This is little but here we go--
this is "The Obama Hour."
Since Obama ain't here.
I try to beat everybody to the punch.
I don't take sides.
I just-- Where is that thing?
One of my friends dared me to try Obama, you know.
Try page 60.
Yeah.
[LAUGHING]
Because I'm too cool to look at the table of contents.
Did you do that not looking?
Maybe.
Yeah.
[LAUGHING]
See me after the show, I got a free gift.
[LAUGHING]
I know that kid.
That's a cool kid.
[LAUGHING]
Yeah, here we go, "The Obama Hour."
The poem begins with an F, but the F is slanted.
"Finally, one of us is properly positioned to run.
By "us" I mean Black, by "positioned" I mean White
and by "run" I mean Race, and it's varied speeds of darkness,
the way "silver writes" faster than revolution
and the lit and darkening skin of the sky.
The triumphant exasperation, though,
belongs to the word "finally" but it's
slanted F signifying relief, a "bout time"
up from the reservoir of coded sighs
we make to mask time, Colored People's Time,
our well-known resistance to the Romanized face of the clock.
To discuss running, running the country, a black man
running, an African running America,
you must discuss Race, including the difficult qualifying
times between the theft of our arrival and all hate crimes.
Race as gift, as campaign donation, and gifts matter.
It's racist to erase Race--
because "erase" means Blackness, ethnic cleansing,
get rid of the Blacks--
and worse to hack off history or any limb
at anytime, except for purposes of assimilation
and modern design.
In place of the usual halo of numbers,
orange balls and spindles.
Lazy, often late for work, our walk a discourse, shifting,
like the unemployed shadow of a brother leaning on a corner.
But America prefers Religion to Race
and a clock has disciples, hours, cuckoos
and cock-a-doodle doos.
The people "go to sleep" and the people
"wake up" to nature, nations and denominations
of, not the bedside duet of alarm and digital glow."
Thank you.