D. Alexander Holiday

D. Alexander Holiday attended Bernard M. Baruch College and The State University of New York at Albany, receiving both a Bachelor and a Master of Arts degree from Albany University. He is the recipient of the Spellman Award from Albany University. He has published in various publications, among them The Amherst Society, A&U Magazine and more recently Arabesques Review (an international anthology and website). He has four chapbooks of poetry, Notes to Porshé, Tales From This Black Heart, The Voices in My Head(which is a collaboration with fifteen area poets) and I Use To Fall Down. He has published essays on ERIC, the research database. He has read on radio, for Crystal Brown’s “Reading for the Blind” program, has been on radio for Kym Fleming’s RPI program, and has read and performed on Public Television.  He also volunteered and moderated a creative writing workshop for inmates at a state maximum security facility in upstate New York. He is also a local liaison for the GBS/CIDP Foundation International.

He is an award-winning author of seven books: Letters to Osama, I Use To Fall Down, All The Killers Gathered, his memoir In The Care Of Strangers: The Autobiography Of A Foster Child, E-mails From Satan’s Daughter, and under the G. Douglas Davis IV nom de plume Kith & Kin: A Klannish Klownish Tragik Komedy and The Tragic Life of Joe Tomatohead, PhD. Paperclips Magazine [.com] recently invited and will be featuring the author on their site. He is working on a new book. He resides in upstate New York.

 

POEMS

• In The Care of Strangers
• How’s Your Invasion Going
• It Is A Wonder
• When I Talked To You Last
• Ghosts
• If I Were An Artist
• Riot!
• Black History Month Blues Part III: Incident at Coxsackie
• Hitler’s Wife Gives A Directive
• Monsters
• Satan’s Daughter Gets Herself A Promotion
• Da Ist Nichts Zu Machen
• The Involuntary Leave of Absence as Punishment Routine

 

IN THE CARE OF STRANGERS

1. Malice

With malice toward one
you gave a fifth child away,
Mother,
to a stranger
to neglect
and the police
to rescue
and he is sent
to Dorothy’s red house
and she will display
such malice to Dorothy’s child,
almost killing him
before he has
to be rescued
in St. Albans

2. Hypocrisy

That next stranger was like Edith Bunker
in Jamaica Queens, and she was nice
to your two boys, Dorothy,
but not too nice,
not enough to keep them together
when one got sick
and the other misbehaved
and a young life was shattered,
more damage done
than any paralysis could ever do

3. Pride

You used your daughter, Dorothy,
to find your boy in braces and a wheelchair
in a Bayside, Queens, hospital
trying to get better
so that you would be proud of him
and bring him home to you
even though you were
already planning to give him away
to strangers forever
and what you made that girl child do,
that act of meanness,
no mother should ever be proud
of doing that
and when he got up and walked again
only strangers were there to silently applaud

4. Hatred and Murder

Another strange woman
in Brooklyn told your boy
to his face, “I took you in
because you’re crippled
and your own mother didn’t want you,”
and there was some truth in that,
he was crippled
and his mother was proving
to not want him
even though you visited with him
in secrecy, having already signed him away
to this or other strangers
and he came to hate
this stranger and you
for doing all these mean things to him
for no reason other than
you do this to children
and she did things to children
she was mean and nasty
and he began to think of killing,
her or himself in Queens Village
or Far Rockaway
and although he ran away physically from her,
he hasn’t mastered how to mentally run away

5. Greed and Envy

The final set of strangers
were in Laurelton, Queens, Dorothy,
treating your boy like the help,
envious of his drive for education,
greedy for what the state said he was worth
and so he left your other boy behind
and went off to pursue goals he felt unreachable,
scarred and alone but determined
He’s standing,
Dorothy,
see him there,
unwanted, unloved, and unadopted,
but standing
you tried to destroy
this child too, like the others,
getting worse and worse with each child,
eight in all
but he bested you
and all those strangers too
paralyzed and terribly alone
and with anger and education
he bested you, Dorothy,
your abandoned boy
I bested you

 

HOW’S YOUR INVASION GOING

Messrs Bush, Blair, Powell, and Rumsfeld
how’s your invasion going
on the heels of the assassination
of Martin King, a black man who stood for peace,
and shot down for asking America
to hold to it’s principles of equality and fairness,
how’s your invasion of an Arab nation going

How’s your invasion going
messrs Bush, Blair, Powell and Rumsfeld,
how’s the destruction of the oldest civilization,
belonging to black people, going, how’s your
campaign to erase history and conquer oil going

