Lower-Class Artist Imagines
If you do not know anything fretted about the color blue, don’t go calling yourself a child at heart.
By Tongo Eisen-Martin
Grip my heart tighter, Lord, help me write on this sleeve…
I build a criminal organization and crow/trying to make some kind of sense of art and my murder
Talk scientifically to my siblings
Talk scientifically to Dante’s alley where the universe actually has a center
Or at least learn how to not scream in pain
Face down, you are a midsize activist file
Trying to tell people in this cage that your country is Coltrane or you are from the future/A special revolution.
That the way they all like to blame the devil for every fallen intellectual
every repass fist fight
for every 28 hours in hurricane America
blame him for every ballot burning
for every shallow pot, pan and murder-man
for every government plant, sloppy musician, and federally-flagged artist
for every floor plan of capitalists’ emotive geometry
and private school’s private anthems
for every kid in a cage
the way they all blame him, man, the devil must be in the sky too
-The poet takes over for his former self
“The secret to writing poems is to not deflect.
If you do not know anything fretted about the color blue,
don’t go calling yourself a child at heart.
If you have never improvised an elevator ride,
don’t go calling yourself in need of prayer.”
…I am the worst of your weapons, Lord