**Originally posted September 24, 2010. RIP to a true revolutionary and American patriot. ~ SB**

   My father exposed me to Amiri Baraka poetry as a child. I have read him ever since. His material is relevant, raw, and very real. This post is dedicated to my Dad, I love you.

Political Poem

Luxury, then, is a way of

being ignorant, comfortably

An approach to the open market

of least information. Where theories

can thrive, under heavy tarpaulins

without being cracked by ideas.

(I have not seen the earth for years

and think now possibly “dirt” is

negative, positive, but clearly

social. I cannot plant a seed, cannot

recognize the root with clearer dent

than indifference. Though I eat

and shit as a natural man ( Getting up

from the desk to secure a turkey sandwich

and answer the phone: the poem undone

undone by my station, by my station,

and the bad words of Newark.) Raised up

to the breech, we seek to fill for this

crumbling century. The darkness of love,

in whose sweating memory all error is forced.

Undone by the logic of any specific death. (Old gentlemen

who still follow fires, tho are quieter

and less punctual. It is a polite truth

we are left with. Who are you? What are you

saying? Something to be dealt with, as easily.

The noxious game of reason, saying, “No, No,

you cannot feel,” like my dead lecturer

lamenting thru gipsies his fast suicide.