It Ain't Taffy
–by Russell Reza-Khaliq Gonzaga
Like those eternal wounds on His hands, head, heart, and feet,
my goal of passing on the Promethean fire is never complete.
After kicking all the incomprehensibles to the curb
and breaking down the cryptics,
it is my hope that these students burn with a hunger greater than hunger,
with the painful joy of a life fulfilled.
But there's this one issue blocking the bandwidth of this transmission.
How's this stuff gonna get me paid?
Baby's gotta eat. I ain't got time for your metaphors and similes,
or whatever.
Why should I care? Poetry don't pay my bills.
The questions of a young community struggling to survive
are as real as survival itself.
What can you say to a young person whose economic needs exceed the time
to reflect?
I want to tell them that poetry will pay the rent and all the bills for eternity
and a day,
that it can ease the pain better than any narcotic,
that it can bust you out of this tangled mess of a life that wasn't designed for
our kind.
that it will destroy the demons that dominate your dreams,
that it will get you 40 acres, a mule, a mansion, a mercedes, and a promise of
never again.
I want to tell them that poetry will make it all make sense.
But what's all that mean to a gangsta shorty trying to stay low,
just trying to stay out of an enemy's cross hairs?
What is poetry to a kid who's tired, hungry, confused, and abused?
To a student who's struggling to sort out the contradiction of addiction?
To a student who just lost a parent?
an older brother?
a younger sister?
To a barely literate teenage mother who just wants to write love poetry
to her boo locked away in a penitentiary?
To a youngster facing an uncertain future
in a country that has already counted him as a casualty?
Survival is a day-to-day thing. They don't need another dope dealer
to fill their pipes full of hazy, lazy distracting promises,
they don't need another syringe needle filled with sweet delectable lies.
I am tempted to stretch the truth,
but the truth ain't taffy.
Can't lie to my students.
Won't set them up for more disappointment.
Got to keep this real.
And this demands that I must be real.
So, from within my rib cage,
I offer a humble answer to my students' concerns:
Poetry may not be able to pay the bills
or your taxes or post your bail,
but it shines brighter than that.
Under all the ache of the day-to-day,
beyond the concealed sorrow of this Disneyland life,
within the pumping chambers of your own blood-filled heart,
there is poetry.
a Reality more Real than real estate, an illuminating, liberating Truth
that cannot be incarcerated, impoverished, enslaved or even killed.
Poetry whets your appetite for insight, education, and liberation.
And without this sublime hunger,
your present pain and hunger
may never come to mean anything to anyone.
And when this is discovered,
when you can perceive and receive poetry
as a tangible means to the magic of insight and transformation,
no one will ever be able to take it away from you and yours
... much less charge you rent for it....
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