2022-07-14 #writing/poetry #poem-a-day#draft
today will be different a recruitment ad for the NYPD in the subway reads “Today will be Different” in bright font and features a smiling woman’s face in the foreground with four officers’ silhouettes, hands crossed, against a brilliant sunset guarding the background, holstered guns and body armor augmenting the curved outline of bodies with irregular edges. today will be different we said when we questioned in class and they told us to be quiet when we offered love and they tsked they don’t accept that here when we danced under the moonlight and they screamed we were doing it wrong
today will be different we said as the skies birthed grey and the earth sang black and the air coughed up stench heavy with shame and alight forests.
today will be different we whispered as the marchers marched & the protesters protested & the tweeters tweeted furiously & the people plead for change & us beggars begged for spare hope as they swore the government and world off & said things would be different now that change has come & promised that there would be a new day in a future that has not yet arrived & again does not today.
tomorrow we cried
today will
be different
as our mothers were beaten
& our fathers ignored
& our humanity laughed at,
cheapened, made fragmented,
ashes scattered
in the wind
every time a blank
stare discharges over our family:
the crazy man
the limp woman
the lost child
the moment we choose to stare ahead
to move forward in the name of
Unstoppable Progress.
today will be different our puppet kings decreed, pledging on the flag of our limp nation on the graves of skeleton heroes on the defaced legacy of our institutions smoldering silently like a whispering tumor shouted into remission.
today will be different we DECLARED to the world our face in a dirty bathroom mirror forcing a smile the way one must imagine sisyphus does as we carry the fears of generations. flex our fingers clench our fists think “is it still there?” remember that our knuckles wish to erupt that our shoulders wish to fly that our tongues wish to dream our power’s a birthright.
today will be different we said, an exercise in memory, a practice in spirituality. we ritualized our hope preserved it in amber like a fossilized seashell. the kind that no longer exists in light, only as a shadow of the night. we scavenger to recreate it trying to pluck love out from tattered silk surrounded in swaths of broken identities darkening souls the extinction of smiles.
on a dark night such as this when the moon peeks out from under a haze of fog & a few sparkling children wink at us from under their divine covers, sometimes we wonder if today was any different. if tomorrow will amputate its ancestral limbs. if yesterday is all we have to look forward to. we ask the moon and the stars and the covers too. but they hold a level gaze, a smile tugging at the lips, always steady, yet never comforting. their mouths don’t move but their song drowns our hearts. the beat rising with the waves, the ones that yearn to rule the world, reaching for the moon. the water floods our nostrils & tenderizes our lungs, our blood turns to salt & the night air reaches across to caress our brined-blue cheeks & on the next swell we flip the ocean on its head & the waves flood out of our eyes & floating on the defiance of those given a second life once more we say to ourselves
today will be different.
today will be different a recruitment ad for the NYPD in the subway reads “Today will be Different” in bright font, a smiling woman’s face on the front and four officers’ silhouettes with hands crossed in the background against a brilliant sunset, holstered guns and body armor augmenting the human outline with irregular edges.
today will be different we said when we questioned in class and they told us to be quiet when we offered love and they told us they didnt accept love here when we danced under the moonlight and they screamed we were doing it wrong
today will be different we said as the skies birthed grey and the earth sang black and the air grew stench heavy with shame and alight forests.
today will be different we whispered as the marches marched & the protests protested & the tweeters tweeted furiously & the people plead, begged for mercy and change. as they swore the government and the world off & promised that there would be a new day in the future.
tomorrow we cried
today will
be different
as our mothers were beaten
& our fathers ignored
& our humanity taken for granted, made fragmented,
ashes scattered
to the wind
every time a blank stare swept right
over our family:
the crazy man
the helpless woman
the lost child
the moment we chose to stare ahead
& move forward in the name of
Unstoppable Progress.
today will be different our puppet leaders decreed, swearing against the flag of our great nation on the graves of our heroed veterans on the reverent legacy of our institutions smoldering silently like a whisper that they shouted into omission.
today will be different we DECLARED to the world through our face in the dirty bathroom mirror forcing a smile the way one must imagine sisyphus does carrying the world as we carry the fears of generations. we flex our fingers, clench our fists, remember the way our knuckles want to erupt from our hands’ skin, testing if the power we were born with is still there?
today will be different we said as an exercise in memory, a practice in spirituality. we ritualized our hope preserved it in ager like a fossil of a seashell. the kind that no longer exists, only as a shadow of the night. we scrap at memorial rags to recreate it trying to pluck love out from tattered silk surrounded in swaths of broken identities darkening souls the extinction of smiles.
on a dark night such as this when the moon peeks out from under a haze of fog & a few sparkling children wink at us from under their divine covers, sometimes we wonder if today was any different. if tomorrow will amputate its ancestral limbs. if yesterday is all we have to look forward to. we ask the moon and the stars and the covers too. but they just hold a level gaze, a smile tugging at the lips, never wavering yet never answering. their mouths dont move but our hearts feel like drowning. the beat rising with the waves, the ones that yearn to rule the world, reaching for the moon. the water floods our nostrils and tenderizes our lungs, our blood turned to salt and the night air reaches across to caress our frozen cheeks & on the next swell we flip the ocean on its head & the waves flood out of our eyes & once again we whisper to ourselves full of defiance of those given second life today will be different.