Tug-o-War (I'm done)

spend your money to get help
spend your money to get help
because the bank won't leave you alone
call me dead meat
i'll just get goin

remind me, if you will
the day it all fell apart
and the hours you spent telling me
every way you felt
i'll just get goin
keep your things

it comes down to this
i can't afford you and
i'm sick of
arguments
chastizements
and accusations
dead meat's worth losin
keep your things

the difference is this
and this alone:
the men you trust,
i don't
well there's no reconciling
this

i'm dropping the rope
i've tugged long enough
don't fall down

School

In second grade I was told, "We're gonna try you in the advanced math class." I sat in a chair and was handed the same assignment as the other students who had been in the advanced class for a year. The teacher walked around and watched everybody. Thirty minutes later, they told me never mind.
In sixth grade, the "graduating" sixth grade classes were told to write their life goals. My goal was to beat Michael Johnson's 200 and 400 meter track records. My teacher said that couldn't happen, "because black people have an extra muscle in their legs that makes them run faster." Curious the accuracy of that statement, at that point I wondered, "Well, why'd you ask me to set a goal?"
In 8th grade, my class had an extended lesson in Poetry. By the end, I received the "Poet Who Didn't Know It" award. I thought to myself, "I thought I was poetic enough. Jokes are just easier to get by on. They didn't know it." The following week we moved onto a different lesson and poetry was never discussed again.
In high school, my English teacher assigned a project to write a poem in the shape of something. A Concrete Poem. Students in my class wrote love poems in the shapes of hearts, Christian poems in the shapes of lower-case T's, biographical poems in the shape of their hands, so forth. I wrote a poem about a man walking down a narrowing hallway with a ceiling that angled lower and lower as he moved forward. By the end, after the verses and lines illustrated him crouching, crawling, and snaking on his stomach, he was finally, "Alone." I put "Alone" on its own page. I was given a C. After discussing the grade, my teacher told me she understood, and the grade would remain.
However, my creative writing teacher in high school told me "She's an idiot." She also told me that the other boy in my creative writing class, whom I thought was onto something with his writing; she said he didn't know poetry, he only used big words. She taught me a lot.
I had another teacher I would hang with after school and discuss life and politics and social matters for hours after the bell rang. We still get together on occasion and have long, winding conversations over coffee.
These two teachers gave me most of what I got out of my 20-year school career.
So, was it worth it? I met a lot of people and the whole experience led me to where I am today. I must say, though, there's a lot of riffraff - not the kids disinterested in school, not the "hoodlums", not the trouble makers - but there's a lot of riffraff teachers to get through to find any worth a damn.
How important is school? Don't ask me. I have no faith in it.

Four Brief Thoughts

The ghost of knowledge
is possibility. Untried possibility
is a life in vain.
Knowledge, always prepared for capture,
must be savored as a tenderloin,
while shared as a buffet.


The cloud of birds
that swoosh mid-air, collectively, indistinct,
I can perceive, yet bane to comprehend.


The curiosity of Life
is not that man eres or does evil,
but that man, by a larger margin,
judges him.


I think on God
and live by the Spirit I perceive to be that God.
I can do no better.

Why You Gotta...?

i don't ask for much
i don't need a lot
what i want i got
so why you gotta drag on me?

you got what you want
but not as happy as me
it's not my fault you're not happy
so why you gotta drag on me?

I don't want a music video
i don't need a record deal
i just need t'afford my next meal
why you gotta drag on me?


why you gotta drag on me?
why you gotta drag on me?
i'm just doin things the way i know how,
so, why you gotta bring me down?


i don't care too much about the market
i don't care much for politics
i live life to get my kicks
so why you gotta drag on me?

i don't ask anything from you
i just don't care what you do
i give you a song, you ask me for two
why you gotta drag on me?

i just want to meet new friends
i just want to see new things
i don't ask you to give me anything
so why you gotta drag on me?

this is all i know
this is the way i want to go
when i start to suck, you tell me to blow
why you gotta drag on me?

are you sad that i'm bigger
than what you believe in
are you sad that i know
that your life don't help my soul
i aint trying to be mean
i just gotta know
why you gotta drag on me?

This Land

I been lotsa places
learned a lotta songs
learned what's right
learned what's wrong
I seen a lotta men
met a lotta women
adults and children
all kinds a good folks

A good man once said
This is everyone's land
Yours and mine too.
But seems clear to me
getting run from place to place
that the boots come up
and run me off
more than welcome mats come out
    cant do that here
    Private Property   
    Need a Permit

This land is yers,
if you buy it.
Then you can make yer own rules

If I had money, tell ya what I'd do
I'd buy a big plot a land, and share it with you.
let you run all around,
lay on your back, look at the clouds
makin friends with everyone,
under the sun, on our land.

Seems our biggest problem these days
is nobody wants to share
Nobody wants to share what they got
Not the burden of the wars we fought
Nobody wants to share the debt
Seems all anyone wants to share is an argument.

If a country is the people who make it,
we're not gonna make it long.
Seems we oughta change somethin.
Don't ask me what.
Maybe next election's politicians can tell you what we need.
They done so good so far.

Ale-house Faith

"And God, like a father rejoicing to see
His children as pleasant and happy as he,
Would have no more quarrel with the Devil or the Barrel
But kiss him, and give him both drink and apparel."
- The Little Vagabond, William Blake

Would God give clothes
to the Devil in need?
Or food when the Devil
was begging and hungry?
Would God give the Devil
an arm round his shoulder
when he could stand no longer
under his burdens and debt?
To think God would turn him away;
who's heard of it?

Pleasant Chance Meeting

I drew a fish in the sand. The girl in front of me drew a crescent moon and a star. She asked if I ever had Indonesian food, then offered to make me some after her prayer.

I enjoyed the food; and her company. She looked me in the eyes, her own of deep brown projecting out of holy white. Her smile was a lullaby. She tucked her hair into her veil and wore nothing on her feet.

After our meal, we took a stroll through her neighborhood and waved goodbye.