"Who real?"
The return of poem to be read from right to left.
"For when you are ready to follow
a tendency of anonymous feathers," Zaina Alsous.
Well, I say, to no one in particular,
this isn't the first time I've backed us out of a disaster.
Record scratch.
Nah, you ain't wondering how we got here, freeze frame.
And if it doesn't feel like an NDE,
you probably ain't living right.
And if you don't get that, this poem ain't for you.
Now pen back to the scene.
Now that we've kicked the CIA, NSA, FBI, out, left hand on 12,
right hand gripping the top of the passenger seat.
Oh, I cantered out here, now I'm galloping back.
I return, and you, dear reader, are tired of my saying,
I return.
A man unbuckles his belt before entering security,
and someone is aroused.
This is our state.
The first professor to see a shorter draft of this poem
asks, how long I could sustain this stylistic device?
I counter with, I don't know, prof.
How long do you think the khwhite's
heteronormative, demonic, hegemonic, mnemonic trademark
can sustain itself?
Now I'm American and all the class clown and road rage
I could never be.
Besides, this is no device.
LOL is palindrome.
Lolololol.
It took a whole global pandemic for you
to institutionalize yourselves.
LOL.
It took bioterrorism for you to get training in anti-racism.
LOL.
It is why the unwell are well and the well
are unwell under duress.
It is 11:11, I am many miles, many thousand miles
in the air, trying to make a poem without a sound.
I wrote, I grew tired of counting
the number of English words it takes
to capture one in another.
But now I have grown tired of writing
toward your inherent limitations.
Compassion, yes, I have it.
You woke up in Iraq.
The dull among you still think that is a metaphor.
Well, hello, then.
I am Desert Storm.
I sit on your sill at dawn and watch the woke wake up.
Ha-ha.
You thought the sandman had a gender.
I wiped the sleep out your eye.
Breaking news, Iraq was never ever waiting on your cream
cheese, spreading charcoal, infused BPA, free ice cube,
democracy.
I, invasive species, I ante body you in your own language.
Look how we light in language, so we
fly like Toni taught Elmaz, who taught me.
You were so caught up with my maker and model
you miss the glory of this flight.
I, mythical creature, already gone so far in the future.
I made my own country with only two citizenship questions,
who real?
Who free?
This, my hologram reading to you, because writing a book
showed me you all can't read to save yourselves.
Guess I had to write an Arabic to teach you English.
Yo, Steph, I'm still pushing.
Yeah, from Brooklyn.
Did you all in invaders open those doors yet?
I know you thought I would be all, I'm humbled,
I am grateful for that New York Times review.
And how is that Iraq revision going for you?
How is it going?
How's that Iraq revision going for you?
Are you still at the window clapping at 7:00?
Or was it 8:00 PM?
No one ever needed your applause.
We needed protection.
Another question while we're at it, is the window bulletproof?
I assassinate this, a nonviolent stickup.
Your bullets slow mine fast as future timelines,
where you still tried to end me.
I, infinite infinity, only I can unend me.
This is what I read when you write, bar, bar, bar.
Look at how you reveal yourselves.
Now before you tell me how my anger is well, well justified,
let me translate for you.
Angry equals very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very,
very, very, very smart.
Very smart.
Angry equals, can no longer afford to suffer fools,
can no longer carry you.
And I welcome you to join me.
That's why all the white supremacists
moved to North Carolina racing to reproduce themselves.
Meanwhile, legend has it when I was born I named myself.
Name mean: those who refuse to surrender to injustice.
And I am many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many,
many, many.
I was wind and they tried to make me language.
Tried to translate.
Tried to empire me.
They can't catch this free.
But this is my third appearance and the first time
they have paid me.
So say it with me, gimme the loot.
Gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme.
Don't mind me.
I mean, don't mind me.
I humbly donate these 50 peanuts back
to the academy of elephants.
I am my own royalties.
My next book already tatted on this body.
Yeah, they got Tuesdays With Morrie.
I got Thursdays with Charleen.
