Quit Yer Blubberin and Let Me Read...(or do I really have a direct responsibility to the audience for their feelings?)_
Can't know a square
unless you can find a box to climb in.
Can't walk through a woman's life
unless you cram your feet into her shoes.
Can't guess no guesses of what it's like
to be another somebody.
Can't feel no feelings of who's not you.
Some people though is always guessing.
Guessing themselves so much
they're outta the game.
Guessing the business of this and that one
and not minding their own selves.
Doling out the blame and shame.
Looky here see that man in the audience.
He says I gots to care about all the feelings of you.
He says if I don't take c/o y'all,
I'm just a black heart.
He says if I don't do it...
I've unknotted the rope that ties together
the whole boat-full of humanity
and sells them out...that's right,
...you n' you n' you...
to the river of no return.
He wants me to clean up my language.
He wants me to purify my metaphors.
He wants a sanitary story.
He wants me to entertain you...
write bright notes to a happy score.
I'm gonna ignore him.
And do things my way.
I would be interested in what he's got to say for himself.
Even if it set my jaw in a jam
put me in the wrong mood for a minute
or made me think another way about who I am, but...
I don't owe nothing to the audience
but for one simple thing.
My truth.
Perhaps they'll hear a bit of their own
in it. I'm not up here to throw out my chest
or get the medal to pin on it.
If he's ever known a square and what it means
to be caught up in a box.
If he's ever tried to fit his toes into another
man's shoes or a woman's pinching pair of high heels,
then perhaps he's not lost.
If he's ever lived his life and nearly paid for it
with the highest cost,
then he's got a story to tell
and we'd be lucky if he shared it
and all learned something grateful
and powerful and good.
Sometimes suffering is optional.
Sometimes its made us damn good poets.
(And who we are.)
Copyright Tuesday am early November 28, 2012 All Rights Reserved By this author
Melissa A Howells Meloo from her Tilt-a-World
Any and all ungrammatical errors are INTENTIONAL...in this particular poem, at least...
as the "reader" is engaged in "plain-speaking" or everyday from the hear.