How’s your invasion going,
where’s the weapons of mass destruction Mr. Bush,
or have you found all the al-Qaeda warriors
hiding in the country Mr. Powell, or have you been able
to replace the old regime with one to your liking Mr. Blair,
have you freed any of the Iraqi people, Mr. Rumsfeld
what about the ones you murdered, the women,
the children, the elderly too frail to get out of the
way of your smart bombs
how have your baby killers performed
are all of the people freer, now

Mr. Powell, how’s it feel to be a token
in this administration’s mongering to
destroy affirmative action with the one hand, in America,
while conquering colored nations with the other
How’s your invasion going

How’s your invasion going,
messrs Bush and Blair,
from Camp David where you
count up and divide the booty,
chuckling like drunken children
as you divvy up the spoils of victory

How’s your invasion going,
messrs Bush, Blair, Powell, and Rumsfeld,
this occupation cloaked as an invasion

 

IT IS A WONDER
for Speaker Pelosi

Today,
I am going to write
your poem,
because I saw you
on Today,
looking dignified
and speaking the words
that many in the world
need to hear
but only a few have
dared you to say,
speaking words of peace
to nations deemed evil
by this president and other
old broken-down evil men

How dare you speak peace
when the men love their wars
and death and carnage and destruction,
loving the killing
and hating the peacemonger,
King Bush wanting his coffers
filled to overflowing
with enough ransom to
make his wars last forever,
summoning you to kneel before
him and do his bidding
or be beheaded

It is a wonder
that upon your return
to the kingdom
you were not met by knights,
chained and molested,
dragged off to a dungeon
beneath the castle
made to sign a document
of treason to the realm
and then
beaten to death

 

WHEN I TALKED TO YOU LAST

For Jasan

When I talked to you last
there were things left unsaid
things you were holding back from saying
things you didn’t want me to hear
so rather than say these things
you terminate the conversation
you stay aloof, mysterious
just some more of men behaving badly
leaving things unsaid
but saying other things to end potential
friendships or love interests
no intimacies here, no getting close
no sharing of secrets
secret dreams
secret ambitions
secret loses
secret loves
secret illnesses
this is why men go to war
because they will not talk to one another
they will not tell their secrets to each other
they will not expose hearts and souls
and talk of their pain
their wants
their needs
Is the secret so painful, so terrible, so precious
that no one must ever have it
that you would rather die, maim, kill, destroy
push away, abandon another than let them share in the secret
the telling must be better than the not telling
a better medicine than
shame
knives
guns
death

 

GHOSTS

I am new here, granddad,
and I left my daughter and your son
behind

Tell me what was done to you
or what you did

I let my anger at my mother,
for what she did to my father,
your son, envelop and consume
me, pushing me to craziness and
rage and I wouldn’t tell anyone,
keeping it all in until it all
exploded on that highway

I saw what your mother did
to your father, my son, and
she was like so many other
women in his life, even his
mother, your grandmother,
always hurting him and
treating him with such malice,
trying to break and destroy him,
to manipulate him into systems
or graves, but his stubborness
always saved him.  Maybe I
gave him that, maybe I didn’t.
I wasn’t there in the physical
sense, to sheild him from the
meanness of women, but I
was able to protect him

Tell me how you did that,
granddaddy, tell me how you
protected him

It was me and some of the others
that was holding him down from
getting up and destroying your
mother all those years ago,
what you saw your mother do
and what you would not talk
about to anyone, but the rage
and madness leaked out in
your behavior and attitude

She attacked him, made
him leave me forever and
I loved him, grandpa, I did,
but she lied about him and
would not apologize for her
brutality and kept me away
from him, my own father.
She killed me, killed my spirit
and my dreams, filled my
head and heart with such poison
and then acted as if she had
nothing to do with it, that she
was not to blame, that it was
all his fault that I turned out
the way I did in the end

I saw the whole thing, He
sees all things and lets us
see it all, too.  So, I know
she is not innocent and He
will judge her, in time, that is
not for us to do, even in death,
all we do here is watch and
protect when we can

How do I protect my father
and the daughter I left behind

Just watch.  Just watch

 

