First Writing Since...

These poems have long been favourited on my youtube account but I decided to share it today in light of recent events. I awoke to Twitter informing me of the death of Osama Bin Laden. And while I am thankful that he cannot continue to share his hateful teachings, I find something eerie and disconcerting about celebrating someones death. I hope his death means the end of this bloody war on terror but it is my greatest fear that its not.

But this is not a political blog, and I know everyone is entitled to their own opinions on the matter. I hope these poems allow you to appreciate the many perspectives on this issue. The first is Corner Talk, September by Danny Hoch, the other is First Writing Since by one of my favourite poets Suheir Hammad.

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sidenote : both poets mentioned events and people of who's situation I was not aware. I have highlighted these things in orange in the transcripts below and you can read up on them. (please do, you'll understand the poems so much more)

Corner Talk, September

1.

 I came out the subway and i was eatin' a bagel. i look up, and at first i was like- -Man, where the fuck they get these pilots at, man? Then it was like-- boom- some illuminati-nostradamus-dionne warwick type shit, bee. I just started runnin'. All the way to the Bronx. Shook.

I didnt even look back.

2.

 my cousin was on the 90th floor and got out. /Word? My ex-girl was on the 61st floor. we aint heard from her still. that's the girl i was gonna marry yo. Pst..How was you gonna marry her but she's your ex? I know she's my ex, but still, we were gonna get married before, i'm saying though. I cant even think.

3.

 hey yo, i rented the siege last nite son. i swear to my mother george bush is quoting bruce willis from the siege son. they had rounded up all the arabs and put em in some sprung shit, you know like internment camps in brooklyn, and i swear to my grandmother kid, bruce willis said, "make no mistake, we will hunt them down, and find them, and we will wipe out evil in the world." Rent that shit son! george bush said that shit yesterday! He think he in a movie son! George Bush think he fuckin bruce willis. He think colin powell is denzel washington. That shit is fucking crazy son.

4. 

yo man, i got a petition in my email. you know, one of those- stop bush from bombing the world type-emails. 60,000 people signed it by the time it got to me. i was scrolling that shit down for like a hour and 20 minutes. but half the people signed it anonymous. theyre scared a' aol!

What? motherfuckers better be. AOL/COINTEL...

I don't know to be scared some religious fanatic's gonna bomb my starbucks or one of these flag-waving nutsos is gonna bomb ME for speakin my mind.

Right? these flag heads is crazy son. i was talkin to this chinese cat that just came here on vacation last week, he thought it was fuckin fouth of july kid. people actin all patriotic.

you wasnt patriotic when they was shootin amadou 41 times or was you?

you wasn't patriotic when they was shovin a broom handle in abner louima's ass

or when they was chokin anthony baez to death

or when we was bombing vieques or buying israel 7000 brand new torture kits, or bombing 200,000 iraqui civilians, or bombin everybody in the motherfuckin world thats poor and brown-skinned

or was you?

or was you just... shook?

5.

 hey yo- but i aint scared yo, i aint scared. people on my block was already threatening to kill me man.

what? my block already look like a plane hit it.

hey yo. but i dont understand kid, if it was four motherfuckers with box cutters on a plane, and I'M on the plane, i'ma have to get cut or... somebody gonna have to get cut up on some pizza type shit. cause i aint goin out like that son. they say you cant bring knifes on planes now? i'ma bring a stick next time yo. somebody try to hijack the plane I'M on, they gonna catch multiple bumps kid. hard wood.

you know that hard wood they make fancy chairs out of. i'm go to macy's furniture department, or fuck it, i'ma go to huffman koos

and take a leg off of one of them expensive chairs, you know them overpriced shits they be sellin for a thousand dollars, cause they had to go to brasil and kill the rainforest for that shit.

i'ma take a leg off that shit and fly anywhere. i'ma fly to fuckin idaho. or oregon or some shit. and watch. let some motherfucker even say some shit to me son. cats is catchin bumps kid. everybody in my aisle, i don't even care. like WHAT.

and tomorrow's october 1st, but for real, i aint scared yo.

First Writing Since (revised)

There have been no words,

No poetry in ashes south of Canal,

No prose in trucks driving debris and DNA.

Evident out my window an abstract reality:

Sky where once was steel;

Smoke where once was flesh.

