Read this poem at a slam. Got a 25 out of a possible 30. This was the lowest score received out of all 11 poets. After it was done, I could feel the audience pull away from me, some applauded politely, and some simply sat in silence.
Make your own decision. Draw your own conclusions.
Genderscan
Boy in a dress. Boy in a dress.
Dyke and queen, gender fiend.
Faggot in heat. Faggot defeat.
Words mutate
into images into boundaries into human shields.
We are faceless martyrs gagged with labels –
Self-stealing stickers applied with magazine lip gloss
burned shut in a television torture rack flash.
We are sucked empty like cathode vaccuum tubes,
opaque like backlit screens,
broken like rabbit ear antennas rendered deaf –
but we’re still receiving suicide signals.
The ones and zeroes are etched in double helixes
between our lips
and between our legs.
Identity dies doused in gasoline.
We shroud self in flammable fashion,
bury it in a bombshell,
and drive it to school –
a processing plant to vacuum pack ideas of boys versus girls,
a rumble in the suburban jungle
where fists are thrown with slurs
and the knockout punch – rejection – is the real killer.
Strike anywhere, they say.
Image is nothing but a formula,
and fire is just a triangle.
But a controlled burn becomes an inferno
when you underestimate the fuel.
We are the silent wildfires smoldering
in every small town.
We are the feverish, guilt-split children
shackled to Sunday school rules.
We are the spark in the closet,
dying to devour the walls that hold us.
We are the lava seething six inches
beneath the streets of every city.
But fighting fire with fire
only scorches souls.
Revolution is a deluge.
Raindrops reveal our righteous selves
and wash away the slime of sacrificial living.
Like the sea caressing the shore at sunrise
lovers climb aboard one another to bask
in the fresh sweetness of self-acceptance.
Clean at last, clean at last, thank god almighty, we are clean at last!
For forty days and forty nights,
the ark is in our hearts and
we will bathe in
tears joyfully shed.
And at the end of the flood,
smoke and steam shatter the sunlight,
so all I can see
is a rainbow.
Make your own decision. Draw your own conclusions.
Genderscan
Boy in a dress. Boy in a dress.
Dyke and queen, gender fiend.
Faggot in heat. Faggot defeat.
Words mutate
into images into boundaries into human shields.
We are faceless martyrs gagged with labels –
Self-stealing stickers applied with magazine lip gloss
burned shut in a television torture rack flash.
We are sucked empty like cathode vaccuum tubes,
opaque like backlit screens,
broken like rabbit ear antennas rendered deaf –
but we’re still receiving suicide signals.
The ones and zeroes are etched in double helixes
between our lips
and between our legs.
Identity dies doused in gasoline.
We shroud self in flammable fashion,
bury it in a bombshell,
and drive it to school –
a processing plant to vacuum pack ideas of boys versus girls,
a rumble in the suburban jungle
where fists are thrown with slurs
and the knockout punch – rejection – is the real killer.
Strike anywhere, they say.
Image is nothing but a formula,
and fire is just a triangle.
But a controlled burn becomes an inferno
when you underestimate the fuel.
We are the silent wildfires smoldering
in every small town.
We are the feverish, guilt-split children
shackled to Sunday school rules.
We are the spark in the closet,
dying to devour the walls that hold us.
We are the lava seething six inches
beneath the streets of every city.
But fighting fire with fire
only scorches souls.
Revolution is a deluge.
Raindrops reveal our righteous selves
and wash away the slime of sacrificial living.
Like the sea caressing the shore at sunrise
lovers climb aboard one another to bask
in the fresh sweetness of self-acceptance.
Clean at last, clean at last, thank god almighty, we are clean at last!
For forty days and forty nights,
the ark is in our hearts and
we will bathe in
tears joyfully shed.
And at the end of the flood,
smoke and steam shatter the sunlight,
so all I can see
is a rainbow.
