Given Obama's low rating in the polls and the whole healthcare disaster, I thought I'd re-post a poem I first posted here in May 2009. It seems as relevant now as it ever did.
Unmiracle
his kind of gospel might not be sopho-aristophilosophy
this man might not be dream in baritone like king
or dangerous like us black folk
all kind of thought malcolm was but never said / he
might not bring healthcare / world peace
race peace / education / unpoverty / a revolution
to his country / this country / the world / anyone
anywhere in fact he surely won’t / he
might not even be a good father / husband
lover / leader / person who knows or hell even cares
if he’s all that genuine / us browns know the man
ain't no solution but / he / lets us eye our knock-kneed sons / like
hey / maybe one day
my boy could be the one
so every early morning late night newscast / every
can I get I witness same old black shit day
I drag my baby to the screen & make him watch the man
& say his name / the boy says
obama
banana obama
obama in pajamas
& he cackles in his crazy two-year old way
a no worries in the world mud pie
brown boy who just might be president
one day
the checkered crowd swells & heaves
like a living—it is a living thing this
right to breathe like
damn
maybe my breath counts
that closing in of a noose under alabama tree/ that
back-bent-cotton-picking wheeze / that
diving deeper for master’s pearls until one day
your body just won’t surface / those
cold grey lungs salt-logged likea genesis curse
will you blame us that
when he called we heard / will you
blame us that when he called we heard / will
you blame us that when he called we
packed up the house / the life / the kids / the conscience
we / grabbed the cardboard / the car / the coin jar
& came running with all we had
we knew the man was mostly no
solution might not bring healthcare / world
peace / education / unpoverty / a revolution
will you blame us / we didn't know or hell even care
was he all that genuine
that man / let us eye our knock-kneed sons / like
hey / maybe one day
my boy could be the one
First performed at the Human Rights Arts & Film Festival Slam (www.hraff.org.au/melbourne-poetry.html), Melbourne Australia, 2008. First published at overland.org.au, 2008. Unmiracle also appears in my new poetry collection Gil Scott Heron is on Parole.
spoken word 'bourne
A great write Maxine. He is a great example for our children. There used to be limits when I would tell my sons of their futures. I hid those limits in my mind. Not letting them know that their beautiful brown skin was a hinderance. Now I honestly see no limits for them.
ReplyDeleteThe day will come when everyone is brown and this day of judging pigment will end.
Oh my goodness. This poem... I know exactly who I want to read this aloud to!! I can't wait. I know I'll never be able to deliver your art fully to do it justice, but I promise to do my best. This is what they mean by the power of poetry, you say the things other people feel, but cannot deliver potently enough.
ReplyDeletePeople come armed with facts about Obama, but that single moment of healing when he stepped up to the podium and spoke the first words as President, the healing of that moment is something you either recognise or don't.
Brilliant. You're poetry receives more standing-Internet-ovations from these legs of mine than any I've come across. I can't add anything to this poem other than to say my world comes alive when I read it aloud.
ReplyDeleteThanks all, I'm glad you like this poem. It's one of the few I've written that I feel has a kind of longjevity/timelessness about it, even though it captures a specific mood at a specific time.
ReplyDeleteTina - Obama's election made such a huge difference to so many of us. I think in the back of all our minds, we always doubted that our little brown boys (and girls) could reach the sky, no matter what we actually told them. Now that doubt has all but evaporated. It's the symbolism.
That mother love is such a deep kind of sweetness.
ReplyDeleteSo powerful, too, that symbolism, superb poem, love the rhythm, Maxine
ReplyDeleteThanks mountain-ash. And Alec, I guess you'll get to see more of that next month in your own household :)
ReplyDeleteI think his heart has always been in the right place--but the way things are going, he probably could have gotten more accomplished if he'd stayed a community organizer.
ReplyDeleteBut you're right--it's the symbolism.
Brilliant poem the first time I read it and still is.
ReplyDeleteThanks Gabrielle. Glad you enjoyed it the second time around.
ReplyDeleteTimoteo: Your comment is ironic, but painfully true. And I think he knows it. Being President of the United States is no way to get anything done.