America the Bootyful

I remember the day we left the Motherland,

Innocent victims of the human contraband:

In heavy chains, Mother, Father, we all stumbled

Into the pit where African bodies huddled.

Tearfully, we witnessed, every oppressive day-

Slave traders, taking turns, raping my sister Mae.

Barely thirteen, she was the gem of the village.

I wonder how my proud father survived his rage.

One cold day, they dragged us off the filthy slave ship.

By then, we had become accustomed to the whip.

We’d come to work, I learned, to build America

And were never again dance in Angola.

I was assigned to slave for Massa Washington.

My parents were to serve Uncle Tom Jefferson.

My juvenile sister was sold at the auction

And forced to work in the world’s oldest profession.

Mother was found hanging, by the neck, from a branch.

The klan sacrificed her on a Tennessee ranch.

Junior died defending his slavemaster’s interests:

In an Iraqi desert, his jet body rests.

I saw Little Sister, last May, in FEMA-ville...

She was being brutalized by an imbecile.

The dope dealer wanted the dough for his cocaine,

But May couldn’t work the ho’ stroll under the rain.

Two months later, I was arrested for murder

After smoking the crook who beat up my sister.

“You have the right to remain silent,” I was told.

Then, this pig, with his nigger stick, knocked me out cold.

Young, “colored” men cram the halls on Rikers Island

While their women sell their bodies across the land.

The children have to eat; the rent has to be paid;

And the rich boy down on Wall Street has to get laid.

Welcome to this New World’s only superpower,

Where Looney George presides as Man of the Hour.

Lost souls worship Santa and the Easter Bunny

While Father Law bangs boys with the holy money.

It’s the land of the free and the home of the brave,

Where wooden soldiers loot every desert and cave.

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses

That while Jesus claims your souls, I get your asses.

Oh, say! Can you see by the dawn’s early light

How we bully the world with raw, bellicose might…

When will poor people rise, and fire this regime?...

…Send it way west, crawling, with its infernal scheme?...

Just like you and me

Muslims, people just like you and me

Offer five fervent prayers

Every single day.

They beat themselves to exhaustion

In devotion.

They gather by the millions

And stampede around a common rock,

Literally dying to get a step closer

While they pray.

Muslims, people just like you and me

Execute defenseless hostages

And plant deadly explosives

In civilian quarters

That shred family gatherings

And cause widespread terror

And mourning

By night.

Christians, people just like you and me

Sing the praises of Sweet Jesus to delirium

By day.

They roll around on the floor

And speak in tongues with some holy ghost

And beg the Lord to end the world

While they pray.

Christians, people just like you and me

Will wage war

In defense of a defenseless fetus.

They will also wage patriotic war

For no reason at all,

And heroically murder tens of thousands

Of innocent folks,

Including countless defenseless fetuses. 

By night

Jews, people just like you and me

Devoutly study the wisdom of their faith

And observe the Sabbath earnestly

By day

They bang their heads against a wall

And shake live chickens over their heads

While they pray.

Jews, people just like you and me

Clog airwaves with deceitful propaganda

While more Jews, people just like you and me

Violently swipe holy land

From under innocent indigenous families

Using sweet American firepower

Provided by yet more Jews, people just like you and me

-Thanks to top heavy representation in war salons-

By night

Americans, people just like you and me

Speak passionately of freedom and human rights

By day.

They wave their pirate flag innocently

And shed compassionate tears

In support of our crusading mercenaries,

And sing at church of rockets blazing and of bombs bursting

While they pray.  

Americans, people just like you and me

Quite literally eat themselves to death

While thousands of people die for lack of food every day.

Americans, people just like you and me

Send their sons and daughters abroad

To spread freedom-through-genocide and plunder,

Love-through-sexual torture and humiliation

Good-will-through shameless parasitical conquest

Civility through mind-blowing violence and recklessness.

Then, we tuck in the precious little children,

And the whole American family sleeps like angels

By night.

I am fair and balanced.  I shit on everybody

Liberating Iraq—Phase lV

On your knees!  This is America freeing you!

Welcome to the land of the Brave!  The Proud!  The Few!

Now, imma take a shit on your holy white dress

For getting me, and my country, into this mess.

You smell just like Saddam Hussein, whom I disdain

The filthy blood runs through your veins.  You feel no pain!

You’d better keep your ass upon that fucking box

Or get 6,000 volts up your nomad buttocks.

Pile on up over here, you violent A-Rabs!

Get on your "Moslem" brother’s back!  Take these here jabs!

Get on all fours and dance around like a camel

Then give me a blow job, you desert animal!

God bless America and all of her "chillen"

Protect us from devils like you, and your brethren.

