POET BREATHE NOW

By Adam Gottlieb

everybody’s got something to say about poetry

because rhymes peak in meaning shedding light on our unspeakables

for an ample example

take the other day when i sat not knowing how to write a poem

and assuming i was fruitlessly booming the thin air

i yelled and spat my frustration:

how do I start?

and my dog looks up from her water dish and says

“i hate to encroach on your ‘artistic space’

cuz i know you're like ‘in-the-zone’ or whatever,

but if you really want my advice here it is”

and then my dog says

 

“

poet breathe now –

            because it’s the last thing you’ll ever do for yourself.

 

poet breathe now because there’s a fire inside you that needs oxygen to burn

            and if you don’t run out of breath you’re gonna run out of time

 

poet breathe now because once the spot gets packed

            you gotta save that air for screamin, your --

            inhalation takes saviorisms to sky-highs

            you gotta go with the flowin of your own voice, poet.

            breathe now because once you spit you won’t even need air

            you'll be rockin rhymes respiratory,

            you’ll breathe poetry baby. 

 

you breathe now and you’ll never forget that breath

            you got --

            pulsasive passages passing the mic

            and hot hallelujahs when verses you write

            and your sin is your savior your song is your life

            and your words are like wonders to wandering fifes pipin ceremony:

            poets you man, words you wife

            and your honeymoon orbits around your love like metronomic metros

            keepin time to the heartbeat of your heavenly drums –

 

poet breathe now because you might have something to say

            because peace might depend on your piece

            because you breathe

            and that air might help your brain tell your heart to keep pumping

            one more cycle and that blood might help your lips form one last word

            that hits the audience hard –

            because we are all made from the same elements

            and we all breathe the same air

            so celebrate our mutual recipes of existence

            by persisting to stay alive

            ducking sageless luckless ages

            like intellectual hippies!

 

when you take a breath

            the universe rings out like circular beats –

            landing planets are seraphim

            storms are spit –

            stars are soulcandles!

            and you breathe like chest rebounds

            even when all hope seems lost

            our sounds pound mics

            like hope-stars

            like “we’re still here” hollas!

            we make angels of our nightclubs,

            bards of our bums,

            outlooks of our outcasts

            and infinity of our sums,

            we are the children of empathy,

            the pathos of slums,

            we heal like helios

            like cyclical drums

            we enlist life from listless

            and sometimes

            even get things done

 

poet breathe now

            because once you start your piece

            you can die behind that microphone

            and

            death may be breathless

            but poetry’s deathless

            so breath be

            our savior

            eternal.

poets breathe once with me now

that’s one poem we all wrote.

 

COUNTING GRAVES

By The Steinmenauts

10...9...8...

 

7-year-old boy put

6 feet deep in a

5-foot coffin, wonderin’ what

4 while

3 grown men have to

2 to drive by and he dodged a couple of bullets but

1

 

JÉSUS:

Room as bright as a the box little brother sleeps in (sleeps in)

Big brother, feeling like a magician,

cut it up in the corner with mary jane cause like mom and little brother

he already made Jack Daniels disappear

 

and as

 

tears trickle down face, veins and eyes bloodshot red,

heart pounds like beating drums in Africa.

Being a provider was his only mistake.

 

BIG C:

Just counting graves to go to sleep because

counting sheep stopped working since he

decided to not breathe.

Keep telling myself it’s not my fault

but as my conscience decides to talk I really don’t know anymore.

You see my pain bursts through my soul like an open sore

and I can’t escape my thoughts because there’s no more open doors.

 

KEVIN:

This pitch-black chamber

as dark as a vexed soul

only vivid images pop in and out of existence like quantum physics.

Big brother, where are you, I can’t see, I can’t (breath).

I’m hot.

My bed is now a five-foot box and I’m not comfortable in it.

Mama said you shouldn’t leave me alone for more than five minutes.

 

BIG C:

But I only left you alone for about six minutes.

Maybe if I came right back you would be still living.

 

KIRA:

Boy, all you had to do was look after my second progeny.

Honestly, how hard is it to be my eyes for me?

 

BIG C:

Quit doubting me!

It’s not my fault.

They thought it was me. You see...

 

KEVIN:

You see that Makaveli Fitch you didn’t want me to wear?

I took it, along with your Chicago Bulls jacket.

You had it that night when you were selling sugar packets.

 

JÉSUS:

Hustling a sugar-like substance in the form of pot and rocks

on a block run by three hustlers who didn’t like him

decided that

the only way to get their commission was to put him out of his.

So they drove by and saw one guy sitting on the steps

wearing big brothers’ clothes

gun out, pulled the trigger six times

[Kevin: boom boom boom boom boom boom]

and then the sound of tires turned like mama in her grave.

 

KIRA:

So you telling me in my dreams I can hardly conceive

nightmares haunt me when I’m the deceased?

A mother’s worst fear

and you made it come true.

I said watch out for little brother

not be a damn fool.

My baby was only in the second grade

gunned down ‘cause you wanted to be a street slave.

You should’ve been there to keep little brother safe!

 

JÉSUS:

Haunted by the voices of the deceased

he can’t

 

ALL:

Speak!

 

KEVIN:

Big brother can I wear your shirt

I promise to take good care of it, man.

(Big C: No...)

 

KIRA:

Baby I’m off to work, keep an eye on little brother, you understand

(Big C: No...)_

 

KEVIN: Why’d you take that shirt off for me to wear it, huh?

 

KIRA: That should’ve been you in front of that gun.

 

All: 10!

 

JÉSUS: Picks up the gun

 

All : 9!

 

JÉSUS: Contemplates.

 

All: 8!

 

JÉSUS:

The number of weeks his little brother was buried.

After all

he was only

 

7-year-old boy put

6 feet deep in a

5-foot coffin, wonderin’ what

4 while

3 grown men have to

2 to drive by and he dodged a couple of bullets but

1

 

BIG C:

I’m sick and tired of these three things haunting me.

 

KEVIN:
Mama’s voice

 

KIRA:

His grave

 

BIG C:

My gun

 

ALL:

Click click

BOOM!