That word poked a worried hole in our talk
and when she spat it from her underground heart
her smile dissolved like that non-dairy stuff
she whitened her darkroast coffee with,
as my eyes scrambled for a level landing
on our table or the floor or the walls of that shop
or on any damn place but hers.
"Niggers...!"
she snapped with a leftist slash of her hand
as though she yanked that word at our faces
from out of nowhere or maybe from dregs of her
fears or years-ago hurts or a hate or rancor,
crouched pregnant and sour inside her -
the same ever-brewing specter in my own mind too.
When she said that word I began to wonder
whether I liked her as much as I always had,
and if I hated that cellar corner of myself enough,
how both of us seemed different, paler now,
a shade more unwell white than ever before.
But after a swallow of black coffee (antidote maybe?)
I started to listen, to hear her boiled up rant go on,
how she was not slandering any of them
but instead she was blasting "the vast, multi-colored
all of us!
knuckled-under and grumbling, enslaved sheep!
fooled and fleeced by the wide world's whitest
slyest masters' hands that are soiled with the blackest
stains of war and oily deceptions and bemused greed!"
She stopped to breathe as my eyes propped up the ceiling.
"That word you used? it's cold," I told her.
"No!" she said. "It's bitter-hot as scalded coffee."
Yet when I inhaled the steamy care in her beliefs,
that's when our eyes, leveling together at last,
brimmed and fresh, dared to like us full again.
Thoughts and suggestions are welcome.
Sorry, you cannot respond to an archived poemReviews
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hey lad
its pretty difficult to even approach this, i won't even refer to the word or quote that someone else had said that word, not only because its not a good word but because i dont want to be hung.
its seems nowadays being PC has become a new tenet of facism. it makes me very uncomfortable, i think theres an onorous pressure upon society being so PC and things have a way of slipping out, on both sides of race and gender. i think having to be so careful is repressing and makes things worse.
i think you give us a specific example of whats going on in the collective conscience or unconscience.
dave
. Rewarded 8
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dave, I know just what you mean about this not being easy to approach - I hesitated for days before posting this one. Right: the PC thing is so rampant these days, like a disease, that any slip of the tongue can get us in trouble. Even more, any use of certain words used in a totally different way, a completely unprejudiced way, can cause problems. I tried to say all that in this poem - really glad you picked up on it. Thanks.
Lad
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oh wow! Now you know that one is close to my heart! The part of my AA teaching that talks about tolerance of others is sometimes challenged with these issues but as a I read the poem further I relaxed a bit. Thank you for once again putting MY thoughts so eloquently into verse!
. Rewarded 6
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Hey, Lori, I'm sure glad you relaxed as you read further into this poem. You're absolutely right: tolerance of others is sometimes challenged by, not so much the words we use, but by our innermost, hidden feelings. Couldn't agree with you more. Thanks for the read and the really great comment!
Lad
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A Wonderful poet
Lad, reading your poetry makes me wonder why I even bother to display mine at all. It reminds me of being in school as a child and loving the words the teacher wrote on the blackboard...only to understand a limited part of it and losing myself. I love this poem and there are so many parts that stand out as being rich..with stand alone comments.
"her smile dissolved like that non-dairy stuff
she whitened her darkroast coffee with".......caught my imagination. It made her real for me in that one sentence.
In the past...you've been there for me, leaving comments and being supportive. I'm honoured to know that you even looked at my work. Thank you.. Rewarded 8
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Hi, callman. I really appreciate your reading and commenting on this one. And I sure thank you for your very kind compliment about my work.
Now, let me just say that you write well too. So I'll be looking at your new poem, probably today.
I'm glad you got so much meaning from my poem.
Later,
Lad
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Highly effective...
