POETRY
Samples > 21 Poems to Dead Immortals
The Other
Your country was born in slavery and genocide.
Don’t fret, so was mine; they all were.
We’re like chimpanzees pissing on a tree
To claim our territory for the tribe;
Our ancestors ripped out the hearts
Of their enemies and threw them to the scum.
Stranger, of course you’re a racist-
Don’t bother denying, we all hide it!
Your parents were racists and those before them,
Saying it was the way of things to serve god,
And don’t trust those who don’t speak as you speak-
They’re a different species with their own demons.
I see you worship your survival above mine.
I don’t take offense, starvation makes us cannibals.
Just by chance some are born to beg
While others will live by possession alone
Burying their coins to hide them from the storm,
Only to drown in opioids and sadness.
I hate that my country is stained in plunder.
I hate that I judge your race beneath mine.
I hate that I pass by the hungry with pockets full.
There’s either one humanity, or there isn’t,
And we are just the same, stranger,
Waiting for a transformation from beast to human.
(from 21 Poems Inspired by a Declarative Statement)
Mickey Mantle (1931-1995)
I remember the gritty dark
Corridors and sticky floors
In the entrance to the old stadium
On that steaming summer day;
The smell of beer and sweat,
Smoked beef and urine,
Mustard and French fries.
Holding my father’s chapped hand
Up the stairs to the portal door
With the blinding view of the field below-
A brilliant green carpet of grass
And the combed rust colored clay
With perfect powdered lines and bases,
What I had only known through
Black and white on the small screen
In our cluttered living room.
Though we sat far in the bleachers
We snuck to the edge of the stands
As the teams were warming up,
Where number seven stood right before me,
Broad as a door and winding up to throw,
And with a nonchalant spin of his arm
The ball took off like a rising spear
Rolling on a table of wind
To a distant glove which did not budge
To a sound of fist to palm.
I shouted something or shrieked.
Mickey turned to me with a grin-
I wished that I could be that man forever
As much as that smile told me
He wished he could be that boy.
(from 21 Poems to Dead Immortals)