Shut the fuck up, you cry baby!  This doesn’t hurt!

Wait ‘till I fling you from my tank, into the dirt!

Chant down Babylon

This "New World Order"

Will be a whole lot harder

To sell than they hoped

It will be challenged

Destroyed lives will be revenged

Quicker than they hoped

Justice will prevail

Where unjust policies fail

Swifter than they hoped

Truth will win the day

And the wicked made to pay

Sooner than they hoped

Poof!  Now you don't!

I can't afford my way up the sacred mountain.

Thus, I can't relate to the "glory" you maintain

Is nobler than lofty mansions and influence.

You're living sweet.  How could I give your claim credence?

If modesty were such commendable virtue,

How come you have so damned many, and I, so few

Of the toys that you claim are so unimportant?

I regard the disparities as relevant.

I consider your arrogance pre-historic

I approach your wildest dreams as idiotic

I appraise your pronouncements as sacrilegious

Your way of life is obviously irreligious.

Vanish from my line of vision!

Evaporate from my horizon!

Abracadabra…now you see it

Then…pouf!  And now, you don't see shit!

My dreams

I don’t dream of a white Christmas.

Santa Claus should kiss me broke ass.

New Year’s Eve ain’t too hot, either.

My bills, you see, just grow taller.

I don’t dream of a white Christmas.

No jingle bells for me.  Alas,

I rarely dream.  And when I do,

My dreams are painted sorry blue.

Soaked in the pain of the people…

The poor, the scared, and the feeble.

My dreams are nightmares in disguise.

I go to hell, and then I rise.

Arrested Liberty

200 Years of Bitter Freedom

Behold this wail, full of misty morning!...

Damp melody…a distant soul crying:

A new day now greets us.  Rise up awhile

And receive these tidings from your home isle.

He towers high, perched upon a willow.

Standing erect, he surveys the meadow.

He now descends the steep branch he calls home.

He greets his hen, and now, the sun has come.

Sinners crawl past peddling sweat, tears and blood…

Barefoot!...in the cow-dong infested mud.

’Morning Sister Marie!  ‘Morning my son!

It’s always good to greet a sinless nun.

Napoleon ran home with his army.

200 years since he left the country.

200 long free years have now flown by

Yet my people still free the hunger cry.

We’ve been up the mountain many a time…

Offered to the Glory many a rhyme.

Yet, liberty remains an illusion,

No matter how sincere our vision.

Long Live Freedom

When the Bull Sits, and the rain heeds the dance,

When the sea splits to Moses’ holy stance,

When apartheid comes crashing at his feet

As the brother rises to an African beat

To lead his people to freedom, I bend down low…

That if I’m just, I may be blessed with what they know.

Power to the sisters who once romanced the rain.

Strength and love to the brothers who once fought the man.

Peace and blessings be upon he who led the flock

Then carved the Holy Law upon a common rock.

Long live the seed who once paced the “valley of death”

Yet lived to see his folk delight in a free breath.

Long live freedom!

As the Bull Sits, and the rain heeds the dance.

A Poem for Richard (1)

Perhaps it is the warm, easy smile that you wear.

Perhaps it is the innocent, juvenile stare.

Or might it even be your measured carelessness

That makes my love for you so profound, and boundless?...

Is it because your presence is so fulfilling,

Or ‘cause you’re so giving-yet, never demanding

That I cannot accept the fact that you are gone,

That you simply abandoned me here, and moved on?

Should I weep, now that you’ve moved away from this place?

Or should I leap for joy, now that you “see God’s face”?

Should I join the others in praying for your soul

As you lead us all here in our final stroll?

Should I be courageous?—they all expect me to.

What should I do, Richard?  I haven’t got a clue.

Black as hell

My hair is kinky, like lamb’s wool about my face.

My feet, like fine grass, as if burned in a furnace.*

I was born Black, under the Caribbean sky

In the likeness of the Prophet of the Most High.

Black, like a sweet berry, bathing in the sunsmile.

Black, like the raven shores of my African Nile.

My face explodes with West African dignity

My voice echoes with the roar of the rolling sea.

Every waking hour, I exist in blackness;

And, every night, in bed, I sing in the darkness:

Redemption songs, handed down the generations.

Songs of ancient freedoms and African passions.

I describe, in my verse, scenes of pain and sorrow

Like my ancestors wrote of the whip of Pharaoh.

Behind my drums, I push my Black rhythms away…

You would think that Zion Train is rushing your way.

I am Black like Jesus, from my toes to my head.

I am Black in my faith, and I am Black in bed.

Skin shades may run darker.  Blacker man you won’t find.

I am Black like the “savior” of this humankind.