IF I WERE AN ARTIST
09/28/2007

If I were an artist,
you know,
the kind that paints,
uses oils on canvas,
creates beautiful mosaics,
I would have painted a picture
of all of you yesterday
in the family court building
all of you together
like in a rogue’s gallery
all of you plotters and schemers
having joined ranks
in an allegiance against me
while a child is at risk,
living with a suspected murderer
and con artist, a suspected murderess
of the very child’s mother
and having run a con
against the legal father,
a foreign national, too young
and too gullible to know
anything about evil women’s wiles

Yes, I would have painted a picture
of all of you criminals
sitting against that wall
as if you were all in a lineup
just missing a name and numbered plate
against your chests,
each of you looking sullen and dull
and it would have to take
a lot of colorful paints to
capture the essence of each of you,
the evil and mean mother and grandmother
to the child dead and the child at risk,
what color depicts evilness and meanness best,
black, I guess, yes a black women
dressed in black, with black pupils
and to her left a sister
that would have to be painted dysfunctionally,
but what color represents dysfunction
and to the sister’s left is the husband,
poor man, he would have to be painted invisible,
trapped between wickedness to his right
and deranged madness to his left,
the immature foreign dissident
to his immediate left, painted in dull colors
to capture his expressions about the proceedings
and the danger that he has been placed in
by the criminal to his immediate left,
a woman suspected of murder
and certainly one that has conned
him of hundreds of dollars
(remember the stroller incident, dummy),
and she is painted with flaming red
Medusa-like hair because of her power
to turn the others to stone before her,
except me, because I’ve seen her so many
times before, in the dull ignorant faces
of foster parents and ex-lovers and others on the street
and she is not as powerful as the others
would have me believe, because she is too stupid,
literally ignorant, and yet she has corrupted
some of the educated in the picture
to bend to her demands, how does she do that
and why do the others follow like
dimwitted sheep…,?
perhaps that is how
they should all be painted
like dull-eyed sheep for slaughter
and her as a yellow-handed shepherd
with a gun and knife in each hand
and I would have to put a book under a tree
in the painting

But, I am not an artist,
most certainly not one that uses canvas
and brushes and pails of paint
to depict my characters….

 

RIOT!

Steve Almasi
is running through
the halls of Coxsackie Correctional Facility
screaming at the top of his lungs
that Mr. Holiday is causing a riot
with the few poems that Mr. Holiday
was called upon to perform
by the inmates
for President’s Day
and for Black History Month

Steve Almasi
the weasel librarian state bureaucrat
believes in his demented warped brain
that the poems are somehow inflammatory
and that there will be a riot
by the inmates
because they all stood up
and clapped for Mr. Holiday
and his performance of only three poems,
two from his own published book
and one from total recall known as rote
and he, Mr. Holiday, had been invited
to participate at this Black History event
because others know he is a poet
and that he volunteers to conduct
a poetry workshop each Monday evening

In Steve Almasi’s feeble and destructive mind
the very fact that the population enjoyed
the performance and showed it with an ovation
is enough cause for him to determine
that a riot is in the planning
and so he decides to unceremoniously
escort this guest specifically to the front gate
and kick his black ass out of the building
on President’s Day during Black History Month

Steve Almasi had an Orwellian moment
during Black History Month
on that Monday morning and before
the afternoon performance was to commence
in which he believed in his meltdown
that all guests are equal,
but some guests
are more equal than others
or maybe it was that
all blacks are equal
but some blacks
are more equal than others
or perhaps he saw it as
all volunteers are equal
but some volunteers
are more equal than others
but however his sickness saw it
Steve Almasi has been seen
running through the bleak gray
halls of Coxsackie Correctional
yelling and screaming incoherently
about riots and uprisings
while the guards are seen to
be getting their guns and
riot squads ready
and the inmates stand
quietly along a wall
shaking their heads
in wonderment
and other inmates
remained in their cells
quietly shaking their heads

Steve Almasi
left the facility
that evening and returned
to his dull boring trailer
and went to sleep on a cot
and dreamed of riots
and in his dream he was killed
by his own hand

 

BLACK HISTORY MONTH BLUES PART III
INCIDENT AT COXSACKIE

It is President’s Day
in this building today
and I have been in here,
along with Dr. Clark,
since seven thirty
in the morning

We are both invited guests
by the population
and Dr. Clark will read
his essay, some of the guys
will read and then I have
been invited to participate
by reading a poem or two

I will get a standing ovation
from the audience
but one person is not too
happy with my performance

“You were only a guest, Alex.
You were not allowed to give a speech.”

