hypocrites

smoking is bad
preaches the teacher
as he bites his nails
in anticipation
of his next
cigarette.

Jazmyn Lilo Mae

Hypocrites

We claim to be children of God in this age.
We claim to want peace as we fire hand grenades.
We want the truth as we tell our own lies.
We want promises but break our own ties.

Corrupted, mislead, riots turning the streets red.
Turn off the TV, tuck your children safely in bed
With these images stuck in their head.

Our brains are rotting what has this world caused us to be?
21st century zombie-
Plugged in at all times.
Why is our laziness not considered a crime?

Why has He
Not come forth to teach us there's
So much more in this life-

Besides the pillage, the rape.
Everyone has their own sex tape.
The hooker, the politics, the News
There is no difference, no one wears a cape.

We claim to know what's best, but let the wrong govern us: the minority and the rest.
We claim to want to help, but lock up the wrong because he is not like our self.
We claim to be equal, but won't let me marry who I want to still.
We claim and we claim, but it all stays the same.

America In 4 Minutes (Official Video) || Spoken Word

White Lies

By Natasha Trethewey
 

The lies I could tell,

when I was growing up

light-bright, near-white,

high-yellow, red-boned

in a black place,

were just white lies.

I could easily tell the white folks

that we lived uptown,

not in that pink and green

shanty-fled shotgun section

along the tracks. I could act

like my homemade dresses

came straight out the window

of Maison Blanche. I could even

keep quiet, quiet as kept,

like the time a white girl said

(squeezing my hand), Now

we have three of us in this class.

But I paid for it every time

Mama found out.

She laid her hands on me,

then washed out my mouth

with Ivory soap. This

is to purify, she said,

and cleanse your lying tongue.

Believing her, I swallowed suds

thinking they'd work

from the inside out.

Water Water Water Wind Water

By Juan Felipe Herrera

for New Orleans and the people of the Gulf Coast

water water water wind water

across the land shape of a torn heart

new orleans waves come louisiana the waves come

alabama wind calls alabama

and the roofs blow across red clouds

inside the divine spiral

there is a voice

inside the voice there is light

water wind fire smoke the bodies float

and rise

kind flames bow down and move across

the skies never seen blackish red bluish bruised

water rises houses fall the child

the elders the mothers underwater

who will live who will rise

the windows fill with the howling

where is the transfusion where is the lamp

who who in the wet night jagged in the oil

waves come the lakes loosen their sultry shape

it is the shape of a lost hand a wing broken

casinos in biloxi become carnations across the sands

and the woman in the wheelchair descends

her last breath a rose in the razor rain

uptown on mansion hill even the million dollar house bows

in the negative shade someone is afloat

a family dissolves the nation disappears

neighborhoods fade across lost streets the police

dressed in newspapers flutter toward nothingness moons

who goes there

under our floors filtered wooden stars

towels and glass gasoline coffins

the skin of trees and jalopy tires fish

bebop dead from the zoo the dogs half drag

ward number nine miss Symphony Spikes and

mrs. Hardy Johnson the new plankton new

algae of the nameless stroll in the dark ask

the next question about kindness

then there is a bus a taxi a hearse a helicopter

a rescue team a tiny tribe of nine year olds

separating the waters the oils and ashes

hear the song of splinters and blood tree sap

machine oil and old jazz trumpeters z's and x's

raffia skirts and jujube hats and a father man

holds the hand of his lover saying take care of the children

let me go now let me stumble stumble nowhere drink this

earth liquor going in petals

stadiums and looters

celebrities cameras cases more water cases

again and again a new land edge emerges

a new people emerges where race and class and death

and life and water and tears and loss

and life and death destruction and life and tears

compassion and loss and a fire stolen bus

rumbles toward you all directions wherever

you are alive still

Juan Felipe Herrera, "Water Water Water Wind Water" from Half the World in Light: New and Selected Poems. Copyright © 2008 by Juan Felipe Herrera.  Reprinted by permission of University of Arizona Press.


Source: Half the World in Light: New and Selected Poems (University of Arizona Press, 2008)