April Is National Poetry Month!

April Is National Poetry Month!

An award jazz poet, an author, and publisher. A spoken word recording artist who released numerous jazz poetry albums. The founder of The Watts Repertory Theater Company. A Civil Rights Activist and a pivotal figure in The Black Arts Movement. Today, I shine the spotlight on Jayne Cortez.

THERE IT IS

JAYNE CORTEZ

My friend

they don't care

if you're an individualist

a leftist a rightist

a shithead or a snake

They will try to exploit you

absorb you confine you

disconnect you isolate you

or kill you

And you will disappear into your own rage

into your own insanity

into your own poverty

into a word a phrase a slogan a cartoon

and then ashes

The ruling class will tell you that

there is no ruling class

as they organize their liberal supporters into

white supremacist lynch mobs

organize their children into

ku klux klan gangs

organize their police into

killer cops

organize their propaganda into

a device to ossify us with angel dust

preoccupy us with western symbols in

African hairstyles

inoculate us with hate

institutionalize us with ignorance

hypnotize us with a monotonous sound designed

to make us evade reality and stomp our lives away

And we are programmed to self-destruct

to fragment

to get buried under covert intelligence operations of

unintelligent committees impulsed toward death

And there it is

The enemies polishing their penises between

oil wells at the pentagon

the bulldozers leaping into demolition dances

the old folks dying of starvation

the informers wearing out shoes looking for crumbs

the lifeblood of the earth almost dead in

the greedy mouth of imperialism

And my friend

they don't care

if you're an individualist

a leftist a rightist

a shithead or a snake

They will spray you with

a virus of legionnaire's disease

fill your nostrils with

the swine flu of their arrogance

stuff your body into a tampon of

toxic shock syndrome

try to pump all the resources of the world

into their own veins

and fly off into the wild blue yonder to

pollute another planet

And if we don't fight

if we don't resist

if we don't organize and unify and

get the power to control our own lives

Then we will wear

the exaggerated look of captivity

the stylized look of submission

the bizarre look of suicide

the dehumanized look of fear

and the decomposed look of repression

forever and ever and ever

And there it is