Lad, I think you have done a great job here capturing the emotion of a moment when you do hear the word used. There is that shock and sharp, sudden rise in tension, then the strain you feel inside as so many thoughts race back and forth, and then you gradually relax and breathe deep and try to regain some sense of normalcy. You have taken those emotional reactions and made them highly descriptive and, at least for me, very visual. It is a very, very difficult word and poem to take on because it is such a white hot PC trigger... yet it is real. Even in my fourth grade classroom we read "Steal Away Home" and the word is used. We have some pretty deep discussions (for 4th graders) as to why it is used in the book and why the book would lose something if it were not used. I think you have done a fine job taking the subject matter on in this poem and you treated it well without doing too much tap-dancing around it. Another fine and thought-provoking piece... thanks!
. Rewarded 8
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Mark, you're a great reader and commentator to have around! and I really appreciate that.
Oh yeh, I can understand how your class, even at their young age, could get into some deep discussions about "that" word and so many others. These days, there's such a silent censorship going on about language that it's a hot button issue for sure. I know, as you surely know too, that there has to be some restraint about certain words, but it's the context around those words that tell us the real intentions of the speaker. Thanks for seeing that in this poem, Mark!
Lad
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Lad,
I fell in love with this poem, how subtle each stanza flowed to the next. I felt i was there sitting in the table sipping my own cup of black coffee. I like how it unravels that slow judgment we have on people. We like them and they do something; then we don't like them, and then we realize their context and once again we see, we should have suspended judgment.
The word choice is exquisite, each word packed with meaning that fits into this puzzle of a poem. The stanza after "niggers...!" felt real and the way you described it resonated through me. I too, found understanding on how that felt...how those words may lay deep down so sour inside. The use of coffee throughout almost in a catalytic manner appealed to me, as i like coffee and found it a very interesting 'metaphor' for many things.
The next half of the poem suddenly offers another layer to this poem. No longer is it about two people in starbucks or about a derogatory term. Now, its about society... the way the 'whitest
slyest masters' hands' has taken so much from us. And how we are stepped on.
But lad, the poems that i liked of yours reflect an intimacy of friends. A relationship between people and it captures conversations that are so vividly described and written that it makes me feel i am part of that conversation. And yes, this poem has much to offer. I could type more and say more. But i will leave it at this.
-iphios. Rewarded 8
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Iphios, man am I glad you drank in this poem so fully, because, as you noted, I poured a lot into it. Many thanks for such a generous review.
I'm getting better at knowing my strengths and weaknesses as a writer, and even getting better at accepting them. Well, one of my strengths, I believe, is trying to image those interactions between friends that can go by without notice, they're so subtle; but those are the ones I'm attracted to and like to write about, despite the emotional and technical challenges. (I like writing about inner self-introspections, too, but I think I'm at my best with real situations involving other people.)
This was a real situation at Starbucks that wouldn't let me go for days, weeks, after it occurred. As you know too, that kind of thing has just GOT to have a poem lurking in it!
And I'm glad you picked up on the coffee metaphors in the poem, those "blacks" and "whites" milling around in the lines.
Great review, Iphios. Again, many thanks.
Lad -
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Lad,
It was worth reviewing. I wonder how one finds ones strength and weaknesses in writing. Recently, i'm trying to narrow that down myself.
-iphios
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Well, here's something to chew on.
This is hot, Lad, I love it. I love the way you take us through the internal twists of your encounter - from the surface to the guts and finally the heart - and through the medium of listening.
I like its bitter slashing, so shocked, disgusted, then angry yet finally reaching redemption. It drives home to me the power of language, how we've diluted our power to curse, to drive, to do, with language - language that is not just mush... and you're firing on all cylinders esp with: the stanza: "knuckled under... greed".
Or at least it's a potential power...
(Now is it fair to ask of us that we DO something with what we know or is our writing doing it? This fatal box we're in, up to our eyes, our hair, living as we do driving our cars and eating burgers and electing representatives whose main concern is re-election..and saying fuck to the consequences... BUT I digress...)
Can't say more.Speechless.. Rewarded 8
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river, your disgression is gold. You caught the poem's nuance about the vagaries of language, the dangers and the healing power of it - that's really what I was after in this one. You - you're good!
