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UNDERGROUND VOICES: POETRY
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GEOFF KAGAN TRENCHARD Song for Trent Lott, Part 3 after Roger Bonair Agard When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over the years. -Trent Lott What part of Segregation do you not understand? Do you think they just hang themselves? Were politely asked to piss in a different bathroom and that was all it took? How do you think destiny manifests? There is no difference between a wall and a fist. If you draw a line in red dirt, there must be someone who is always ready to cut off whatever crosses it. On every protest march and project house. Every reservation and border town. Who do you think drains all these swamps for you? What part of themselves they sold at the auction block to stay on the loose side of the rope? While you dream the impossible dream of whiteness, they’re the ones who change your sheets and they will never find a sleep as sound as yours. The Klansman who burns the cross will forever see soot under his nails. The skinhead’s scalp will always rattle even after the hair grows back. The mill's stone knows its weight, even if the one who turns the wheel doesn't. To train a bloodhound to kill, you must beat it every day with the buckle end of your belt. What hot coal they hold under their tongues ready for any uppity moment? What heart’s music is a chain gang clink? What bullet they keep in what chamber? Do you know what they do in the dark? Understand when the loop of rope is around a man's neck, the mule kick can shatter a jaw. How the foot begins to bend into the Calvary boot after the heal has been driven into the head of a Lakota infant? What Columbine carbine do you think you can wield like a bouquet in your peach skin hand? What Abu Ghraib pyramid of flesh has been erected in your honor? What son of McVeigh is in the basement of your federal building with a bomb and a flag? The monsters you made to fight the race war you lost are beginning to eat your children. Can you imagine the problems if you won? Hymen Roth’s Advice for Bernie Madoff On The Day of His Sentencing. There is an alley in Manhattan where I once threatened to burn a woman’s lips off. We got her alone and held a sewer rat by the neck. Rubbed its face in cleaning powder from the tire factory. When the fur started to sizzle I knew she wouldn’t press the charges. I was not happy to do this thing, but you can’t have loose talk where business is concerned. Until very recently the spot was an office for a bankrupt savings and loan. Think on this when the prosecutor looks at you like it’s only Jews who bleed green. Don’t let them sons of bitches act like crime don’t pay. The only difference between a button man and a badge man is who they call for back up. The courtroom where you sit was built by Micks and Wops for pennies. Sits on the graves of Shvartzas and Squaws. When you get to prison, if you bribe the right guards they take care of you. All money has at least some blood on it. In a large pile it will stink like a corpse. Geoff Kagan Trenchard’s poems have been published in numerous journals including Word Riot, The Nervous Breakdown, The Worcester Review, SOFTBLOW and November 3rd. He has received endowments from the National Performance Network, Dance Theater Workshop, The Zellerbach Family Foundation and the City of Oakland to produce original theatrical work. As a mentor for Urban Word NYC, he taught weekly poetry workshops in the foster care center at Bellevue as well as in Rikers Island with Columbia University’s “Youth Voices on Lockdown” program. He is a recipient of a fellowship from the Riggio Writing and Democracy program at the New School and the first ever louderARTS Writing Fellowship. He has performed poetry on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam, at universities throughout the United States, and in theaters internationally as a member of the performance poetry troupe “The Suicide Kings”. He lives in Brooklyn. |
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