Over the past weeks since the shooting in Buffalo and now this shooting in Texas I have just been tired and angry.
What does it say about a society that targets its elders and its children? I won’t get started because I would never stop writing…
What often helps me out of the dark holes that come for me at times that we have been experiencing, is re-visiting some powerful sermons and some of my favorite poets. I picked up Amiri Baraka’s Transbluesency collection. There are so many poems and ideas in this collection that have given me so much but there are two in particular that I return to. I think it is because of their humor, their audacity, their ability to move “both directions at once”, their ability to be in the present, yet speak to the past and the future. Both “In the Tradition” and “Heathens” sit in their own section of Transbluesency.
This time it was “Heathens” because I wanted to laugh, but not the kind of laugh that turns off the critique and the anger at a system that continues to have us in the crosshairs.
Baraka’s “Heathens” take the form of his African American echo of the Japanese haiku form; Baraka called them lowcoup.
After reading I did not feel my usual sense of satisfaction, so I opened up a Word document and started writing a few… here they are
Heathens
after Amiri Baraka
Heathens think
there is only one
Amendment
To the Constitution
Heathens think
All life is sacrificial
Outside of the womb
Heathens think
hate speech
Is Scripture
Heathens think
Blood splatter
Is fine art