Sunday, August 29

Showing Off The Fruits of My Post Secondary Education: Shake The Dust

Shake The Dust by Anis Mojgani


This is for the fat girls, this is for the little brothers,
this is for the school yard wimps, and for the childhood bullies that tormented them,
for the former prom queen,
and for the milk crate ball players, for the Night Time cereal eaters,
and for the retired elderly Wal-Mart store front door greeters
Shake the Dust
This is for the benches and the people sitting on them
for the bus drivers driving a million broken hymns,
for the men who have to hold down three jobs simply to hold up their children
for the nighttime schoolers and for the midnight bikers who are trying to fly
Shake the Dust
This is for the two year olds who can not be understood
because they speak half English and half God
Shake the Dust,
for the girls whose brothers are going crazy!
For those gym class wall flowers and for the twelve year old kids afraid of taking public showers
for the kid whose always late to class because he forgets the combination to his locker
for a girl who loves somebody else
Shake the Dust.
This is for the hard men who want love but know that it won’t come.
For the ones who are forgotten, for the ones the amendments do not stand up for
for the ones who are told to speak only when spoken to and then are never spoken to.
Speak every time you stand so that you do not forget yourself,
never let a moment go by you that doesn’t remind you that 

your heart beats 900 times a day.
That there are enough gallons of blood to make you an ocean.
Do not settle for letting these waves that settle and for the dust to collect in your veins.
This is for the celibate pedophile who keeps on struggling,
for the poetry teachers and for the people who go on vacation alone,
and for the sweat that drips off of a Mick Jaggers singing lips, and for the shaking skirt on Tina Turner’s shaking hips,
and for the heavens and for the hells for which Tina has lived.
This is for the tired and for the dreamers, for those families that will never be like the Cleavers,
with perfectly made dinners and sons like Wally and the Beaver.
This! Is for the bigots, the sexists, and for the killers,
this is for the Big House; pin sentenced cats becoming redeemers,
and for the springtime that always shows up right after the winter,
Make sure that by the time the fishermen returns you are gone,
because just like the days I burn at both ends,
every time I write, every time I open my eyes I’m cutting out a part of myself to give to you.
So Shake the Dust, and take me with you when you do none of this has ever been for me,
everything that pushes and pulls, pulls for you.
So grab this world by it’s clothes pins and shake it out again and again
and jump on top and take it for a spin and when you hop off
shake it again for this is yours.
Make my words worth, make it not just another poem that I write
not just another poem like just another night that sits heavy above all of us,
walk into it, breath it in, let it crash through the halls of your arms
like the millions of years of millions poets coursing like blood pumping, pushing
and making you live, shaking the dust
So when the world knocks at your front door clutch the knob tightly and open on up,
running forward into it’s wide spread greeting arms
with your hands before you your fingertips 

trembling,
though they may be.



See it in its Spoken Word Glory HERE


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