Chorus

Saul Williams, Dufflyn Lammers, Aja Monet, Saul Williams, Dufflyn Lammers, Aja Monet

• Publisher: MTV Books
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781451649840
• Topic: Literatura
• Subtopic: Poesía

CHORUS is the anthem of a new generation of poets unified by the desire to transcend the identity politics of the day and begin to be seen as one. One hundred voices woven through testimony and new testament. It is the cry of the unheard. The occupation of the page itself. It embodies the "speak-up" spirit of the moment, the confidence propagated through hip-hop, and the defiant "WTF?" of the now. It is the voice that comes after the rebellious voice that once cried, "I want my MTV!" branded back to where punk was, slammed up and beyond it. A combination of trash, heart, and craft. An anthology in rant. CHORUS is what all modern-day losers chant.

1

blah blah hard-hitting

first line.

some bullshit about where I’m at.

connecting it

to something

seemingly irrelevant.

elevating a combination

of mundane thoughts

to the epic.

ask a question

to throw everyone off.

explain the past

in terms acceptable

to the present.

challenge the present

to re-consider

its coping mechanisms.

blame myself in the process.

free myself in the blame.

write about

all that I’m going to do about it.

run the risk of being condescending.

get dangerously close

to threatening.

shrug off rejection,

secretly expecting acceptance.

not saying anything about it,

as the next line

disarms with the word, ‘poop,’

put in a creative context.

feel accomplished for typing,

not trying.

get tired

of thinking what comes next.

insert trademark

unconsciously.

wonder how much more

before I can stop

and go back to the luxury

of lifestyle.

prepare the rationale

that denies the distraction.

write down

whatever it takes

to not think

the word waste.

end with superiority complex

wrapped in

the cleverest thing

they done ever did

heard.

2

At the end of your ten-day meditation retreat

you got in your car

drove thirty peaceful feet

and ran over a bird,

splayed its holy guts on the pavement

like god finger-painting fuck you

across that deep breath

you were holding

the way your mother held her first born.

You, thank goodness,

were torn from the bible

the day before they burned it

for the verse about dancing to tambourines.

Once

you saw the blood of Christ on a knife

carving redwood trees into church pews.

Now every Sunday morning

you hear glaciers melting

and you see the feathers in your rearview mirror

scattering like prayers

searching for a safe place to land.

Hold me to my word

when I tell you I will leave today,

catch a bus ticket west

just to stand in the center of your highway

stopping traffic ’til every feather’s answered.

I’ve seen too many prayers

caught in the grills of eighteen-wheelers.

And folks like us, we’ve got

shoulder blades that rust in the rain,

but they’re still G sharp

whenever our spinal chords are tuned

to the key of redemption.

So go ahead world, pick us

to make things better.

You wanna know what the right wing never got?

We never question the existence of god.

What we question is his bulldozer

turning Palestine into a gas chamber.

What we question is the manger in Macy’s

and the sweatshops our children call the North Pole.

What we question is the idea of a heaven

having gates.

Have you never stood on the end of a pier

watching the moon live up to her name?

Have you never looked in the eyes of a thief

and seen his children’s hungry bellies?

Some days my heart beats so fast

my ribcage sounds like a fucking railroad track

and my breath is a train I just can’t catch.

So when my friends go filling their lungs with yes,

when they’re peeling off their armor

and falling like snowflakes on your holy tongue, God

collect the feathers.

We are thick skin

covering nothing but wishbones.

Break in. You’ll find

notebooks full of jaw lines

we wrote to religion’s clenched fist.

Yeah, we bruise easy.

But the sound of our bouncing back

is a grand canyon full of choir claps

and our five pointed stars

have always been open to the answer,

whatever it is.

Look me in the bullseye,

in the laws I broke

and the promises I didn’t,

in the batteries I found when the lights went out

and the prayers I found when the brakes did too.

I’ve got this moment

and no idea when it will end,

but every second of...

Table of contents

• Cover
• A Few Words
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7
• 8
• 9
• 10
• 11
• 12
• 13
• 14
• 15
• 16
• 17
• 18
• 19
• 20
• 21
• 22
• 23
• 24
• 25
• 26
• 27
• 28
• 29
• 30
• 31
• 32
• 33
• 34
• 35
• 36
• 37
• 38
• 39
• 40
• 41
• 42
• 43
• 44
• 45
• 46
• 47
• 48
• 49
• 50
• 51
• 52
• 53
• 54
• 55
• 56
• 57
• 58
• 59
• 60
• 61
• 62
• 63
• 64
• 65
• 66
• 67
• 68
• 69
• 70
• 71
• 72
• 73
• 74
• 75
• 76
• 77
• 78
• 79
• 80
• 81
• 82
• 83
• 84
• 85
• 86
• 87
• 88
• 89
• 90
• 91
• 92
• 93
• 94
• 95
• 96
• 97
• 98
• 99
• Add your Voice
• Poets
• Acknowledgments
• About the Authors
• Copyright