In this episode, you will listen to five poems: Not Black from Chaos, I Wanna Outrun the World from Identity, The Social Bluff from The War Edition, Come Take Away from Juno, and Mighty Ulysses from The Scream.

Audio

Not Black – from Chaos

Did you really think you can get rid of me so easily, and I had no way of finding a way back? I won’t haunt you, you’re already possessed with too much hatred you have for me. Do you think I spare a moment to think about you? I have a life to live, people to love, things to give, what do you have? More things to take, more people to hate, more life to waste? You’re free to spend the last of your days in misery knowing you have not put an end to my life, for yours have long been paused and now it is broken forever.

Not Black

They did not kill me, I’m back
Hovering above you
Not as an angel
But an idea
In the realm of thoughts
The vibes of genius all around
Not feeling home
But an equal to all.
 
The breath they took away is back
They did not kill me —
They could not
Next time you want to kill a man
Pack your erasers
For when blood transforms to ink
The ten pints are enough
To last forever.
 
They did not kill me, for being black
I could be white
If I had enough of their green bleach
And I teach that dollar is god
I could be white
But I’m black
And you think you’re done with me
But I’m back.
 
They did not kill me, I’m back
They did not kill me, for being black
They do not see
Beneath the skin a man
It’s an idea, you see
They cannot comprehend
Ideas are colorless
Ideas speak no languages
Ideas are not property
Ideas are free for all
Here all masters and slaves are kings
Come along and see
Ideas are white
Ideas are black
Ideas may go a while
But they always come back

I Wanna Outrun The World – from Identity

Run and run and run and see where all those large steps will take you, or what will they go past. Nothing is important on the way but the destination, or so you think. Nothing is more certain than the little flowers you leave on the side of the road hoping for something bigger and more important at the end of the road that you may never reach. What guarantees are there for you that there will be tomorrow. If not today you savor, you time is just slipping away. You time is just slipping away.

I Wanna Outrun The World
 
I wanna outrun the world—
I miss all the good things
a mother holding on to me
a father bound to catching up
the fields of glory that I strand,
I never stop to smell a rose;
a wife that keeps trying hard
to see through the best of me
while I am robbed by my misery
catching chances that always flee;
a son that’s growing up alone
doing what’s he’s never told—
I wanna outrun the world.
 
I am running up the hill alone
throwing up all memories
gazing up to change a stone
while it’s been there inside of me
to start to beat; my eyes are cold—
I wanna outrun the world.
 
I wanna outrun the world—
my feet are tired of being mine
to beat the rain to a rainbow
I never get the chance to see
life’s all about to hold
onto those little memories
the first word of love you say
every day I miss a morning
you try to look but I pretend
I don’t belong to you today
nomadic but without your eyes
love is drifting me unfurled—
I wanna outrun the world.
 
I am running up the hill alone
throwing up all memories
gazing up to change a stone
while it’s been there inside of me
to start to beat; my eyes are cold
I wanna outrun the world.
 
I wanna outrun the world—
the friends I left out in the cold
life is nearby they cannot hold
now they’re all breathing in
my name they’re breathing out
I have refused all their calls
I never turned to face the way back
I blamed them all for letting me go
but It was I who left my home
I thought the journey’s more than that
in a market of numbers and man
I was the one who really sold—
I wanna outrun the world.
 
I am running up the hill alone
throwing up all memories
gazing up to change a stone
while it’s been there inside of me
to start to beat; my eyes are cold
I wanna outrun the world.

The Social Bluff – from The War Edition

You think you can solve all the problems of the world and you believe you can if you but talk about it in a nice viral social post. Social media has solved all your problems, you no longer have to cower behind your unwillingness to act. Now you think you do. You think the world owes you a lot for you are the one who has saved the world from hunger, war, and disease. The world owes you so much, but what have you done for the world. Oh yes, you tweeted and posted, liked, and disliked. I bet that is more than enough. You may now rest your case, and put yourself as well to rest.

The Social Bluff

The time of chivalry has long gone
and gone are the days of fine horses, too;
when all you think about is to ride me
and I how to take advantage of you—
I is imprinted on every famous brand
I tells the story of all humanity,
as if trapped in a limbo made of ego
not being able to reach heaven alone
neither does I go down to a too crowded hell—
what else have you and I got left to sell?
but a pair of blind eyes and a bell
around our necks a harness does not tell
how free we are if we have no destination
but to ring out as loudly as it gets to get there.
Join up the mighty trend of letting all know about you
but never to tell you about yourself—
a mindless beast in constant battle
living in the big hollow sphere
so virtual, no real stories can spell
amidst the social heavy bombardment
your name but contracted, as a mere user and avatar,
keep fighting with that elf before the screen
looking at a famous giant yet to quell
a whole world of code and bytes
to find your way to the top of a chart
and find your name on all devices,
the king of the mindless,
not reaching out as a man of flesh and blood
but another variable in binary code—
you don’t know what you are made of
for that also, you were made to consume
and got constantly drugged in its poisonous fume
of mere shadow, dust and bytes;
a new status for you every day
as if action like a raging sea had been—
nothing has ever changed since the first yesterday;
a new tweet like a bird you might fly
you think or get viral to infect everyone else—
look closer the virus is in your blood
thinking a wound can only be healed
by an angry post or a raging tweet;
if everybody fights so hard to tell everybody else
and now that everybody has finally known the truth,
who is left out there to act?
the wounded, the helpless and the dead?
who is left out there to act?
the underprivileged, the underdogs, the unplugged?
the whole world knows for sure with all those pictures and tags
I am hungry—
thanks to you, I was hungry yesterday
today, I am starving;
stop telling my story to everyone
acting and reacting in bytes—
I have been paying in blood;
and now that everybody has told everybody else
and everybody finally knows the truth,
who is left out there to act?
who is left out there to act?