*Revelations, 1:14-15.  King James Version

Some things

I feel so strange in my own life!

Simple tranquility has become

A fleeting illusion. 

Every inch around me is occupied.

Yet, I am so alone!

Every chamber of my soul is as void

As a moonless night.

Yet, my whole existence is crowded

By emptiness.

My heart is filled with cold solitude.

I never knew silence could be so loud.

My wishes, hopes and aspirations

Are a faint blur

Behind the thick fog

Of dragging time.

Uncertainty is my best friend.

I try to collect my thoughts,

But the sound of myself

Breathing

Constantly disturbs me.

What’s life like,

Beyond my finite scope?

I gaze outside

To admire God’s Creation

In its Glory:

A lone star adorns the boundless sky…

Bearing witness to the greatness of my Lord

And bringing me glad tidings

Of just days to come.

But, for now, I must only exist…

Missing you.

Missing me.

It feels so strange to even be myself…

My life itself being so unreal!

I actually feel myself…

Living.

There is so much that I have to learn

To live with…

So much…

To learn to live without!

Some say…one should enjoy one’s days,

But mine are so long,

They bore me…

So heavy, they push my soul

Close to the ground.

Yet, they are mine…So, must I live them. 

Mine!…So, I shall conquer them.

The uncertainty of the future

Holds more comfort

Than this here reality.

So, I have to live in the future.

No matter how abstract

That is perceived

By my battered mind.

Yet, I still take the time to think.

Of you.

Of me.

Of you and me.

I make shapes of you in my mind.

I make you move.

I make you smile.

You have amazing eyes.

I thank my Lord for blessing me with you.

It I so good to know

That you are with me

In my daily struggle.

As vain as my existence may appear to me,

My Lord seems to think it has worth.

How else could I explain the fact that I know you?

I must be dear to my Lord,

Because I’m dear to you…

And you are

The crown jewel of God’s creation.

We’s we!

It feels as though I’ve known you for an eternity…

Even my thoughts are mixed with yours…

I couldn’t make out you from me.

It is good to know you.

You shine in my life

Like that lone star in the boundless sky.

You are my Master’s masterpiece

And my sweetest joy. 

You give me hope.

You give me strength.

You give me you.

And, you know what?

I could never have been

Me

Without you.

These are my thoughts, tonight.

I thought I would share them with you

In the same special way

That you share everything that you are

With me.

With love,

Amir

Of War and Peace

Some of us favor war…reckless, cold warriors.

Most of us spread good love, and it is the lovers

Who carry the answer.

The remedy and true power

Is manifest every hour,

Whether life is sweet or sour

Love power will carry your day

And, out of sight, love guides your fucking way.

Decision Time

We have reason to doubt that this world will ever

Adopt peace and justice.  Let us wait no further.

Let us accept as fact that we are savages;

And wreak death and violence; and build stronger cages.

Or shall we aknowledge our sins, repent and make amends

And begin the fuck over, using noble means to reach noble ends?

A Poem for Richard (2)

You no longer come up in their conversations…

Those who knew your joy the most.

They now omit your name in their supplications:

To them, you are but a ghost.

The flow of wishing cards has long come to a halt:

They think you’re old news, by now.

Yet, don’t blame them, Richard, for it isn’t their fault:

To love, one must first know how.

Only a chosen few will have consistency

In caring for distant friends.

Only family blood restores a unity

That harsh reality rends.

When your shattered heart aches for love that you can feel,

Know that you still top my list

You aren’t gone, Richard, for, your pulse, I do feel

Every time I grab my wrist.

I don’t burden my soul with worry, for I know:

Mercy comes from High Above.

In the peace of my Lord, your face will always glow

And the vastness of my love.

Stop the Poetry Reading!

There shouldn’t be a motherfucking poetry reading

Until this world is rid of terror, and famine.

There shouldn’t be one bloody rock concert

Until not one tortured soul is eating flies and dirt.

Not a single email…no more October Fest!

Unless they are to stage a motherfucking protest.

There shouldn’t be a motherfucking bar!

Not a fucking expensive car!

All war facilities shall be used as food banks.

We’ve got enough killer Apaches and war tanks.

Let us feed the starving people!  Let us all stamp

Out! Out! Terror-ism…Of any race.  From any training fucking camp.

Let us stand up for truth!  Let us all stand!

Let’s not forever keep our fucking peace! Let us all band

Together.  For silence is consent.  No matter that an Arab Prophet

Once coined this holy phrase.  Let’s not cower and fret.

The future is to those who yearn for peace and love.

Not to those who sell war and the spoils thereof.

Let us rid this choking world of terror, and famine;

Then, come back here, and have a stupid poetry reading.

 Any fuckin questions?