Steve Almasi, a white supervisor
for this poetry workshop volunteer
for nearly two years (in May),
a volunteer who has not missed a day
due to sickness or laziness, a volunteer
who has not had any incidents from
the population (other than banning
or kicking out the phony so-called
“writers”), a volunteer who has shown
nothing but respect to the population,
the guards and this white supervisor
is going to get chastised by this
white motherfucker on President’s Day
in the month of February,
during another Black History Month

Steve Almasi will make his remark
right after the morning event
has come to an end
and morning session attendees
have to return to their cells for morning count
and while Dr. Clark is taking a piss
and the look in his eye
shows indicators of
a full and complete meltdown

Steve Almasi, the bureaucratic loser
will escort the doctor and the volunteer
back to the library at the end of the
very classrooms that I, the volunteer,
use most Monday evenings
to conduct a poetry workshop
with members of the population

The doctor and the volunteer
will take a table and talk for
a little over an hour
during which time
this pathetic state bureaucrat
will bring over his poster board
sizes of Dr. King’s, I Have A Dream speech
(complete with a photo of the late reverend)
alongside another famous black individual
and this is the closest that this individual
gets to “celebrating” black history
and when the doctor and the volunteer
glance at it quickly and return to
their discussion, Steve Almasi
takes it away

Steve Almasi will return to
gather the black men for
lunch in the gymnasium
before the afternoon performances
and he is walking the two men down
the long corridor from the library,
past the classrooms, past the bathrooms
and they are almost through the gate
at the end of the long corridor
when Steve Almasi will turn to
the volunteer, the poetry workshop volunteer
and state, “Alex, I need you to go back,”
and the volunteer will remark, “Go back
to the library?” and Steve Almasi,
in the presence of the doctor, a guard or two,
will state, “No, I mean I want you to go home.
you were not supposed to give a speech,
you were only supposed to be a guest”

The volunteer attempts to point out
to this northern cracker that he
was asked to participate by members
of the population, one of those very people
was someone from the workshop,
that he was being asked to read a poem or two
because he conducts a poetry workshop
and so the guys, liking what he does
in the workshop, were asking him to
participate at their event for President’s Day
in the month of February,
the Black History Month
and the volunteer had brought this to
the supervisor’s attention near the
end of January  and through early February

There is more said, more words exchanged,
and the look in Steve Almasi’s eyes are weird
but the volunteer has been here before
oh, boy, here we go again,
and one of the words that this demented
state bureaucrat loser uses is, “riot”

He actually said, “…, you could have caused a riot
this morning and I am not going to allow that again….

If a standing ovation can be interpreted as
a “riot” in this place, then heaven help us all

The volunteer performed an approved poem,
directly from his published book
(the second one of three total books),
When Black People Go Dancing,
was called back to the podium
to help fill in for time left over,
performed from rote Dudley Randall’s poem,
Booker T. and W.E.B., received a standing ovation
and was called back a third time
and read again directly from his book,
Il Walad, which is just a poem
about starving children in Sudan and Somalia
and from this brief performance
this evil motherfucking bureaucratic loser
interprets riotous inflammatory text?

So, rather than let the volunteer perform
at the afternoon session, Steve Almasi
escorts both the doctor and the volunteer
to the front gate and
ceremoniously kicks the volunteer out
of Coxsackie Correctional Facility
on President’s Day
in the month of February
during Black History Month

HITLER’S WIFE GIVES A DIRECTIVE

On the morning of August 16
a German-like offensive act
was committed by Hitler’s wife
when she was seen to have stormed
out of a stairwell by a black man
at a copy machine.

Hitler’s wife, let us call her
Jayne Van Bramer
stormed into a unit
asked where the black man sat
then went stomping off
in that general direction.

Jayne Van Bramer,
Hitler’s wife, if you will,
then did something back
in the corner where the black man sat
and then came back out of the unit
and came over to where the
black man was standing
at the table next to the copy machine.

In Hitler’s wife’s hand
was the poster
for the new book
that the black man had recently written,
now in the hands of
Jayne Van Bramer
or, if you prefer,
Hitler’s wife.

Taken down from the cubicle wall
outside of the area where the
colored man sat and worked
and now Hitler’s wife had it
in her hands and was
showing him his poster
the poster that he had had taped
on his cubicle wall

alongside two other posters
of books that he,
this Black man,
had also written
as well as a poster
for Langston Hughes and National Poetry Month
and two color copies
for an international anthology
that the colored man
was published in.

