on our conscience when we wear jewelry crafted from their bones? I wonder if the divorce rate is so high, because so many marriages are predicated on the deaths of distant children. We argue about justice and slip civil war onto the fingers of loved ones.
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O N P HILOSOP H Y CL AS SROOMS
Conflict-free fair-trade organic cage-free non-gmo all-natural Injustice. There’s something implicit in the move from bullet point to power point to bullet-pointed power points. like bullets are power. or bullets get your point across. The point is the only truth I’ve ever found in slides is the truth of slides that show what hollow points do to human bodies. Click, stimulus; Pow, Response. Even this air is conditioned. It’s easy to feel in control of your destiny, when you saddle your privilege on the backs of others, when the bomb drops and gun screams are all pixelated. when the moral scenarios are all trolley problems. We sit in philosophy classrooms and argue about justice like it isn’t what we wear. like it isn’t what we eat. like it isn’t what we buy. like everything we do in the classroom isn’t sitting there silently arguing back.
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T H E SEVEN I’S OF O PPR E S S ION or How to Oppress: The Oppressor’s Guide for Lasting Domination
1) Invent enemies, opposition, narratives, oppressors, divisions, divides, barriers, boundaries, limits on love, caps on caring, stories of evolution, a terminology of hatred, a philosophy of extermination, a practice of persecution, a poetry of pain, art for the in-group, academies to institutionalize it, but most importantly other inventors to invent everything 2) Identify know your target market know petty distinctions between them (no petty distinctions between you) know the words that hurt speak them like chants against the worst of your ranks exacerbate, exacerbate, exacerbate connote everything connotation is everything 3) Inform infuse media media is the means the medium is the message make the medium confusing unnatural make it blatantly wrong. of the message,
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T H E SEV E N I’S OF OPP RE S S ION or How to Oppress: The Oppressor’s Guide for Lasting Domination
cite no sources, be the source, call it information they’ll want to stay informed about everything 4) Impose burdens, debts, expectations, collect tribute. if they pay ask for double. if they pay double ask for triple. if they pay triple give it back say it wasnʼt good enough. your first intuition is to start petty and grow larger over time. do the opposite, start large and get pettier. put impositions on everything 5) Ignore they will complain. oh will they complain. do not respond. do not suppress. turn the other cheek until you’ve exorcist-ed your head around they’ll mistake your rotation for revolution
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6) Illegalize use the law for your convenience to your defense at your discretion 7) Intervene open worm-cans like everybody’s business. find WMDs find crack vials find illicit materials search, search, seize when you seize don’t worry about the materials take only what can’t be taken back aim for dignity if all else fails take life
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I AM T HE BU L L E T
I am the bullet Cowards throw me Mothers know me as the one to leave them lonely So long as I fly I will guard against peace. I am a demon in the sky longing to eat. I awake in the chamber — a flying hex. I ache for the chambers in your chest.
Oh yes.
My religion is penetration. And I am a devout follower. I am the bullet I can make brass and fire feel like fire and brimstone I can make a body into a lake I can turn your children into tragedies. Who’s mad at me? Man’s difference from the monkey is when he finally learned about me. The history of this country is not complete without me. I am a braggart. Your dead leaders read like a who’s who of my accomplishments. I am the anti-birth. 39
Some say I am the anti-Christ. But I am not. I am his simple servant. Red devil. Lead devil. Some say I was born a club Then a spear then a sword I have lived many lives to end lives that many have lived. Fight or flight is my predicament. I am the enforcer of the law. I am the defense of the defenseless. You think I am not all bad. I lie like nobody’s business. I am the bullet I have robbed you of your first-born I have taken over your media I have made it hard to imagine a world without me I am a natural celebrity Everywhere I go. People believe in me because I’m straight to the point. I get to the heart of things quickly. I speak every language except love. I speak every language except love. I speak every language except love and cherish. THUD. 40
T H E BOY WH O CRIED NIG G ER A Perspective Poem on Black America
I was born once, a long time ago, in the valley of the shadow of birth. I come from the cradle of hell. I come from the dust of the earth. My story starts where it ends. I come from confederate whips, chattel slavery, experiments in animal husbandry. My history is your wealth. My history is your wrath. My history is ... spear chucker tar baby black foot bubble lipped Here, hear a pity story: Look at me you melanin magnetic mammals with skin so sleek I wear the darkness of every racists heart on my skin. I wear it well. I wear it like plea cries like “Boat us boat us Board us on your boats. Take us, we carry weight like crowns to make kings of peasants we pawn our way across the ocean to make others queens. We can catch whips in the cracks of our backs. We can tarry in the sun without a burn on our brow.� We woke up feeling like p ditty and were king-of-pop-crucified
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by sunset. Look at this city, My tongue stains every street dark. Even the crows wear nikes here nigga. Here, nigga, even the bird gangs cause they fly. Listen We are coloring ourselves blackwards. Black words –– bad words Reparations isn’t a fair word. It’s Royalties now. Royalty, Remember those crowns we carried? King of Pop. Remember those crosses we bore? Crucified Look at this darkness, hear a fable of the night Ask why eye contact reflects off our blackness and projects sharply into the nights menace you! look into me like your tv set like theres always a news story on my hip––ready to pounce its way into the headlines Chemists know my hands react violently with gun metal. Paramedics see my body swells if handcuffed.
