white guy - 11 february 1998

i've largely foresaken the blues for earlier bedtimes
or if i stay up late i'm working, i communicate online
no more leaning over dumpsters both of us on drugs
confusing myself for a denizen of a different world

i've realized i'm nowhere
organs of myself i put and place around here and there
between my pubes and sternums at times in your bed
i leave behind little hairs
here i have my brain,
there my arms

i am rended by remembering
i mean these poems i wrote
when i was a different man
my corazon in the barrio

it was a willingness to engage scary passionate people
and now i have found another blinded horse i love
like myself i work to break it for a longer ride

it all means i don't want to die young, right
maybe if you hang out with older people who have professions you don't risk as much
except being attacked where you stand by the revolution you used to rally for

now there's a rally in my mind
a fistful of ideas, and a few ideas more
the latter for selling the former
i got to make a living

the young fighting son of a prophet said,
the reason they don't have the blues is that white men have money to keep their women
so i'm working on being a white man?
i was born one. i feel more like one every day.
but i want to keep a beat.

poe | ritteds

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