And yes, do we do or do we write? Both, I suppose, would be best, each in its own singular, subtle way. I like Dickens' take on the social horrors of the day: one person at a time, one little event at a time; for us, it's probably one poem at a time, and they get added to the air, bit by bit, to be breathed. Other than that, as I think you feel too, I write, cultivate my garden (as Pascal advises), shrug, and hope. I hear that in your own work too. "Oh we few / we happy few / we band of...poets", regrets to Shakespeare!!
As always, alex, thanks.
Lad -
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When is a "mo'fo" ever going to be
... A MOTHER-FUCKER again? It occurred to me as I read this why the boyz in the hood use the word "nigger" as a sign of both respect and disrespect. It's one of a handle of potent words we have left... I've done some cursing in my time but wouldn't dare to use this word, my response to it is like yours. Well spotted, Mr Socio-Cultural Commentator. xa -
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heh-heh, the right word at the right time for the right people is always the best damn word available, no? Nothing like good old AngloSaxon-based words to get the job done without bullshit - another great word I'd love to hear sometime in all the political rhetoric we're going through now over here.
Cheers.
L.
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I'm amazed how complex your poems always turn out to be. It really shows the your inner depth. You've really outdone yourself once again, Lad! This is such a common situation that you dug very deep into. Never have I heard such a simple event analyzed like that. Once again,Great work
. Rewarded 6
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I sure appreciate your reading and commenting on this poem, NinaEve. Yes, you're right, it does go deep, and I think it does that because it's a real situation that at first got me all upset. But the more I looked inside myself for the truth, I calmed down, and that's when the poem started to create itself. Many thanks!! for liking this one.
Lad
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Politically and poetically correct
I wondered how you were going to get out of this one. Of course, I needn't have worried. An excellent political poem. Such an unusual way to deliver a punch. Very clever. Very pleasing.
The poetic technique, particularly with what your eyes were doing,(like 'propping up the ceiling' - nice) gave it a great sense of place as conveying the awkwardness of the moment. I also loved your work with the coffee, its color, your 'inhaling' etc.
Really fine piece, Lad. Loved it. >W<. Rewarded 8
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Thanks, my friend. I appreciate your close reading, as always. The play with smells, heat, eyes and colors was most of the fun for me in writing this one.
You know, you're right about it being PC; although I understand verbal restraint these days, I have an ongoing quarrel with it, and I wanted the poem to reflect that. So, I just made the slightest of changes in the final stanza to reflect that quarrel. You may not have realized it, but your thought just made the poem a little more ambiguous - just what I wanted.
Lad -
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about 'PC'
My remark was actually tongue in cheek. Obviously the poem begins to tell the tale of some very 'un-PC' utterings from your old friend. We are left to wonder will you allow her brush these under the carpet or will you confront her. But ultimately we learn she is using this very dubious word -niggers- in a highly considered and sophisticated way to describe how cowardly the 'PC' attitude to the atrocities of our society, the war etc. really are. I think your friend's political views are right - 'correct'. I think political correctness stinks. It is shallow and just a modern form of snobbery, a way to relieve people of the burden of actually thinking for themselves. Fuck the PC brigade from a great height, if you'll pardon my political incorrectness, and kudos your friend for having the courage to call us the craven niggers that we are in these matters.
Just so you understand I wasn't accusing you in any way of being 'PC' - I thought it was a great poem, Lad. -
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John, no problem whatsoever. That's how I took your comment, as a light-hearted thought. But it was a stimulating thought for me, since I hate PC too, and I realized that the poem in its original form was too timidly PC for my real feelings about it.
I also realized that I wanted "her" to be less cowed by my remark, in the poem, against what she'd said; she needed to come out of the poem with a lot more feistiness and fight. And the changes I made do just that for her and for her beliefs, which are also mine. That thought wasn't part of your comment, but it eventually led me there.
Your comment also brought me to this notion, which I've been playing around with for a while now: in the real situation on which the poem is based, she said exactly what I had in the original. But, for the poem's sake as a poem, as a new creation, I changed her words in the revision, gave them a different spin. I'm becoming more confident about the idea that any poem based on a real quote can change that quote all over the place and can legitimately become, in the poet's hands, another thing altogether. Do you have any thoughts on that?, or am I stating only the obvious. At any rate, I do think the poem is better now, helped by what you said.