Please, God, let it be a mistake

The pilot’s heart,

The plane’s engine…

God, please, don’t let it be anyone who looks like my brothers.

I don’t know how bad a life has to break in order to kill.

I’ve never been so hungry that I willed hunger,

Never so angry as to want a gun over a pen.

Not really.

Even as a woman, a Palestinian,

Never this broken.

Ricardo on radio said in his accent thick as yuca,

“I will feel so much better

when the first bombs drop over there.”

A woman crying in a car parked and stranded

And hurt, I offered comfort, a hand she did not see before she said,

“We’re gonna burn them so – bad.”

My hand went to my head and my head to the dead Iraqi children,

The dead in Nicaragua, in Rwanda,

Who vied with fake sport wrestling for America’s attention.

People saying, “This was bound to happen, let us not forget

U.S. transgressions”—

Hold up. I live here.

These are my friends

And fam,

Me in those buildings, and we’re not bad people,

Do not support America’s bullying,

Can I just have half

A second

To feel bad?

Thank you, woman, who saw me brinking my cool and blinking tears,

Opened her arms

Before she asked, “Do you want a hug?”

Big white woman and her embrace only

People with flesh can offer.

My brothers in the navy, I said, and we’re Arabs.

Wow, you got double-trouble.

Word.

One more person ask me if I knew the hijackers.

One more mother fucker ask me what navy my brother is in.

One more person assume no Arabs or Muslims were killed,

Assume they know me,

Or that I represent a people,

Or that a people represent an evil,

Or that evil is as simple as a flag and words on a page.

We did not vilify all white men when McVeigh bombed Oklahoma,

Give out his family’s address or church or blame the Bible or Pat fucking Robertson,

Networks air footage of Palestinians dancing in the street,

No apology that hungry children are bribed with sweets that turn their teeth brown,

Correspondents edit images, archives facilitate lazy journalism,

And when we talk about holy books, hooded men and death,

WHY never mention the KKK?

If there are any people on Earth who understand how New York is feeling right now,

They are in the West Bank and the Ghaza strip.

Bush has waged war on a man once openly funded by the CIA.

I’ve read too many books to believe what I’m told.

I don’t give a fuck about bin Laden.

His vision of the world don’t represent me or those I love.

I’ve signed petitions for years to out the U.S.-sponsored Taliban.

Shit is complicated, and I don’t know what to think,

But I know who will pay:

Women

Mostly colored and poor,

Will have to bury children, support themselves through grief.

In America, it will be those amongst us who refuse

Blanket attacks on the shivering, who work towards social justice

And opposing hateful policies.

“Either you are with us

Or with the terrorists,”

Meaning

“Keep your people under control

And resistance-censored,”

Meaning

“We go the loot

And the nukes.”

Never felt less American

And more Brooklyn

Than these days.

These stars and stripes

Represent the dead as citizens first,

Not family, not lovers.

My skin is real thin,

My eyes are darker,

The future holds little light,

My baby brother is a man now

On alert

Praying five times a day the orders he will take are righteous

And not weigh his soul down

From the afterlife.

Both my brothers—

My heart stops–

Not a beat disturbs my fear—

Muslim, gentle men

Born in Brooklyn and their faces are of the Arab man,

All eyelashes and nose and beautiful color and stubborn hair.

What will their lives be like now?

Over there

Is over here.

Across the river: burning rubber and limbs,

Rescuers traumatized, skyline brought back to human-size,

No longer taunting gods.

I cried when I saw those buildings collapse on themselves

Like a broken heart.

I have never owned pain

That needs to spread like that.

There is no poetry in this.

Causes and effects,

Symbols and ideologies;

Mad conspiracy here.

Information we’ll never know.

There is death here,

And promises of more:

There is life here.

Anyone hearing this is breathing—

Maybe hurting,

But breathing for sure.

If there is any light to come,

It will shine from the eyes of those

Who will look for peace AND justice,

After the rubble and rhetoric are cleared,

And the phoenix has risen.

Affirm life.

Affirm life.

We got to carry each other now.

You’re either with life

Or against it.

Affirm life.

~I'm fifteen miles over the speed  going as fast as     I can off into my daydreams~

-Ashani M