If you do not know anything fretted about the color blue, don’t go calling yourself a child at heart.

-@tongoblackfire
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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

Author

  • Originally from San Francisco, Tongo Eisen-Martin is a poet, movement worker, and educator. His latest curriculum on extrajudicial killing of Black people, We Charge Genocide Again, has been used as an educational and organizing tool throughout the country. His book titled, “Someone's Dead Already” was nominated for a California Book Award. His latest book “Heaven Is All Goodbyes” was published by the City Lights Pocket Poets series, was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize and won a California Book Award and an American Book Award.