She, Jayne Van Bramer,
went all the way back into that unit
to physically touch the black man’s property,
to physically take down
a poster for a book
by a black man
and then bring that very poster
to the black man at a copy machine
(which is outside of the unit and shared
with a neighboring bureau…, and there
were witnesses to all of this)
with the remark that
the black man was not to have
this poster up in his area
way back in the corner of the unit
and when asked why
by this colored man
asked calmly, “Can you tell me why,”
Hitler’s wife said,
stuttering,
“‘Uh, uh, I’m giving you a directive,
you can’t have this in your area’”
and then Jayne Van Bramer,
or one might call her
Hitler’s wife,
stormed off.

Hitler’s wife,
Jayne Van Bramer,
is in a lot of trouble now
because of what she did
to a Black man
and his poster.

MONSTERS

Beware entering 44 Holland,
there are monsters in this building,
be careful and watch your step,
here, use your pass at the rear
of the building and walk down
this long eerie corridor
to the elevators
but you’ll first pass the door
that leads down into the
belly of this structure
where other monsters reside

At the elevators take a deep breath
before entering and riding up into
the scarier sections of the building,
passing floors two, three, four, and five
where there are sure to be other monsters
but don’t concern yourself with them, for now

On the sixth floor
meet the white bully-Nazi-racist-lying monster,
this is where she dwells,
first in a cubicle
and then behind a steel door
of an office, having been
promoted to assistant director monster,
having even been voted
employee-of-the-month monster
by the union president monster
(after being told about the bully monster)

There were, and are, other monsters
on the sixth floor of 44 Holland,
the one-handed monster
old (formerly retired) grey-haired monsters
Asian and Indian (from India, etc.) monsters
other bully monsters
overweight monsters
obese monsters (literally eating themselves to death)
secretary monsters

temporary monsters
contract worker monsters
chronically addicted gambling monsters

The seventh floor can be bypassed, for now
but rest assured…, there are monsters to be found
on that floor, too, ( for example, there is one in Personnel, aka
Human Resources so be careful)
It is the monsters on the eighth floor
that are, certainly, the most horrible,
and ones that you must be most concerned with
because it is here that the commissioner monster dwells
and all its minions like director and acting director monsters
who, of course, support, encourage, condone, and favor
the other horrible monsters, lying in your face about
budget cuts while promoting their monster friends
and cohorts or begging money from others while
these monsters earn exorbitant monies
(in some cases as much as two, three, and even four
times over their dominions) and with no shame

They’re doing horrible, monstrous, things to others
and without guilt or shame, with no apologies ever offered
for their destructive unhealthy behaviors, with the
commissioner monsters even stating,
“…, I’m sorry you feel that way,”
thereby laying the foundation in this monster-ridden environment
and even Poe would be ashamed of the horror here

So, if you enter via the back or front
of 44 Holland and get past the nice security monster
and make your way into and through this structure
be prepared to run a gauntlet through
all the monsters,
spending most of your day dodging them,
whether they dwell in the chilly, even cold, basement
or way up on the eighth floor and try not to become
like them, try not to become a monster yourself
even though you will be surrounded by
the disabled, the black, the male, the smoking,
the depressed, the disillusioned, the gay,
the Native American, The Arab, the working poor,
the single parent, the political, the educated,
the uneducated, the Jew, the religious,

the dysfunctional, the straight, the female,
the Chinese, the WASP, the apolitical…,
and so many other types of monsters
here in the Office of Mental Health,
here at 44 Holland…, mental health…,
what a horrible joke…, just be careful
as you enter….

SATAN’S DAUGHTER GETS HERSELF A PROMOTION

‘There’s no room in the budget…,
…New York State is in a financial crisis…
…many State workers are facing layoffs
or may have to take a forced early retirement…,’
these are a few of the lies told to us
in staff meetings by acting directors
(talking to an educated audience, mind you)
and other liars since it was the queen liar
Satan’s daughter herself who said to the
face of a black man, “…we can’t promote you…,”
but has gone and got herself one,
gone and got herself a pretty little bitty thing
called a promotion…, that’s right, this
bullying liar got herself promoted
even though lying governors, past and present,
are almost prepared to shut down the entire State,
see hospitals short of staff;
schools without teachers;
the State without workers;
bridges and tunnels unmanned;
the elderly without caretakers;
vacant businesses;
abandoned homes and cars;
buses packed beyond capacity… but with few operators;
trains and planes going to nowhere places

But, these promotions and new hires and contracted
workers and temporary workers are all being
blatantly snuck in the building and every week
there’s a new face somewhere…, maybe they’re
all working for free and living on food stamps
and selling their cars and walking away from posh homes
all to work (“illegally”…, since there’s no room in the budget)
and many of these new faces are old faces,
old as in…, shit, shouldn’t you already be retired?,
and even an old one-handed dude is hired
over promoting a black man…, or any person of color,
male or female…, not that there’s anything wrong
with that, mind you…, because as it’s said up in these
here parts, ‘What’s done is done,’ and ‘It is what it is”
which really means, ‘Fuck you, accept it.”

