WMD

I wrote this poem the night before I had to perform it at the Riverside Church in NYC last summer. The event taking place was a meeting for the 9-11 Commsion. I was glad to have the opportunity to speak from the same place where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. made his famous speech concerning the Vietnam War.


I spoke to Sun Tzu
The other day…
He said that America’s army
As he signed mine
Hadn’t read his book
And that they’re so called war wasn’t a good look…

I thanked him for his time,
Bid him farewell,
And began to piece together the story I would tell
To a congregation, waitin on seat edge
To hear some cries of how war was unfair…
and caused by it … the hurt, despair,
the cold stares,
the loss of hope faith and life there…

But before I assembled a piece about
Weapons that mass destruct
I thought I’d shed some light on weapons we don’t have to search for
Because they are live, right here…

In the eighties in the midst of
Pop locks, beat breaks
And adjusted calligraphy on
Elevated elephants
Cocaine cracked
Side walk pediment…
Let me tell you how this is relevant
Because just like this
Academy award winning war on screen played
Over the years death and violence on street has plagued lives
And even though a so called war has been raged
Against this substance abused…
Well this substance is still alive…

Lies get told daily,
I can hardly, breathe barely,
See optimism rarely…
And I don’t believe in fairies that guard mothers
From the pain of losing sons and daughters
At the request of
Mad men

Like little green numbers
Are these little green soldiers
Like these little office workers
And middle school students
These meaningless elderly, eyes sores
That brought our parents into existence
Of course their thoughts and feelings don’t count
Like reasons for going to war don’t add up
But the tally of what this war cost does…
By the minute,

We point fingers,
But are partially responsible for these foolish men acts

We’ve complained far to often and cried out
Losing voices,
Wasting voice speaking to them…
But not speaking to each other
Assembling, each other
Getting organized with one another…

Conversations, easily memorized,
Because of their redundancy
It’s funny that we
Can concentrate on tossing hate at evil pup petered
Always leave these forums all charged up
Fueled to control our destinies…
But we still pay unfair fares…
It’d be nice if we could assemble and tackle some affairs
That exist right here…
Practice for the bigger brothers we must face…
Perhaps, if we pulled our rations together…
Instead of trying to horde them as individuals
In the corners of our rooms
Hiding from the screen
That we can not seem to just turn off…

We would have control of us…
We wouldn’t be crying over lost loved ones…
We wouldn’t be forced to vote for the lesser of 2 evils…

Let’s disassemble, these weapons of mass destruction within us
That, prevent us from assembling to affect change...

Copyright T.Walker 2004