1
" For JennAt 12 years old I started bleeding with the moonand beating up boys who dreamed of becoming astronauts.I fought with my knuckles white as stars,and left bruises the shape of Salem.There are things we know by heart,and things we don't. At 13 my friend Jen tried to teach me how to blow rings of smoke.I'd watch the nicotine rising from her lips like halos,but I could never make dying beautiful.The sky didn't fill with colors the night I convinced myselfveins are kite strings you can only cut free.I suppose I love this life,in spite of my clenched fist.I open my palm and my lifelines look like branches from an Aspen tree,and there are songbirds perched on the tips of my fingers,and I wonder if Beethoven held his breaththe first time his fingers touched the keysthe same way a soldier holds his breaththe first time his finger clicks the trigger.We all have different reasons for forgetting to breathe.But my lungs rememberthe day my mother took my hand and placed it on her bellyand told me the symphony beneath was my baby sister's heartbeat.And I knew life would tremblelike the first tear on a prison guard's hardened cheek,like a prayer on a dying man's lips,like a vet holding a full bottle of whisky like an empty gun in a war zone…just take me just take meSometimes the scales themselves weigh far too much,the heaviness of forever balancing blue sky with red blood.We were all born on days when too many people died in terrible ways,but you still have to call it a birthday.You still have to fall for the prettiest girl on the playground at recessand hope she knows you can hit a baseballfurther than any boy in the whole third gradeand I've been running for homethrough the windpipe of a man who singswhile his hands playing washboard with a spoonon a street corner in New Orleanswhere every boarded up window is still painted with the wordsWe're Coming Backlike a promise to the oceanthat we will always keep moving towards the music,the way Basquait slept in a cardboard box to be closer to the rain.Beauty, catch me on your tongue. Thunder, clap us open.The pupils in our eyes were not born to hide beneath their desks.Tonight lay us down to rest in the Arizona desert,then wake us washing the feet of pregnant womenwho climbed across the border with their bellies aimed towards the sun.I know a thousand things louder than a soldier's gun.I know the heartbeat of his mother.Don't cover your ears, Love.Don't cover your ears, Life.There is a boy writing poems in Central Parkand as he writes he movesand his bones become the bars of Mandela's jail cell stretching apart,and there are men playing chess in the December coldwho can't tell if the breath rising from the boardis their opponents or their own,and there's a woman on the stairwell of the subwayswearing she can hear Niagara Falls from her rooftop in Brooklyn,and I'm remembering how Niagara Falls is a city overrunwith strip malls and traffic and vendorsand one incredibly brave river that makes it all worth it. Ya'll, I know this world is far from perfect.I am not the type to mistake a streetlight for the moon.I know our wounds are deep as the Atlantic.But every ocean has a shorelineand every shoreline has a tidethat is constantly returningto wake the songbirds in our hands, to wake the music in our bones,to place one fearless kiss on the mouth of that brave riverthat has to run through the center of our heartsto find its way home. "
4
" He was just a small church parson when the war broke out, and heLooked and dressed and acted like all parsons that we see.He wore the cleric's broadcloth and he hooked his vest behind.But he had a man's religion and he had a stong man's mind.And he heard the call to duty, and he quit his church and went.And he bravely tramped right with 'em every- where the boys were sent.He put aside his broadcloth and he put the khaki on;Said he'd come to be a soldier and was going to live like one.Then he'd refereed the prize fights that the boys pulled off at night,And if no one else was handy he'd put on the gloves and fight.He wasn't there a fortnight ere he saw the sol- diers' needs,And he said: " I'm done with preaching; this is now the time for deeds." He learned the sound of shrapnel, he could tell the size of shellFrom the shriek it make above him, and he knew just where it fell.In the front line trench he laboured, and he knew the feel of mud,And he didn't run from danger and he wasn't scared of blood.He wrote letters for the wounded, and he cheered them with his jokes,And he never made a visit without passing round the smokes.Then one day a bullet got him, as he knelt be- side a ladWho was " going west" right speedy, and they both seemed mighty glad,'Cause he held the boy's hand tighter, and he smiled and whispered low," Now you needn't fear the journey; over there with you I'll go." And they both passed out together, arm in arm I think they went.He had kept his vow to follow everywhere the boys were sent. "
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" The fear had precedent. Toward the end of the Civil War, having witnessed the effectiveness of the Union's 'colored troops,' a flailing Confederacy began considering an attempt to recruit blacks into its army. But in the nineteenth century, the idea of the soldier was heavily entwined with the notion of masculinity and citizenship. How could an army constituted to defend slavery, with all of its assumptions about black inferiority, turn around and declare that blacks were worthy of being invited into Confederate ranks? As it happened, they could not. 'The day you make a soldier of them is the beginning of the end of our revolution,' observed Georgia politician Howell Cobb. 'And if slaves seem good soldiers, then our whole theory of slavery is wrong.' There could be no win for white supremacy here. If blacks proved to be the cowards that 'the whole theory of slavery' painted them as, the battle would be lost. But much worse, should they fight effectively--and prove themselves capable of 'good Negro government'--then the larger war could never be won. "
― Ta-Nehisi Coates , We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy
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" WILL WORK FOR FOOD © 2013 Lyrics & Music by Michele Jennae
There he was with a cardboard sign,
Will Work For Food
Saw him on the roadside,
As I took my kids to school
I really didn’t have time to stop,
Already running late
Found myself pulling over,
Into the hands of fate
The look in his eyes was empty,
But he held out his hand
I knew my kids were watching,
As I gave him all I had
My heart in my throat I had to ask,
“What brought you here?”
