The Bleaching Of Poetry

It’s ironic —

how poetry

has been reduced

to white trash,

or worse —

white-approved trash.

Or as the real poets,

the last remaining few,

call it:

bland.

Because the whites

could steal the spices

but never quite handle them.

It’s ironic —

how what once stirred

scandal and smoke,

debated the unholy,

the necessary,

the unbearable truths —

is now rinsed clean

and bleached

into first-world metaphors,

as if the third world

were just a metaphor

to begin with.

As if the first world

could ever measure

the depth or density

of a life

lived in

noise,

chaos,

and nuance

of the third world.

As if poetry

needs a functional visa

before it can be felt.

It’s ironic —

how the ones

in ivory towers,

with whitened dark circles

and pure-bred grammar,

draw borders around words

as if language were land —

because bordering land

is white privilege.

Or, as they call it,

inheritance.

White, brown, black,

peach, ochre, crimson —

it doesn’t matter

what bleeds.

What matters is:

if and when you feel poetry,

it better be white trash,

or white-approved —

at the very least.

Who would’ve thought —

words have owners too.