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Sticks of the night tap-dance against my skull. Tell the revolutionaries that passed on Pass that baton We don’t cry over the steel mouths shouting at our heroes. We don’t cry over the blood pooling like spilled milk. Look at this walking fox news! I am your media myth monolithic million man march martyr. Oppress me in a shallow grave. Oppress me if you can. Find me rotting inside of gutted buildings Find me trapped in crusted crackpipes. Find me pinned down in penitentiaries. Find me halfway into the oval office. From the jungle to the jungle. Cabrini green leaves autumn fall automatics spray, cats fall off our buildings white houses turn black like futures I was born with crack hands and marksmanship Yet you expect an Open armed welcome to my projects like “welcome to the jungle where we humble monkeys rumble where we hungry monkeys tussle where we double money scuffle cause we hustle cause we hustle” Instead you hear “welcome to the jungle where we die” 43
T H E RAV E N & TH E WRITING DE S K
Class is in Session The Mind learns no Lesson And Nobody Seems Alarmed Class is in Session The Mind learns no Lessons And This is how Dreams are Harmed Passing out tests with Assignments and Questions And None of it Seems Too Hard Massive group texts in the middle of sections And Fighting in the School Yard Blasting out techs and the Violence and Vexing And Broken glass breaking in Shards The public school claims its victims. The 7:30 AM All-American nightmare. The headless classroom here to turn your pumpkins to a sleepy hollow. Youngins consume prescription food for thought thinking it’ll make them Hot to trot in the classroom. Ritalin for breakfast. Adderall for lunch. Wash it down with hot cheetohs a nd High fructose fruit punch. Administrators in a huddle trying to wake the students up. 44
From The 7:30 AM All-American nightmare. Zombified pupils staring at the darkside of their eyelids. Last night, was the living dead this morning feels like 28 grades later. She can pledge allegiance to her flag forwards and backwards, but doesn’t know all the states and their capitals. They’ll worship her if she passes. Say, In the name of your diploma, we pray. Amen. Abracadrabra. Didn’t graduate from school enjoy your job as a cadaver. Don’t you bother filing FAFSA Call her Bastard of the bastards, born from fathers who were braggarts, crushed her dreams, so it seems she grocery schemes as a bagger. The bell rings. A fight starts. The passing period becomes a 6-minute round. Nameless becomes a prize-fighter. The bear hug splitting up the fight is the only caring physical contact he’s gotten in weeks. Everyone forgets about nameless, every time he fails a class, the pistol in his hand grows more real. He’ll be a white chalk outline
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T H E RAV E N & TH E WRITING DE S K
on the streets before he’s twenty-one. Algebra class never taught him how to solve for X. So I ask How can he solve the problem when his constant is actually a variable. That means The only thing consistent in his life is inconsistency. This is a little bit deeper than arithmetic. Still the Kids brighter than Tip top chrysanthemums The bell rings. Tick tock tarantulas Eight legged clocks Crawl through the halls God’s watch is broken Stuck in the perpetual present And the time is always now Now, here’s a test: Cuffing a Microphone Palming a Basketball Taking the Safety off His Brother’s Gun Holding a Pencil Without Breaking the Tip Which of the following does not belong? Class is in session. They hear Columbus, Lincoln, Hitler. No mention of the Continents or history’s indentured. 46
Class is in session. They got syringes in the hallways. The cool kids are cruel kids when you passin’ then they all gaze. Class is in session. They got the bombings and shootings, turn the television on and see the killers looting. Class is in session The lecture is a lullaby. The pupils sleepin’, shut lid eyes. The intellects lobotomized We separate them girls and guys We treat kids like they’re trogladytes And Learning must be modernized. They leave here looking traumatized And all the while they’re all too wise And when they fail We ask them why?
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T H OS E W H O BIRTH H OLLOW
“and what you have called world, that shall be created only by you: your reason, your image, your will, your love shall thus be realized. And verily, for your own bliss, you lovers of knowledge.” — Zarathustra ancient texts sprout dust on soiled shelves in the forgotten hallways of our unvisited libraries religious converts trade highs for hallelujahs talk at philosopher gods with acid tabs for tongues chronic smoke for lungs all the enlightenment found in the glass bottom of a gin bottle gulp wisdom distilled in shot glasses and wade broken dreams like storm rubble. Vice and Virtue, speak of Self and Overcoming, speak of Love and Hatred, speak of None and All, speak to modern day sorcerers who curse and cast from flip phones crystal-pane gazing into future quick-scrolling through the past not present, not here children born from failed plan b’s argue for the rights of their aborted siblings these children born knowing the brevity of life-long vows the distance of close ones the mystery of the world stowed away inches from where loin clothes used to dangle a small device that used gold to turn our philosophers to stone and whats more is less and whats sacred is all of our gods combined couldn’t save a soul so wretched as ours so wrecked and wicked
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we are righteous in our own rights create to support creation now towers stand over man over man over man Overman Overman Overman, save us what have we called world? and what won’t we?
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FREEM A N WO R D@ M A I L .CO M FAC EBOO K : F RE E M A N WO R L D P E AC E T WI T T E R: FRE E M A N WO R D
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