Why Revolutionary Poems Lack Solutions

One day there will be coffin black bandanas 
Drum roll crescendos 
Like heartbeats in unison with 
Click of trigger dropping hammer 
The sound of an answers execution 


Sparks will kiss the hard flesh 
Of burnt thank you's 
Before they tear open 
Everything you should have never said 
No wonder there are no solutions 


Answers became voices of children 
In metal jackets laying on each other 
As they play kissing games 
With lamentation on their tongues 


Freedom is the face 
Of everyone you've ever loved 
In images of clouds that ripple 
Like still water becoming stone mantle pieces 
You gaze at in memory 
Reflecting... 
The place you put down your revolution 


Ask them they will tell you 
We will tell you there are moments 
Moments you can feel the smell of burning flesh 
As bullets kiss your organs 
And you tell them "I love you" 


Oprah Winfrey is in Jerusalem 
Praying at the Well of Souls 
Her prayers are received like 
Chicago snow on the lips of Jesus 
After 40 days in the desert 
We will be tested 


In a place sparks become clouds of smoke 
Flesh does not burn and thank you's 
Are sewn shut by someone willing to say everything 
Poems are elementary arithmetic 
Filled with problems 
I need to recess from this revolution 


Freedom sounds like children 
Playing in native tongues 
Before language becomes a barrier 
And silence is trapped in skin tone boxes 
Think outside me 


Catch words in windsocks 
We speak blue barriers 
That fade black 
Infinitely trapped within ourselves 


We hang suspended like testicles 
Strange fruit picked backwards bruised 
Trying to put us back where we belong 
I feel the weight of bricks and boulders 
Tied to fragile bones cut free 
Before reaching the bottom of what I'm drowning in 


We are just breaking the surface of freedom 
Beautifully Los Angeles horizons 
Words set like suns on the golden tongues of lions 
Entertainment is an executioner 
It is easier to see everything when your eyes are closed 
This bandana becomes my first right of refusal 


I've been there 
In the moment bullets stood still 
I ran right through them 
As if from jovial attack dogs 
UNtitled... Nameless God if you ask us 


Revolutions are violent acts 
Most martyrs are pacifist 
These poems cannot have solutions 
The answers die before the real war begins 
Nos hablan de los muertos 


When its over the pistol closes the eyes 
Of frightened victims 
No one can stand 
Being near a dead body with open eyes 
I will consume you 
Why won't you look at me 


There are war drums fading into the darkness 
As I float from brick and boulder 
My last breath escaping 
To tell Oprah thank you

At the Behest of Freedom

"Untutored courage is useless in the face of educated bullets" -G. S. Patton

Who will celebrate the bullet

Jubilance and jamboree
Overwhelming the silent sound
Of freedom passing to the end of an era

The American dream is a widow
Trying to swallow tears big as American pie
Choking back regret and anger like a little girl
When you took the only thing she ever loved

Ask Coretta she would have told you
Peace has a price
It is weighed on scales like justice
A pound of burnt Sunday school flesh
Is worth the weight of a race war

The rape of a race
Can only be offset by broken glass
We stand helpless
Like riot witnesses
Defending homes when the mobs come
We are bound bureaucracy red taped victims
Balanced budget racial radicals
We are the leftist that get left out

At the behest of freedom
Wives turn into walking widows
Black face American dreams
Become single parent minstrel shows
We tune in they tell us
Don’t believe everything you see on television

Martin the revolution won’t be televised
We have become a pay per view society
Given all the freedoms
Of middle passage passengers
Along for the ride of our lifetimes

What are we searching for

In a land of lost leadership
We are all kings on abdicated thrones
Balcony bench warmers like Jessie Jackson
Pointing to tomorrow unable to live in the moment

They have built crucifixes
From the floor of the Audubon Theater
Our leaders walk the path of tribulation
On the information superhighway
Social networks have become slave colonies

At the behest of freedom
We are a world of negro spirituals
Voices dancing on the midnight
Huddled beneath hanging trees
 

Children of the sky

As triumphant tribal thunder
Drums on our roof tops
Reminding us what we were
And how far we must still go

There are choirs of our ancestors
Urging us forward
Like hymns to God
Nothing and everything in the same harmony
A people
Trying to overcome