He looked up and straight into my eyes,
I wanted to disappear.
CHORUS
He said… Do you think I really saw myself,
Standing in this light
Forgotten by society,
After fighting for your rights
WILL WORK FOR FOOD,
WILL DIE FOR YOU
I AM JUST A FORGOTTEN SOLDIER,
I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO
v. 2 He put the money in his pocket,
Then he took me by the hand
Thank you dear for stopping by,
I am sure that you have plans
He nodded toward my children,
Watching from afar
It’s time they were off to school,
You should get in the car
My eyes welled up and tears fell down,
I couldn’t say a word
Here this man with nothing to his name,
Showing me his concern
I knew then that the lesson,
That today must be taught
Wouldn’t come from textbooks,
And it could not be bought
CHORUS
He said… Do you think I really saw myself,
Standing in this light Forgotten by society,
After fighting for your rights
WILL WORK FOR FOOD,
WILL DIE FOR YOU
I AM JUST A FORGOTTEN SOLDIER,
I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO
v. 3 I told him then that I had a job,
That I could give him work
And in return he’d have a meal,
And something to quench his thirst
He looked at me and shrugged a bit,
And followed me to the car
We went right over to a little café,
Just up the road not too far
After I ordered our food he looked at me,
And asked about the kids
“Shouldn’t these tykes be in school,
And about that job you said.”
“Your job,” I said, “is to school my girls,
In the ways of the world
Explain to them your service,
And how your life unfurled.”
He said… Do you think I really saw myself,
Standing in this light
Forgotten by society,
After fighting for your rights
WILL WORK FOR FOOD,
WILL DIE FOR YOU
I AM JUST A FORGOTTEN SOLDIER,
I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO
v. 4He wasn’t sure quite what to do,
As he ate his food
And began to tell us all about his life…
the bad… the good.
He wiped his own tears from his eyes,
His story all but done
My girls and I all choked up,
Hugged him one by one
Understanding his sacrifice,
But not his current plight
We resolved then and there that day,
That for him, we would fight.
We offered him our friendship,
And anything else we had
He wasn’t sure how to accept it,
But we made him understand
LAST CHORUS
That we had not really seen before,
Him standing in the light
No longer forgotten by us,
We are now fighting for his rights
He had… WORKED FOR FOOD
HE HAD ALL BUT DIED FOR ME AND YOU
NOT FORGOTTEN ANYMORE
BUT STILL A SOLDIER IN TRUST "
― Michele Jennae
18
" Woven words are little conviction when I present myself as a man of fiction. And you a woman of lies and deceit, stumbling forward on two left feet. You are an exquisite figurine of an incomprehensible place, While I, a soldier of my cause, my race. A single sip of you would satiate thirst, hunger and empty. Yet, you stand unmoved, comfortable knowing you could stave desires plenty. To my heart, you are known as 'shatter.' Between saint and sin, you are the latter. End, not even my finest words will matter. The still, the silence, even then, you are famine to my soul. My chest lacks certain weight now; I simply wish to be whole. Now, I stand before you broken, humbled and so bare, Only to see your infinite eyes brimming with no care. Your heart is a cauldron that burns darkest fuel. And I a remnant of smog, the overly-bitter fool. The man of fiction stumbles forward on two left feet, The woman of lies weaves words of conviction and deceit. "
