are you listening?

for sean.

and I think to myself,
in the secret voice I use
when thinking to myself,

that perhaps I missed something.
perhaps, way back when,
I was a punk

instead of a soldier
I forgot something,
remembered it,

then forgot it again.
perhaps,
(and this is a big perhaps)

the wind has been lying
and that has not been your voice
screaming across the sky

like back home,
you might be dying.
still,

I am unsure,
sometimes,
if I will ever see you again.

and
to me
that is terrifying.

cause I used to be a screamer
a dreamer
a madd crazy spliff smoking schemer.

I used to talk shit because
to me it was poetry
and my poetry

talked shit
cause it thought it was art.
and now I hear gunshots

and my heart doesn’t even skip a beat
but you spit words
and it makes me want to

breakdown
and
cry.

somewhere there is a war building
and it is not here in the sun and the sand.
somewhere there is a revolution happening

(but fuck me man I hate that word
like somehow spitting revolution makes you a revolutionary
an evolutionary…remember how we hated when poets did that shit?)

somewhere
a country
that believes
in its self
is kicking all the poets
out of the military
and saying
here’s a billion dollars
ten pounds of your favorite drugs
a years supply of cigarettes
and a perfectly gorgeous
unused hooker
willing to fulfill your every desire
without the fear of having your dick fall off…

NOW GO!
GO AND MAKE US POEMS!
GO AND RIGHT WRONGS WITH THE TERROR OF YOUR WORDS!
GO AND ASSASSINATE HEADS OF STATE WITH THE POINT OF YOUR PEN!
WE DON’T FUCKING CARE!
ALL WE ASK IS THAT YOU BE A FUCKING POET!

and I am here,
somehow,
saying

‘thank you,
no.
I don’t think I have that in me anymore.

but wait!
back home
where suburbia kills its greatest minds with grief

I know this cat
this really ill cat
and he has skill and grace,
a razor-fucking-sharp edge with words.

take him!’

he is the one you need to take under your wing
anonymous country who loves poets and poetry more than war and weapons.
he is the one you must save from a blistering burning place where no one understands his love

but a soldier
14,000 miles away
who was there with him

when
everything was sex and heat.

when
everything was easy
because all we had to do
was conquer the world.

when
the best plan in the world
was coffee at 3 am
in a blizzard
because we had cigarettes
and we couldn’t sleep.

he is the man for whom there is still hope.

but I fear I am the only one
with my ear
to the wind.

are you listening…..?

Home -- Poetry

Copyright 2005 -- Scott Kirkpatrick -- All Rights Reserved
May not be used in whole or part without written permission of the Author