Don't you see how we is we?
Together picking the lock of history.
Come, I want to show you something.
Did you know Yayoi Kusama makes poems too?
But that isn't what we're here to see.
There, she's painting now.
You might think those are just dots,
but she's transforming every trauma.
Now let's take a walk with me and my friend, Tacumeh.
He's telling me about his grandma,
and wants to know how to get published
before the conversation takes a turn.
He says Egyptians are only Black when it's convenient.
And I don't say anything because I know where his Black ends
and mine begins.
It was his now wife in our senior seminar
who tried to tell me, Egypt isn't a part of Africa.
I'm from the part of Egypt you never see.
You can't fool me.
Besides, I hate when we colonize ourselves.
Like you all wasn't looking while they
looted and whitewashed my country's history with one hand
and moved the plantations with the other.
Like you don't know why you love that one zero zero
E-G-Y-P-T-I-A-N cotton so much.
I'm still wondering why it makes me so uncomfortable
to tell the truth and stand up for myself.
And then I remember, oh, it's because 99.9% of you
taught me how to gaslight myself.
My sister Ounie calls to ask about a strange word used
in a recent review of her book.
She says denialism, and I hear denihilism.
Sonically unsound, but etymologically correct.
I seek to denihilate everything that
would attempt to annihilate me, the many of me.
And we never have to lift a finger
to deny your own mediocrity and lack of competence
will be your end.
858-72020.
I am alive and listening to capitalism's last scream.
And how many days on Kawara say, I am alive.
My anger has been recorded for your quality assurance
in minor and major key.
I was a hidden treasure and I wished to be known.
I created creation so I could be known.
Are we there yet?
At your progress?
How they killing us but TP still here?
Predator in chief.
Benefit of the doubt? haa.
That's hope by another name.
Have I finally written the national narrative
that makes it possible for you to reckon with me?
This, that precog post verbal speak.
Did you get the extra transmission yet?
The poet knows what's good, but has a hard time living it.
Yeah, I came in riding high on a hot blooded thoroughbred
Trojan horse.
It is Black or Arab, depending on whose house
we roll in or on.
Soon you will wake up in Palestine.
You know why they put the children in cages?
Because they know we can fly.
Same reason why every passport got wings on it.
That's why I don't like when they hold mine for too long.
And the body is just an envelope.
Must be why I keep having the same dream about forgetting
the stamps.
I grew in your condensation and your condescension.
I cumulus, I circumference, and radius you.
I fractal, I dalia, I dunyah, I abstract,
I conceptual my coming out story.
No one, absolutely no one in the art supply store--
art store employee, hi, is there anything I can help you with?
I was expecting that question the way
I'm feeling up all these brushes.
Employee-- shocked expression.
No, it's just that we're closing soon.
I'm learning now about color to blend instead of mute.
You can clean your brush, but every bristle
has the memory of pigment.
Got two families, given and chosen,
our last name very long.
This, I will also translate for you.
We, who are blessed and highly favored.
We, whom you have yet to see.
We, who find each other.
Thank you for letting me be.
Now I call my niece, say, knock, knock.
Bok, Bok.
What did the cow cat say?
Mooo yowww.
Ring, ring, calling from the matrix, pick up the arabophone.
And oops, sorry to everyone who accused me
of taking a queer space before this.
I didn't know it was delimited.
We love the poets, but shame the conditions.
Our saving grace said, when they go low,
we go high, because that's the way the Nile flow.
Now I hear Jose say--
[ALARM RINGING]
Oh, I didn't realize that was going to be loud.
Now I hear José say, you wild for this one.
I wile and wild.
When you teach this poem, tell the kids
I wrote it in Avatar state.
I astral, I last.
No DNA test can qualify me, which is to say,
you will never ever modern standardize me.
Now I ask, who will surveillve in America?
Who will surveillve in America?
Who's surveillving in America?
Who will surveillve in America?
Who real?
Who free?
Who real?
Who free?
Who real?
Who free?
Who real?
Who free?
Who real?
Who free?