So, your comment was sterling to me; it made me think about plenty more than just this poem. Thanks for that. And thanks for your re-reply. As you've said, the best thing about this site is this rare kind of give-and-take, back and forth, among people who care deeply about the written word. You're one of them.
Lad
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Wow
I like this a lot. You describe perfectly the awkward tension whenever a word such as that is used, and then go into the justification of using it. I suppose with the right argument it can be used, but I would still find my words halted and my eyes averted no matter the situation. I enjoyed this a lot, as I always do with your poetry.
-RD
. Rewarded 6
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Thanks, RD, for the read, and the astute and kind comment. I know what you're saying, the awkwardness of that word these days, and its moral ambiguity; I'm still not sure about that, what with all the silent and oppressive censorship going on these days. But your thought is the same that's always going on in my mind too.
Thanks for the compliment; when I get one of those from another good poet, I like it.
Lad
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Starbucks Fizz
A prequel for an embarrassing silence for sure, Lad. I know southern slavers used the term "bucks" for male Africans - did you have this in mind titlewise?
I liked very much your utilization of already acknowledged descriptive talent to relay the atmospheric effects of the n-word.
"bitter-hot as scalded coffee."
I suppose not only cold can denote bitterness.
The sentiments of the lady in question though brashly conveyed and designed to provoke are none the less highly relevent. Of course she could ve just said "Slaves! All of us!"
But where s the poem to be had from that?
Another successful slice of zeitgeist, Lad. It did though leave me wanting more, feeling slightly unfulfilled, much I suppose like too much coffee will do on an empty stomach.
Nice to back by the way and to see friends of the quill so obviously thriving.
cheers, mate!
gGoneandbackagain
. Rewarded 8
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Cheers back! to my elusive gnosis-on-GeeWhiz- reality!-what-a-concept! Good to hear from you again, Simon, and your always-great comments.
Yes, a slice of awkward zeitgeist for sure.
No hidden meaning in 'Starbucks'; it's merely the name of those AmerInternational coffeeshops. BUT, some overwrought reader might possibly see "Moby Dick"s character Starbuck in the poem, a member of Ahab's whaling crew out to destroy that great "white." That thought did cross my fevered mind while titling this poem.
And you're right: I, too, wanted more, wishing the poem's interaction to go on. But I'm already planning a sequel that includes some other UnPC horrors.
Glad you're back, Simon; I'll be checking your page asap for new stuff.
Ciao.
Lad
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Reality
SO true. That's all there is to it. This world is a crazy place, and people can say the wrong thing at the worst time. Very complex vocabulary; that's my favorite part of any poem. Kudos to you!
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Many thanks, happy, for your kind comment, especially on the vocabulary. Glad you liked it. Lad
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I've been in similar situations. Good read
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Thanks for the read and comment, b. Much appreciated.
Lad
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Hey, Lad. Once again, you turn your laser-eye on a social situation with eviscerating results. The use of the N-word is a big No-No, but it is an undeniable part of the lexicoN. It will always be there, the vilest of the racial slurs, lurking somewhere in consciousness-- like a Nuclear bomb, it can't be uNmade. And once spoken, can't be unsaid. I applaud how you confessed it is "in my mind too."
You turn the poem on its head with that line-- the expected rant about racism, but we can't rant about racism without pointing a finger in the mirror as well. We are all guilty of terrible thoughts, and we hate "that cellar corner of myself enough." The worst bigots are the ones who don't realize that they ARE bigoted.
I like that you dared to reconcile at the end, with "dared to like us full again." The idea that she is using a vile word as a concept-- a psychological state of enslavement-- does that make using the word okay? I am linguistically adventurous enough to whisper, "Yes. . . " I would like to see the word turn into something abstract someday, to take some of the scald out of that old brew.
Hopefully,
HG
November 13, 2007