Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Another Saturday Night

Here's a poem I drafted with my Tuesday morning Poetry Writing class after the September 17 explosion on 23rd Street (and unexploded device found on 27th Street). Dan Shefelman heard me read it at FIT's Academic Open Mic, and we ended up having some of our words included in the ChalkFIT exhibit.


Another Saturday Night

and I got nobody never
never no how no way
no day do I wake up 
in the green of a Sunday
next to a body that is not me.
No, sirree, I'm F-R-E-E
and blowin' in the wind
no sin    no ramifications
of our stepping out, stepping in
with someone who may or may not
have our best interests at heart
no tart horning in, no spin
no twisting to look thin
no morning-breath grin
and gee-willikers it's been
a mighty long time since
the lane was clear for me to pass,
keep sass, and break the fast
in the L-A-S-T gasp of a blast--
Ahem. That was it, the time we had
no alternative but had to walk past
the site, the fright of shrapnel, and we might
glaze over it's been so long
since we felt safe—
we are never safe, never safe 
never safe wind up for the throw
and place your javelin dart,
arrow, expert archery will
get you nowhere, whether or no
and I solemnly swear I will    I will
I will    I will    I will care
every time I see another news
report of the dead, stripping us bare
and elemental it’s elementary
welcome to the Twenty-First
Century where everything happens twice—
in real time and online and over
and over and over and over
it rhymes these men    these men
and boys these guns used like toys
these cries not tears of joy and when was
the last time you heard a politician
who was not a ploy? The brazen brazier
of the plain plaisir another Saturday night
and the ladies are feeling right,
the car gave us an awful fright,
the first responders are outta sight
and that is what and where and when we
must begin and end
the ever-loving better-living fight.



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