Lyric Nominee #2
"What’s genocide?" Copyright 2005-2009 Carlos Andrés Gómez
their high school principal told me
I couldn’t teach poetry with profanity
so I asked my students,
Raise your hand if you’ve heard of the Holocaust.
in unison, their arms rose up like poisonous gas
then straightened out like an SS infantry
Okay. Please put your hands down.
Now raise your hand if you’ve heard of the Rwandan genocide.
blank stares mixed with curious ignorance
a quivering hand out of the crowd halfway raised,
like a lone survivor struggling to stand up in Kigali
Luz, are you sure about that?
No.
That’s what I thought.
Carlos – what’s genocide?
they won’t let you hear the truth at school
if a person says [naughty word removed]
can’t even talk about [naughty word removed] even though
a third of your senior class is pregnant
I can’t teach an 18 year-old girl in a public school
how to use a condom that will save her life
and that of the orphan she will be
forced to give to the foster care system –
Carlos, how many 13 year-olds do you know that are HIV positive?
Honestly, none. But I do visit a shelter every Monday and talk with
six 12 year-old girls with diagnosed AIDS.
while 4th graders three blocks away give little boys blowjobs during recess
I met an 11 year-old gang member in the south Bronx who carries
a semi-automatic weapon to study hall so he can make it home
and you want me to censor my language
Carlos, what’s genocide?
Your books leave out Emmett Till and Medgar Evers
call themselves World History and don’t mention
King Leopold or diamond mines call themselves
Politics in the Modern World and don’t mention Apartheid
Carlos, what’s genocide?
you wonder why children hide in adult bodies
lie under light-color-eyed contact lenses learn
to fetishize the size of their ass and simultaneously
hate their lips my students thought Che Guevara
was a rapper from East Harlem still think
my Mumia t-shirt is of Bob Marley how can
literacy not include Phyllis Wheatley?
schools were built in the shadows of ghosts
filtered through incest and grinding teeth
molded under veils of extravagant ritual
Carlos, what’s genocide?
Roselyn, how old was she? ¿Cuántos años tuvo tu madre cuando se murió?
My mother had 32 years when she died. Ella era bellísima.
…what’s genocide?
they’ve moved on from sterilizing Boriqua women
injecting indigenous sisters with Hepatitis B, now
they just kill mothers with silent poison stain
their loyalty and love into veins and suffocate them
...what’s genocide?
Ridwan’s father hung himself in the box
because he thought his son was ashamed him
...what’s genocide?
Maureen’s mother gave her skin
lightening cream the day before she started the 6th grade
...what’s genocide?
she carves straight lines into her beautiful brown
thighs so she can remember what it feels like to heal
...what’s genocide?
...what’s genocide?
Carlos, what’s genocide?
Luz, this…
this right here…
is genocide.
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Carlos Andrés Gómez
http://www.myspace.com/carlosandresgomezhttp://www.cdbaby.com/carlosandresgomez