Found a little something something in a file cabinet.
When I was in the Professional Writing program at Univ. Houston-Downtown, I took a rhetoric/literature course. We read some anti-cop poem titled "Power" by Audrey Lourde http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/240144.
Our assignment was to write our reaction to it. I guess the professor was used to the youngsters in the class soaking up her liberal bias and regurgitating more liberal bull****. She wasn't expecting my reaction.
When I had to read it out loud to the class you could have heard a pin drop. No one said a word. She stopped me on the way out the door after class and said, "I'm sorry...I think I struck a nerve". I said, "Yes ma'am. But I'm used to it at this socialist college.".
I got an A in the class and she asked my permission to publish it in the "Bayou Review" (UH literary magazine). Just another chapter in the life of Bobby Minchew....redneck poet. =)
Here's what I wrote (it makes more sense if you read Lourde's poem first). Here's her poem:
Power
BY AUDRE LORDE
The difference between poetry and rhetoric
is being ready to kill
yourself
instead of your children.
I am trapped on a desert of raw gunshot wounds
and a dead child dragging his shattered black
face off the edge of my sleep
blood from his punctured cheeks and shoulders
is the only liquid for miles
and my stomach
churns at the imagined taste while
my mouth splits into dry lips
without loyalty or reason
thirsting for the wetness of his blood
as it sinks into the whiteness
of the desert where I am lost
without imagery or magic
trying to make power out of hatred and destruction
trying to heal my dying son with kisses
only the sun will bleach his bones quicker.
A policeman who shot down a ten year old in Queens
stood over the boy with his cop shoes in childish blood
and a voice said “Die you little mother****er” and
there are tapes to prove it. At his trial
this policeman said in his own defense
“I didn't notice the size nor nothing else
only the color”. And
there are tapes to prove that, too.
Today that 37 year old white man
with 13 years of police forcing
was set free
by eleven white men who said they were satisfied
justice had been done
and one Black Woman who said
“They convinced me” meaning
they had dragged her 4'10'' black Woman's frame
over the hot coals
of four centuries of white male approval
until she let go
the first real power she ever had
and lined her own womb with cement
to make a graveyard for our children.
I have not been able to touch the destruction
within me.
But unless I learn to use
the difference between poetry and rhetoric
my power too will run corrupt as poisonous mold
or lie limp and useless as an unconnected wire
and one day I will take my teenaged plug
and connect it to the nearest socket
raping an 85 year old white woman
who is somebody's mother
and as I beat her senseless and set a torch to her bed
a greek chorus will be singing in 3/4 time
“Poor thing. She never hurt a soul. What beasts they are.”
And my response:
Powerless: A Response To Audre Lourde’s “Power”
The difference between poetry and rhetoric
Is being ready to kill another
To save a third party’s life
I am trapped on a desert of uncivilized civilization
And a dead officer drags his pierced Kevlar vest
Off the edge of my sanity
Mucus appears rudely from his unwiped nose and the lack of blood
Is a bold-faced lie—there are miles of bullet trails from stomach to stern
And mine churns as a future phone call looms
To a wife and three daughters of a once breathing friend
Without thinking or reason I thirst for revenge…for the wetness of his poisoned blood
But like the others, he will sink into the sheltering contractions of a miscarriage of justice
Without a care for anything but his own stinking hide (people have skin)
I blink and swallow the power that I try to breathe into breathless lips but that power seeps out of new holes, evil holes
Holes that only a skilled mortician can camouflage
This cop had the power to stop one who had not grown into his power
He saw the flash of steel, heard the vulgar shouts and reacted a second too slow
Now his unfillable cop shoes are stained crimson and a polluted river of society
Flows onto the dirty street—a torrent let loose by a broken dam of parental ignorance and sloth
If a tape could have been recorded we could have heard
“Lord, please don’t let me die, make him drop the gun”
At the trial the cop said nothing—to the end of the time the cop says nothing
Who wants tapes of nothing?
At his trial the suspect says nothing. He doesn’t have to…constitution says so.
But what if all the witnesses are scared or dead? Hmmmph.
Now that 17-year old being with a 40-year old’s criminal history
Has been set free by a twisted system that does not allow criminal history into the courtroom
And lets a robber-killer smile while a widow weeps
The thin blue line that shields us from the animals has been snipped at both ends…again
The bagpipes play but his children don’t
A life sentence means 30 years…but a life taken means forever.
Another tape was found today.
Intermittent poetry and rhetoric.
Why did he give me a ticket? (YOU WERE SPEEDING)
He ought to be out catching robbers and rapists! (I TRIED, NOW I’VE DIED)
Don’t they have anything better to do? (YES, BUT THIS IS MY JOB)
What’s the big deal? They get paid for that. (I GET PAID TO SERVE AND PROTECT)
The cops can’t riot
The cops can’t quit
The cops can’t loot
The cops can’t beat society senseless and set a torch to it
Because a 12 man chorus will be singing “Guilty, Guilty, Guilty” in ¾ time
When I was in the Professional Writing program at Univ. Houston-Downtown, I took a rhetoric/literature course. We read some anti-cop poem titled "Power" by Audrey Lourde http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/240144.
