Didi

#ReadSoulLit Photo Challenge – Day 23

Day 23 – Favorite Poem:

Lighthead’s Guide to the Galaxy

And if you are addicted to sleep, a bay of fresh coffee may help.IMG_1467
If you are addicted to coffee, teach yourself to breakdance.
If you are addicted to dancing, polio will cure you.
If you hear that the last black man alive will be burned at sunset
find an underground railroad.
If you are addicted to railroads: try wearing undersized shoes.
No one knows where your mother has gone with her tax refund.
If you are addicted to shoes, move to a provincial village in Japan.
If you are addicted to Japan, try eating with no teeth.
If you are addicted to teeth, visit the wife beater’s widow
She will be upstairs awaiting your caress.
I often wake up horny. If you are addicted to masturbation, seek company.
If you are addicted to company, try starlight and silence.
If you are addicted to silence, find guard dogs, traffic or infants.
If you are addicted to infants, try reliable contraception.

Or try asking yourself, What’s wrong with me?

If you are addicted to contraception, try recklessness.

Try riding an unsaddled horse until you are thrown into a bed of gravel.

If you’re attracted to recklessness, try a spoonfed disease.

My mother loves imagining the day she’ll die.
If you are addicted to disease, visit an old world doctor.
If you are addicted to doctors, try war.

If you are addicted to sorrow, all my talk about loss is not lost to you.
No one knows why your father built the shed for his weapons.

Probably with some hellified form of addiction.

If you are addicted to weapons, please find the people who plan to burn

the last black man alive at sunset for me.

Or try learning a little history.

Obviously, I’m addicted to repetition. Which is a form of history.
If you are addicted to history, try a blindfold of razors or buy a Cadillac.
If you are addicted to Cadillacs, try poverty.

No one is addicted to poverty but if you are, try wealth.
If you are addicted to wealth, you’ll need money.
If you are addicted to money, you’ll need money. Try that.

 

8 comments

  1. There were sooo many poems to choose from, so I opted to go with the first one I memorized as a child for a church recital: Ego Trippin’ (there may be a reason why) by Nikki Giovanni. It is a poem that advocates strength and power; it contains positive images for children and reiterates whatever can be imagined is possible.

    I was born in the Congo
    I walked to the fertile crescent and built the Sphinx
    I designed a pyramid so tough that a star
    that glows every one hundred years falls into
    the center giving divine perfect light

    I AM BAD

    I sat on the throne
    drinking nectar with Allah
    I got hot and sent an ice age to Europe
    to cool my thirst.
    My oldest daughter is Nefferttiti
    the tears from my birth pains created the Nile
    I am a beautiful woman

    I gazed on a forest and burned out the
    Sahara Desert
    With a packet of goat’s meat
    and a change of clothes –
    I crossed it in two hours
    I am a gazelle so swift –
    so swift – you can’t catch me

    For a birthday present when he was three
    I gave my son Hannibal an elephant –
    He gave me Rome for Mother’s Day
    My strength flows ever on

    My son Noah built new/ark and
    I stood proudly at the helm
    as we sailed on a soft summer day
    I turned myself into myself –
    and was Jesus!
    men intone my loving name

    All praises – All praises
    I am the one who would save

    I sowed diamonds in my backyard
    My bowels deliver uranium
    the filings from my fingernails
    are semi-precious jewels
    On a trip north I caught a cold and blew my nose
    giving oil to the Arab world
    I am so hip – even my errors are correct
    I sailed east to reach west – and had to round off the
    earth as I went
    The hair from my head thinned and gold was laid
    across three continents

    I am so perfect, so divine, so ethereal, so surreal
    I cannot be comprehended
    except by my permission

    I mean … I … can fly
    like a bird in the sky …

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  3. Thank you for turning me on to Terrance Hayes’ great poem, “Lighthead’s Guide to the Galaxy”! I dig it!….so, so hard to have ONE favorite poem….I just can’t narrow it down!

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