A contrapuntal after the dope ass team that blew my mind at the national poetry slam
In the poetic world, (Robert Lee Brewer) contrapuntal poems are poems that intertwine two (or more) separate poems into a single composition–often by offering one line of poem A and before a corresponding line in poem B from start to finish. Here's my first attempt at one (mashup in bold and blue below).
Airplanes
Have always made me queasy
-No turbulence-
More like socially squemish
with
the way classism sticks to the wings
Like tar
100,000 miles
High country club
snobbery
Noses crooked in denial just so
to miss the curdling of capitalismo
sour of segregation on repetition
Fouling up the cabin with old world bullshit
Everybody on the move towards MORE
I wish
Everybody
I wish Only bags
No bodies
Were tagged and left at the gate
Like aint this the titanic all over again
Like the time i filled a window seat
In the empty pew in front of me
Vowed to protect everybody beyond my own
by pulling and pushing at all barriers to home
in the/that unlikely situation (that paints safety as synonymous to opening an airplane window)
Now if poetry aint sanctuary
Can i get an alright
Mmm
A halleluHER
Are you with me
And if you were me on that ride
You was with me /lit see
Your life was high valued
Vowed to dress as courage
And live unfrozen
I wasnt chosen.
i moved from the row i had been given
Mad lifes was gon be livin
The kid courage was risen
Until the other steward let me know
That i would be charged
If i didnt return to my proper place
I had to pay for space
On this half empty plane
Where is the sanity?
How can I live in this life
Smeared in ego and love
I suffocate everyday I step off farm and gotta explain I see oppression self hate wedged into laugh lines cowardice tucked behind ears and yet i too fear
Looking for tribe to guide me down paths of resistance that bought broken people to liberation forcing God to reckon with themself rather than eat violence and sleep for dinner
how can i do this when i know it was can there is difference
This shit is trippin
We should be trippin be seeing golden in mundane and in love with the muegamillthoujillion versions of our divinity that cyclically come back to learn again how can i this
Never able to miss oppression in resting state
(Miserable) Resistance in my overbite)
I been looking into past loves lately
Lives i meant to say
But hey the two are one
Strung up at the neck nape like
Skin to Barrier
Droplet To ocean
Biology to Consciousness
Everything is alive
No Spaces are empty
reliant upon One another
Mistaking distance for separation
Like skin aint equal parts barrier to bridge
Like we aint become all we ever is without one another
Like you was ever to stand without stone every rock making bed for your toes
We are grateful
We take back our place in the glimpse of a star and remember the dust of magic is all we we were made of
everything
..Worth reckoning
Why reckoning
Im addicted to speech **
And over think
desperate for connection with the sounds underneath the constant track on play in mind i need more time
To just take it in
To follow my breath
Be here
Airplanes
Have always made me queasy
-No turbulence-
How can I live in this life
Smeared in ego and love
I been looking into past loves
More like socially squeamish
with
the way classism sticks to the wings
I suffocate everyday I step off farm and gotta explain
lately I see oppression
self hate wedged into laugh lines cowardice tucked behind ears
Like tar
and yet i too fear Lives
i meant to say
But hey
100,000 miles High
Looking for tribe to guide me down paths of resistance that bought broken people to liberation forcing God to reckon with themself
the two are one
Strung up at the neck nape like
country club
snobbery
Noses crooked in denial
just so
to miss the curdling of capitalismo
rather than eat violence and sleep for dinner how can i do this when i
Skin to Barrier
Droplet To ocean
Biology to Consciousness
Everything is alive
No Spaces are empty
reliant upon One another
Mistaking distance for separation
Like skin aint equal parts barrier to bridge
Like we aint become all we ever is without one another
Like you was ever to stand without stone every rock making bed for your toes
sour of segregation on repetition
Fouling up the cabin with old world bullshit
Everybody on the move towards MORE
I wish
Everybody
I wish Only bags
No bodies
Were tagged and left at the gate
Like aint this the titanic all over again
know
it was can there is difference
This shit is trippin
We should be trippin be seeing golden in mundane and in love with the megamillthoujillion versions of our divinity that cyclically come back to learn again
We are grateful
We take back our place in the glimpse of a star and remember the dust of magic is all we were ever made of
everything
..Worth reckoning
Like the time i filled a window seat
In the empty pew in front of me
Vowed to protect everybody beyond my own
by pulling and pushing at all barriers to home
in the/that unlikely situation (that paints safety as synonymous to opening an airplane window)
how can i live like this
Now if poetry aint sanctuary
Can i get an alright
Mmm
A halleluHER
Are you with me
And if you were me on that ride
You was with me /lit see
Your life was high valued
Vowed to dress as courage
And live unfrozen
I wasnt chosen.
i moved from the row i had been given
Never able to miss oppression in resting state
Why
reckoning
Mad lifes was gon be livin
The kid courage was risen
(Resistance in my overbite)
Im addicted to speech
And overthink
desperate for connection with the sounds underneath
Until the other steward let me know
That i would be charged
If i didnt return to my proper place
the constant track on play in mind
I had to pay for space
On this half empty plane
i need more time ....
To just take it in
To follow my breath
Be here
Where
is the sanity?