I Want to Hear An American Poem
Are there any American poets in here?

I want to hear an American poem
Something American, you know
Some sassy shit or
South Carolina slave shouter
Alabama backwoods church shack call and response

I want to hear an American poem
An American poem about
Share croppers on the side of the road
Of families in cardboard boxes
Not about kings or majestic lands
Or how beautiful ugly can be

I wanna hear some American shit
Some American poetry
Something about ghettos of Italians, of Jews, of Germans, of Niggas
About abandoned projects
And lead poison
And povery
And children in jail
I want to hear a poem about picket lines
In a Joe Hill legend
Struggle for an 8 hour day
Hey
Hey you
Hey you
Where are all the American poems
About Harlem number runners
And barbershop conversations about
Colored faces on colored tvs

I want to hera an American poem
An American poem as American as jazz
As a South Bronx burner brandished on abandoned buildings
A scratch tune
A breakbeat
A backspin
A beatboxer
A rap song
And congo squares
Niggas beating on buckets on broad street

As American as the Zulu Nation
And Latin Kings

I want to hear an American poem
About a dead girl on Chadwick Avenue
With a bullet in her neck
From a cop doing his job
Ordered by Fascism
And crack cocaine
You know,
Something made in the USA
Something American
And Afro-Cuban
New Yorican
Latin tinge
Beaten boom by and playna
Sprialing out of the wide open tenement windows
In the middle of winter
on the verge of East Harlem or North Newark
Palms of brown colonies
Of Albizu being tortured for breathing Taíno blood
Screaming African tongues
Dialoguing in Spanish for being him
Puerto Rican self, and
Worst of all
Loving it

My God where the hell is all the American poetry
Not poems about your attic
Not poems about how your clothes fit
Or fucking poems
And stale slobber
Or the night before
Or the morning after
I don't want to hear about your shoes
Or your statues
And your fantasies
There's no more American poetry
Just death marches
And stoic laughter
And niggas being funny

No American poems
I won't boost your ego
Play your songs
Boost your morale
Make you comfortable
Shit

I want to hear an American poem
Something native like smallpox
Like Trail of Tears
Like Wounded Knee

I want to hear an American poem
With American images, like
Welcome Back, Kotter
Or White Shadow
Or Different Strokes
About white gods who got helpless niggas to the light

American, you know
Soemthing that represents us
A colored rainbow
A big bright fist
An uncorrected sentence
Some improper English shit

As American as COINTELPRO
As American as COINTELPRO
As Peekskill, New York
As Robeson singing out the back of his truck
Like Nina Simone playing at the Village Gate
With Baldwin next to her on a piano stool
And Amiri Baraka in the audience
Air filled with smoke
Cognac
And Mississippi goddamn
Capture that moment!
See if you can see that shit

An American masterpiece
An American poem
Something American
Like the Red Summer
Strange fruit
[?]

Hey you!  No you! No you!
You, you, and you and you
You
Something American
USA! America!
USA! America!
USA! America!
USA!
American as the KKK

Hayes Tilden, 1877
Dred Scott, 1857
Brown vs. Board of Ed
Sweatt vs. Painter
Smith vs. Allwright
Swann vs. Charlotte-Mecklenburg
Us vs. Them
Them vs. Us
Us vs. Them
Them vs. Us

You know, any poem about Emmett Till will do
The Tallahatchie River
Church bombings
Or child murders
About Alabama red dirt
And boycotts in Montgomery
About families migrating North
With dignity and shotguns

I want to hear a poem
A poem about a beautiful black boy
Can't you see him?
A beautiful black boy colored into his night
His eyes, the stars, his hands, our will
About a beautiful black boy in the middle of a project
Playing checkers with glass and stones
Who beat buckets or drums
And play the horn in his sleep

I want to hear a poem about a beautiful black woman
About an incredibly, incredibly beautiful black girl
Face, age, mahogany, smile, and
Flower pedals for his lips
A beautiful brown girl with a
With a poem in her eyes
And a gun in her hand
Sitting in a puddle of tears
In [?] women's facility
In the garden state
In the land of the free

You know something that represents us
You know something American