"Uppity" - poetry piece

Kinda late - apologies. TGP

© 20 April 2008, The Griot Poet

Sound bites like nanotech NANITES flip-flop through cyberspace at light speed pace, “elite” is the twenty-first century code for “uppity” Negro. So let me be the first cultural hero to admit:

I am bitter!

Because you see, I didn’t turn the other cheek on August 26, 2003 – date of my lay-off and coincidentally the four-year anniversary of my beloved father’s death. So, though I bravely ventured into the unknown, I was baptized “kicking and screaming” into the Dead Sea of depression, landing on the sandy shores with the taste of salt on my tongue,

I “walked through the valley of the shadow of death” as “fiery darts” wickedly assaulted my dreams and my means to survive, giving me a plausible script for my own demise. No help from my spiritual mother and father who at the time had their own issues…

I was alone.

Until I was challenged to wrestle from sundown to morn,

I mourned less the life I led and would not let Him leave me until I said: “bless ME!”

I walked away, limping, battle-scarred and with the title of P-R-I-N-C-E.

To keep my mind and my sense,

I recorded my angst on blog-to-book: “Unemployed: A Memoir.”

LOOK!

I’m not white. I’m not blue collar.

My father was, and he had that and the other side of the double-edged sword in his back how he was treated: starting with “n” and rhymed with “figure.”

The gas pump;
The checkout line;
My bills;
My mortgage doesn’t really give a rat’s whether I’m an Independent, Republican or Democrat!

So, just maybe I’m a little “uppity” to think Richard Dawkins has NOTHING for me, even though he may number me among Whitman’s “fleas”: Cambridge professors-cum-NY Times bestsellers can’t list on their curriculum vitae:

- Bus boycotts;
- Marches on Washington;
- Nobel Peace Prizes;
- Opposition to Vietnam/Iraq;
- Poor Peoples’ Campaigns…

So, maybe I’m a little “uppity” clinging to my spirituality (and sometimes my guns) because the three functionalities left to me of dysfunctional PNAC governments the unholy trinity of:

- Apathy;
- Suicide;
- Or Anarchy

From which we are a hair-trigger, so let me be the first cultural hero to admit:

I’m an “uppity” Negro that’s bitter!