being white is to wish
to never have been born at all
it is necessary
to apologize
to defer all understanding
of real suffering
being white is to be wrong
and to grovel in apology
to be born a foreigner
bereft of origin
on stolen land
with borrowed time
inheriting bloody tools
meant for laziness
being white is to be guilty
by association
of placing guilt
by assocation
on those guilty
of associating
with your father’s
brown brother
neither of whom
anyone has ever
met.
this is not my land
it is not your land
we were just born here
orphans to an island
you may build a fortress
but time moves like water
existence is arbitrary
i go walking
i don’t claim it’s my way
all ahead of me
lie omnipresent highways
and below me
there are metal bi-ways
this land was made
for you and me
i move and trample
with the fall of my footsteps
my will imposing
destruction begetting
and all around me
no horns were playing
this land was made
by you and me
the sun is rising
i am unknowing
of who got it going
now the clock is rolling
each tock is tolling
and my pride is growing
this land is for me
and only me
this land is my land
this land is your land
from california
to new york island
rom redwood forest
to the gulf-stream waters
this land was made
for you and me.
depressed
modern
eating disease
today-america
apathetically excretes
missiles
and
inference
in god-like
proportions
equal in appetite
necessarily naive
an organism
kept ignorant
by the very structure
of her foundation
this cell,
laughs!
and whistles while he
labors!
for where else are
we to go?
where there is only
servitude, or exile?
on the way to the
vee eff double yew
i saw dereks in the
cornfields
and i can see why you’d
not want to be here.
i hear they sent you
in to cash-for-gold
and got a settlement
from a white house,
overnight,
postdated for two years,
and i see what the govern
meant. side-note:
my baby she is a cow in
the pasture,
all four of her stomachs
filtering the asbestos-grass
(have you seen the commercial
for the new tree ants?
delicious, i hear).
my friend denny, see, he lives
on every corner,
he puts syrup on his bread
and sells you awful puns for
10 a piece.
and, i suppose, i’m glad as hell
you finally walked out of wally’s
world, we’re all still unsure
as to why any of us bought
tickets. ’till then it’s midnight
in the living section.
despite having the best time,
i find a strange ambivalence
thinking about the cost,
not to myself,
no, but to the onlookers,
the waiters and waitresses,
the bellboys and barkeeps,
the deckhands and drivers,
watching me drop in a weekend,,
casually and with unmistakeable style,
the earnings of their entire
month?
quarter?
year?
thinking about what they could do
if only they had the
luck,
chance,
fortune
of a middle-class American.
when you need them they make sure
that you fit into the square
whether your a circle or a triangle
and that you never have stolen
or curse
or lied
and that you love to listen to people
talk about themselves
and you’ve never lost your temper
and you think about others before yourself
they make sure that you are
a perfect
square
with
all
your
sides
the
same
length
so when the customer walks in
your smile is as shiny and warm
and deft and dead as
the red colored vest you wear
assimilating others
into the collective,
borglike we prevail.
the sieve and the sand 