This is a slam (spoken word) poem, so I apologize for the awkward line breaks and spacing and such.
You can watch me perform this piece @ one of our local coffee shops on YouTube at this link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYDuP_skFw8
I also apologize for my lack of photo/videogenic-ness.
This is the cherry on top of the sundae I got down at the diner on 4th street, three days ago, where the homeless guy asked me if I had any spare change, and I said, no. No no no no no no…
I don’t have the kind of change you’re lookin’ for, I got the kind of change we voted for in a man who defied the Presidential Standard.
I got the kind that sparks my heart and blows my soul straight through to Heaven where I watch angels fabricate black wings for this fallen race called humanity. Which someone once told me sounds like a fish.
But we’re not fish, because fish can swim, and we—are drowning in our own ocean of sorrow, deception, and lies.
Which is exactly why I picked up the penny on 5th street and gave it to you, so you could stop running needles down your arms, and search for your childhood. I hope you find it.
Because kindergarten drama was the fight that broke out over who got the cherry scented marker to scratch-and-sniff all day while all the other kids shot up math. Not meth.
And Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds, was not a drug, but the women who was just proposed to by your son—who has gone from fallen, to grace
And we’re Saving Grace every Tuesday on our TiVos from TNT---
Is drama---
Which in kindergarten was someone stealing your crayons, so you had to color your rainbow- white, your blue sun- black, and your entire flower garden- grey
And you wondered when all the color had gone from the world, and then you realized it’s always been that way.
Because we’re living in black and white, and the only color, comes from change.
It’s trading trash compactors for recycle bins
Plastic for paper
Propriety for pleasure
And pain for purpose.
It’s falling in love at sixty and being happy with who you are at seventeen.
It’s admitting you need help with your homework, and asking your father for advice about boys.
And even then he’ll tell you
that they’re not worth your time, because none of them grow brains until they’re thirty. But you still can’t stop checking your cell phone every 2 seconds to see if he’s txted you back yet
Even though you know he hasn’t
Because he’s too busy doing the math homework that you don’t understand because
You would rather daydream, than work imaginary numbers.
And I, am playing with imaginary dreams,
That one day we’ll stop spending and start saving-
Lives, that the world could have done without.
Maybe one day, the government will realize that money is not a universal Band-Aid for problems that need a miracle cure, and real help only comes from human hands holding cigarettes burning blue.
France is a vintage favorite, and pictures of Paris are always in black and white.
Color is a change that the world rejects—
-and ejects with fingers attached to angels made to pause and wonder
If you can find yourself in a song made with strings instead of one made from words and a beat
Because a great piece of music is like a mirror—everyone sees themselves inside it
and realizes that their imperfections… are beautiful.
And don’t misunderstand me…
Words can be pretty -
& perfect -
like people who could use a little spare change
So I’m giving you this poem, because I can tell your world needs a little color.