I Make Promises Before I Dream

No unclaimed, cremated mothers this year Nor collateral white skin No mothers folding clothes to a corporate park preamble No sons singing under the bright lights of a lumber yard Quantum reaganomics and the tap steps of turning on a friend New York trophy parts among the limbs of decent people Being an enraged artist is like entering a room and not knowing what to get high off of My formative symbols/My upbringing flying to an agent’s ears I might as well be an activist Called my girlfriend and described All the bottles segregationists had thrown at me that day Described recent blues sites and soothing prosecutions I feared for my poetry You have to make art every once in a while While in the company of sell-outs Accountant books in deified bulk Or while waiting for a girl under a modern chandelier Or in your last lobby as a wanderer The prison foot-races the museum My instrument ends I mean, what is a calendar to the slave? Also, what is a crystal prism? “He bought this bullet, bought its flight, then bought two more”