I don’t ask for these thoughts, these realizations,
or as I call them, revelations.
I’m like a philosopher
a thinker
a life-force drinker
and life-line linker
tinkering and toiling thru
blood left boiling
after tragedy, sad to see
the world’s worse
metaphors become reality.
I’ll just be minding my own mind
spending time bending lines into curves
alerting my nerves to expect
something unseen but learned
maybe in the shower or when I’m shaving
it’s not important what I’m doing
but who I’m saving.
A lightning bolt from heaven
to my brain, no warning or refrain.
I’m such a tortured soul.
Why was I chosen?
What did I do?
Why must it be me
who carries the fate of the babies
asleep in their beds
in the palms of my hands
in the thoughts I conceive
in the tears that I shed
in the soil of my lands?
I don’t understand.
You, you don’t understand
either.
You just don’t get it and
you don’t get me.
I’m a poet.
I’m an artist.
I’m a warrior genius
in the shape of an electric ape fetus
hooked by umbilical
to political difficulties
of a culture devoid of substance
reluctant and shamed
and sent to sleep with no meal.
For real.