What If? (a new poem)

Jan 24, 2013

I have so many poems lying about on scraps of paper, in notebooks, on backs of envelopes and napkins. I used to think that if I did not write a poem down as soon as it popped into my head that I would lose it forever. So  I carried teeny tiny notebooks around in my back pockets for years, jotting down random inspirational moments at bus stops, grocery stores, in classes, on trains. Over time, I discovered, upon finding little jottings here and there that indeed I could jot down a poem and lose it for years only to jot down the same exact lines on another paper at another time. How miraculous! Somehow the words stay in my head floating about for years without my knowledge.

Below is a poem I found jotted down on a small slip of paper tucked into a church program. I hope it speaks to you.

What if you were the One?

What if you came

You only you what if

This was always your plan

What if the world

Were waiting on you

What if you only you

What if the world 

Was counting on you?

You only you 

Nobody else nobody 

What if nobody 

Could take your place

Had your face

Could do would do

What you came to do

What if your eyes only see

Your ears only hear

The harmony the world

Needs

 To heal?

The Impossible Tour Begins

After a brief hiatus I am getting back on the poetry road, people! I have spent the last couple of months in Los Angeles writing and planning and now I am ready to hit the road again. I decided to record an up-close-and personal video of my poem, "Demands of Existence." Some of you may know of it as the "Impossible poem."

I read it on the corner of 16th and Mission in San Francisco back in November. Fun times! It was an anarchist performance event that happens once a week on the corner in front of the BART station. The night I was there a spontaneous protest broke out in the neighborhood in response to the police shooting of a young man of color. The police came out in  battalions fitted for war and the motley band of street performers scattered to the four corners....never a dull moment.

I had a fellow artist, videotape my performance with my flip camera but it was hard to hear the poem so here is a new version. I wrote this poem to inspire people who are dealing with challenges in their lives; to get people to think about why they are here, and what they are willing to do to live their purpose.

I have done a lot of things in my life that people told me were impossible. I didn't listen...and eventually I learned.

I am currently putting together a new digital/physical album called "The Impossible", which will feature some of my newer poems, like this one, "Poverty Is..."  "Say You're Sorry" "Rape: A State of Emergency" and "Not Quite Right" along with some of the more popular epics I have published over the years ("Names,"  "Mixed Heritage Epic" and "Wonder Woman"). I will post the link as soon as it is live. Enjoy

Tim Wise - On Why We are Not Post-Racial

Demands of Existence

April 8th poem: [If not] For my Mother

[If not] For My Mother

If it weren’t for my mother
Where and what would I be
Who would have taught me
How to stand strong fight back
How to think freely.

What kind of wimp would I be
Without her example
Without her ferocious story
She walked across a country
For my sisters and me

What kind of citizen
What kind of activist would I be
If she hadn’t taught me
To challenge everyone
To question everything?

I wouldn’t be
Painting paintings
Writing poetry/ would not love science
Wouldn’t have all these degrees
Wouldn’t eat organic
Recycle
Drive an old (gas-saving) car
Rock thrift sore fashion
Wouldn’t recognize animals
As people
Trees as family
Wouldn’t notice beauty
In everything

If not for my mother
It scares me to think
How I might have turned out
Who I would have become
If not for my mother.

April 7th poem (posted late)

April 7th poem [the goddess]

A Goddess walked into
The coffee exchange today
While I was busy
Reading idiot midterms

Did she come to save us
Could she start with me?

She had the kind of
Beauty that blinds
And renders dumb
Those who behold her

Thus was I afflicted.

April 6th poem (posting late)

A birch tree bleeds out my window
Ragged Cut dismembered
For the crime of displaying
An unsightly disease