Poetry 004

I finally got me understanding
A little bit of the math
Behind the operations round here…

Translate as:
I admitted to knowing nothing…

I said,
“Fill my Styrofoam cup
With your dreams of cities
Emasculated in the armpits of history,

And let the tides of the sea’s
Rise to reach our gas pumps
And envelope
That which was rightfully hers,

And watch the Cadillac’s submerge
And float like submarines
With a gangsta lean…”

Cuz I finally got me understanding
A little bit of me…

Translate as:
Scared of getting hurt
So I don’t commit
To nothing but the profession of my passion…

I said, “Two plus two equals four
So what’s the three really for?
Except to better recognize
The divine at the core of all of our hardcore
And what’s more
Is that the streetlights
Never fail to illuminate
The inner street fights
The parts of us that we love to hate”

They said, “If you love something give it away”

I said,
“But if it’s taken
Instead of given, then
It smirks of a whole new rhythm
Of a reason
To keep you living and believing
Until the day that it dawns on adequate hands,
Hands of those that truly understand
The beast beneath
The gimmicks of wordsmithery,
With piano keys pounding like it was a ceremony
A funeral tribune
Lost in the tune
Of rites of passage, which
Ain’t right
Til we say it’s so…"

I finally got me understanding
A little bit of the tracks we stand over…

Translate as:
But ain’t that the bitch of manifest destiny?

I said,
“Question all you want
But the marks
Will only leave you be
As a leaf on the tree of productivity, with
Cycles that repeat out of necessity
For more mulch for another seed
For another tree of creativity…

This ain’t an end, It’s a means

That’s finally got me understanding
A little bit of the in-betweens
Between the in-betweens…

Translate as:
I travel,
Because my shoes
Choose to carry me
And transcend me
Through the clarity
Past the muddy depths
Of what it means to not have any choice left.

---Jordy Yager, 2007