Affording to Know

Affording To Know
                        by Mary Strong Jackson

                                                                        You think your pain and your heartbreak are                                                                                                unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you                                                                             read.  James Baldwin

Am I a variable, a control, independent in an experiment gone bad?
My hypothesis says everything can be two things
as sadness is lit with fear or anger -
the way a match lights wood for warmth,
or burns a forest taking dollhouses and books.
   
I predict U.S. senators will discover the myth of money
and one day eat their own, so die like saber-toothed 
tigers, fangs entwined in each other's fossilized bones 
unable to release from one another       they meant to shear only muscle
but power's desire minus love wins. 

A quantitative observation shows not 1 but numerous stages of slavery,
enslavement, lynchings, becomes Jim Crow, becomes mass incarceration.
I can own another's shoes, legs, whole body, but doing so
lashes my soul making it wither like a curled lip or a sun dried worm-shape
passed through blood to children like semen in rape.

Qualitative Observation doesn't use numbers. No need for math skills.
If I spit every drop is mine. Everywhere it lands is mine. If I use a belt,
a willow branch, a rope, a system, and hang any on my wall, it reverberates
not only the eyes that see it, but the nerves flowing to each 
of my senses lasting all my years and yours. 

Each mind, a world where I move my mouth to taste, 
call myself cosmopolitan but am blind, bias, boring. 
My foot taps to stolen rhythms, ignorant feet don't care. 
I listened and took, while the pool was drained
if the robbed ones put a musical foot or toe in my water.

I inhale all exhales, and you mine. What will a double-blind 
study show of our next 400 years or 20 depending 
on the love and heat of this planet?  If we survive, 
any variables remaining unchanged must move to a new country, 
"The United States of Insensate" named for its citizens.

                                                                              Reading is an exercise in flaggelation with no visible                                                                                  signs. The way aware abusers leave victims faces                                                                                      unmarked. Readers like victims have hidden marks.                                                                                                                                 Mary Strong Jackson



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Reflections on Self and Other: Embracing Paradoxes

This is not a poem, nor is it written by a human... it is the output of GPT4 when I first asked it to write odes to A) Umwelt; B) Umgebung; C) Innerwelt and then to reflect on the paradoxes and dualities of self-other in that regard: Reflections on Self and Other: Embracing Paradoxes In the intricate tapestry of existence, a dance unfolds between the realms of self and other, where dualities and paradoxes intertwine. Within the realm of Umwelt, individual perceptions shape our understanding of the world. Each of us holds a unique lens through which we interpret our surroundings, yet within these boundaries, we feel an inherent yearning for connection with others. It is the paradox of embracing our own distinctiveness while recognizing the shared humanity that binds us. Umgebung, the stage upon which life plays out, encompasses diverse landscapes and environments. Mountains, rivers, cities, and forests create a multitude of Umgebungen, each offering a distinct backdrop for our individua
Read more

Moving the Bones - Rick Barot

 During our hiatus as an active weekly group, generating running multi-voice poems, I was struck with this particular one from Poem-a-Day which moved me and I thought to share it here: Moving the Bones Rick Barot There are too many ancestors, so we are gathering their bones. The poor ones, their graves broken by the roots of trees. The ones whose headstones have been weathered
Read more

What a Stone Feels

<this is the first assignment I wrote for the Paul Kingsnorth - " Rewild Your Words " online course we took in December which is how our Poetry/Writing Sunday Salon got started. I'm CC:ing the other participants so they can see by example how to post their own work to this blog via e-mail> On my property there are many river-stones that were almost surely brought here by previous humans.   I could have closed my eyes, my ears, my nose and groped around until I found them, channeling Helen Keller perhaps... but I did not... I sought out a particularly apt stone for this purpose, with my eyes and my memory.  I have hefted these stones before and even know what they smell and taste like.    I passed over the pile brought in for the purpose of facing a wall, each about fist-sized... not too large to throw effectively but too large for a sling or slingshot.   I avoided the ones marking the good-dogs grave near the entrance to the property.  The stone I choose requi
Read more