Our assignment was to write our reaction to it. I guess the professor was used to the youngsters in the class soaking up her liberal bias and regurgitating more liberal bull****. She wasn't expecting my reaction.
When I had to read it out loud to the class you could have heard a pin drop. No one said a word. She stopped me on the way out the door after class and said, "I'm sorry...I think I struck a nerve". I said, "Yes ma'am. But I'm used to it at this socialist college.".
I got an A in the class and she asked my permission to publish it in the "Bayou Review" (UH literary magazine). Just another chapter in the life of Bobby Minchew....redneck poet. =)
Here's what I wrote (it makes more sense if you read Lourde's poem first). Here's her poem:
Power
BY AUDRE LORDE
The difference between poetry and rhetoric
is being ready to kill
yourself
instead of your children.
I am trapped on a desert of raw gunshot wounds
and a dead child dragging his shattered black
face off the edge of my sleep
blood from his punctured cheeks and shoulders
is the only liquid for miles
and my stomach
churns at the imagined taste while
my mouth splits into dry lips
without loyalty or reason
thirsting for the wetness of his blood
as it sinks into the whiteness
of the desert where I am lost
without imagery or magic
trying to make power out of hatred and destruction
trying to heal my dying son with kisses
only the sun will bleach his bones quicker.
A policeman who shot down a ten year old in Queens
stood over the boy with his cop shoes in childish blood
and a voice said “Die you little mother****er” and
there are tapes to prove it. At his trial
this policeman said in his own defense
“I didn't notice the size nor nothing else
only the color”. And
there are tapes to prove that, too.
Today that 37 year old white man
with 13 years of police forcing
was set free
by eleven white men who said they were satisfied
justice had been done
and one Black Woman who said
“They convinced me” meaning
they had dragged her 4'10'' black Woman's frame
over the hot coals
of four centuries of white male approval
until she let go
the first real power she ever had
and lined her own womb with cement
to make a graveyard for our children.
I have not been able to touch the destruction
within me.
But unless I learn to use
the difference between poetry and rhetoric
my power too will run corrupt as poisonous mold
or lie limp and useless as an unconnected wire
and one day I will take my teenaged plug
and connect it to the nearest socket
raping an 85 year old white woman
who is somebody's mother
and as I beat her senseless and set a torch to her bed
a greek chorus will be singing in 3/4 time
“Poor thing. She never hurt a soul. What beasts they are.”
And my response:
Powerless: A Response To Audre Lourde’s “Power”
The difference between poetry and rhetoric
Is being ready to kill another
To save a third party’s life
I am trapped on a desert of uncivilized civilization
And a dead officer drags his pierced Kevlar vest
Off the edge of my sanity
Mucus appears rudely from his unwiped nose and the lack of blood
Is a bold-faced lie—there are miles of bullet trails from stomach to stern
And mine churns as a future phone call looms
To a wife and three daughters of a once breathing friend
Without thinking or reason I thirst for revenge…for the wetness of his poisoned blood
But like the others, he will sink into the sheltering contractions of a miscarriage of justice
Without a care for anything but his own stinking hide (people have skin)
I blink and swallow the power that I try to breathe into breathless lips but that power seeps out of new holes, evil holes
Holes that only a skilled mortician can camouflage
This cop had the power to stop one who had not grown into his power
He saw the flash of steel, heard the vulgar shouts and reacted a second too slow
Now his unfillable cop shoes are stained crimson and a polluted river of society
Flows onto the dirty street—a torrent let loose by a broken dam of parental ignorance and sloth
If a tape could have been recorded we could have heard
“Lord, please don’t let me die, make him drop the gun”
At the trial the cop said nothing—to the end of the time the cop says nothing
Who wants tapes of nothing?
At his trial the suspect says nothing. He doesn’t have to…constitution says so.
But what if all the witnesses are scared or dead? Hmmmph.
Now that 17-year old being with a 40-year old’s criminal history
Has been set free by a twisted system that does not allow criminal history into the courtroom
And lets a robber-killer smile while a widow weeps
The thin blue line that shields us from the animals has been snipped at both ends…again
The bagpipes play but his children don’t
A life sentence means 30 years…but a life taken means forever.
Another tape was found today.
Intermittent poetry and rhetoric.
Why did he give me a ticket? (YOU WERE SPEEDING)
He ought to be out catching robbers and rapists! (I TRIED, NOW I’VE DIED)
Don’t they have anything better to do? (YES, BUT THIS IS MY JOB)
What’s the big deal? They get paid for that. (I GET PAID TO SERVE AND PROTECT)
The cops can’t riot
The cops can’t quit
The cops can’t loot
The cops can’t beat society senseless and set a torch to it
Because a 12 man chorus will be singing “Guilty, Guilty, Guilty” in ¾ time
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