Come Take Away – from Juno

Juno comes back home after another glamorous party of hers. Everyone was so gracious. Everyone was so stunned. Her gifts to that phony world are well appreciated. She rushed back home to take off her fake eyelashes, her fake hair, her fake smile. She knew exactly who she was, but had to play the role of a lifetime. She had to get back at those who took everything from her. But when she gets home, she finds the last person she wants to see. She may never be ready to tell him the words she hid deep down her chest. The words choking her but will getting them out ever be a relief. She tried to forget all about that, but seeing her father in her house face to face after all these years brought it all back to her and she wonders what might he have come to take away from her this time. What might he take away?

Come Take Away

Come take away what’s never been mine—
It’s young enough to lay to waste 
But old enough to bear your gun.
Beyond the silk-threaded skin
Are bloody trenches filled with parts
That once belonged to one person whole—
That girl you thought one day you knew
Is a girl from there has long been gone.

Come take away what’s never been mine—
For whom do I fight and clench my fist?
For whom do I die and cut my wrist?
But for the woman in whom they all had doubts
I would have long surrendered 
And saved you all the trip and thoughts;
All your naked principles they finally joined— 
As sisters they wake up in the wrong era
And sleep in oblivion all the time. 

Come take away what’s never been mine—
For love is dead and so is the sun
Standing still no light to tell
If all these rays rise from beneath 
like heaven was once in just one place 
and now it pours out down from hell.
Look deep beyond the clear blue eyes
In which I do too look, just a shade,
No more I have than what you do;
You dare not look as you can see
Nothing while there is life in me—
The lifeless face you one day killed
Is all you see and comprehend.

Come take away what’s never been mine—
And never yours or so you thought;
For just having that fun one night
You owned this flesh eternally— 
The life and dreams and all along,
A woman you failed to see it seems.
A lonely pawn in a manly game, 
Tossing around you thought was chess.

Come take away what a gun can take—
Or leave, I promise, my heart won’t break,
Nor will this rock within your chest.
For once for free, for once willingly, 
Come feel it pumping down my breasts—
Like a miracle I have finally seen, 
But long before me, there was you.
Come feel it like an eagle’s nest—
From miles away I have seen you,
Just leave before my babies wake
For then I will reach out and take
And do what you came here to do;
The piece of flesh you once forsook 
Enslaved your world with what she thought
Her weakest link as all foretold—
I, Juno, have enslaved your world,
All down to that woman I am.

Mighty Ulysses – from The Scream

Ulysses came to town and tried to live like us in this modern world. He thought after facing all those monsters, he’s ready to face ours. I had to put him down for I cared about his legacy. The last thing people remember about him should stay in memory and I don’t want his image smeared by our immorality. So Abandon your quest mighty Ulysses, abandon your quest. It took a man to get through all those mighty quests, but today, it takes more than just a man.

Mighty Ulysses
 
Abandon your quest mighty Ulysses—
glorious fields of Elysium
still haven’t seen a bigger shoe;
you stood up to gods and monsters,
yet nothing more threatening than today
when everything urges you to move
far away from yourself;
you dared venture the realm of Erebus
such a mighty feat, but today
nothing is more glorious
than stepping outside your door,
every day, and when you come back,
you are still the same man.

There are no horrors like those you faced—
no sirens, no one-eyed monsters;
nothing wants to eat your flesh anymore,
but there is that shadow lurking outside your door
longing to eat your heart within.
Fear not mighty Ulysses; I will lead the way;
no one will turn your men to swine—
modern civilized men had it all figured out;
no need to turn you physically, anyway,
you can always be treated as one.
 
Come my dear Ulysses, come
don’t let your heart fail you yet;
your men perished for the cattle of the sun—
look around you today, anything you touch
must be sacred to someone,
and gods are changing every day.
Your Laestregonians are on the run—
what’s more than eating a man’s flesh
is eating up his hopes and dreams
to ever become a man—
Xenia of the modern world—
we take your children in;
we only teach one thing
you live as you are born;
take our river to the top,
or go live with all the rest,
drink from Lethe into oblivion.
You rise when we say you rise;
when we need a stepping stone, you fall.
 
Don’t lose heart, sweet mighty Ulysses—
there is one currency in our modern world
to win or lose the heart of man,
I’m not sure if you do understand;
go back to your world mighty Ulysses—
wars are waged and fought today
by much mightier heroes;
the battle of every day
to start the day a man
and finish the day a man.
Go back mighty Ulysses,
abandon your quest in our world—
our invisible monsters are hard to spot,
and a dedicated consumer like us, you are not.
Abandon your quest mighty Ulysses,
and leave it all to the modern man.