So…, Satan’s daughter gets promoted
while others do more work without titles and promotions
and a State has no room in its budget
and governors have two residences
and liars are king of the world

DA IST NICHTS ZU MACHEN

That is right,
susan and jayne and mike
and all you other bullies,
there inside 44 Holland Avenue,
there is nothing to be done about it
there is nothing to be done about
a man standing up to you
a man standing proud
for using his non-violent training
while you try to brand him
a terrorist
yes, he is a terrorist
a terrorist for right and good
a kind of soldier of love
and as the great Sade
would sing in her powerful
song of love and abuse
“In Another Time,”
“…one of these days…,
they’ll know exactly
what they did to you…,”
and you all will
you can try to hide in your rooms
but you will know
like the Japanese knew,
the Japanese of old
the Japanese of Hersey’s novel
Hiroshima, and there was Nagasaki, too,
they came to know
as I came to know
as I read from that novel in public,
da ist nichts zu machen,
and you will know exactly
what you did to me
and others
you’ll know that
there is nothing
to be done about it,
there is nothing
that can help you now
there is nothing to be done
…nothing to be done…,
…nothing… about it….
…nothing….

(Excerpt taken from In Another Time from the album Soldier of Love, by Sade)

THE INVOLUNTARY LEAVE OF ABSENCE AS PUNISHMENT ROUTINE

Do you feel good, bullies of OMH,
do you feel good for punishing
another target of your bullying
do you do this to all of your “victims”
all of the ones you pick on with
your mean words
and mean looks
and nasty evaluations
and blatant lies
and corrupt timesheets
and all the trauma you create
do you feel good Susan
do you feel good Michael
do you feel good Kevin
do you feel good Paul
do you feel good Jayne
are you all sleeping well at night
and not drinking more
and not drugging more
and not fighting with a mate more
and not driving dangerously more
and not texting behind the wheel
and not manhandling a child inappropriately
do you do this to a lot of people
send them for evaluations
of the physical and mental kind
because they stood up against your bullying
and now you and the other bullies
want them labeled as
dangerous and a threat to others and property
do you feel good gang
cause that’s what you are
a gang, thugs, bullies, criminals
a consortium of ignorant monsters
some of you with degrees,
like you Michael, Mr. Holley,
with your Master of Social Work degree
do you feel good for what you’ve done
or as you would want others to believe
NOT done,
remaining mute, playing dumb, so as not to be blamed later
but you’re guilty
like all the others
just as bad
maybe even a little worse
since your degree
is bestowed upon you
to help mankind
not injure wo/man/kind
to help the society
from the children
to the adults
and thank God
you have nothing to do with children
in the capacity of a social worker
Mr. Holley, other than your own
and how did you raise them
did you use that mute tactic
and leave your wife to be the fallperson
with the kids, and how do you feel about that
and how do your own kids feel about you, dad
and how are they doing in the society, dad
and are they members of the society, dad
or did you send them away, too,
did you send them off to be evaluated
for physical and mental fortitude
in your society
or better still
are they bullies, too, like you
are they monsters like just like you, dad
I’m gonna be like you, Dad, you know I’m gonna be like you….
and how about you, Jayne,
are your children
being taught to go around and rip things down
that they don’t like, too.
are they stomping around in school or the workplace
giving directives to everyone
“My mother did this to that black motherfucker at her job,
so I can do it to you,” say’s a broken and traumatized young adult
how do you feel
do you feel good up in the Ivory Tower of your mind
do you eat well
are you getting enough rest
are you getting any love
are you listening to music
enjoying the theatre
cavorting with friends
when your mates look in your eyes
do they see love
or hate
hate for yourself
hate for others that you target
with your bullying
and your nastiness
and your mean spiritedness
and your soulless souls
your dead hearts
your decayed brains
How is the gang feeling today