It Ain't Truth If It Doesn't Hurt

Troubled Waters...A New Poem

Hey folks...here is a new poem...it's been a long time in the making. I started it the first week of last September, and I finished it this morning. It's funny how poems come to a close...this one was waiting for something...and it turned out that it needed the addition of the lyrics to the old spiritual Wade in the Water. Which, I was not thinking of when I wrote the bulk of this poem!

I have a performance tomorrow night at 8pm at Macalester College in St. Paul in the student union. I am one of the featured performers and there is an open mic as well. It's on the MDO Stage in the Weyerhauser Student Union. Come check it out.

Troubled Waters

Wade in the water

Wade in the water children

Wade in the water

God’s going to trouble the water

In my chest there are troubled waters

vibrations causing expanding ripples

a sense of unease

a trembling waiting like a breaker collapsing

on the verge of spilling

over, through, and out

out here

right now

head shrouded and engulfed

slight pain above the temple

and I’m not sure what its all about

tired and wound too tight

at the breaking point

but there’s still much more to break through

before I’m truly in danger

unless I’m too tired to care

too care worn

Wade in the water

Wade in the water children

Like ripples on still water

movement inside of stasis

understandable separately

but meaning only grasped together

while I sit watching time

and time watches back

counting me as I beg it to move faster

move forward

move onward

need closure or an aperture

something to let out the pressure

building aching stretching my guts

distending everything I taste and touch

pushing out

until a kitchen knife offers c-section hope

a quick slice to give birth

to steaming waters gushing from my abdomen

turgid and churning

colored by intensity

tinted

tainted

polluted with insecurity

troubled waters

flooding onto the street of my familiar

filling footprints pressed into mud

unable to judge success or failure

in the silted impression

Wade in the water

God’s going to trouble the water

In my chest are trouble waters

ripples bashing against my breast

eating at my sternum

micro-fissures leaking into my chest

soaking my shirt

iron tang mist

metallic taste tongue touches

the roof of my mouth

pushes through into my nasal cavity

all smoke and no fire

as it pours dragon-style from my snout

cartilage ripped away as I try to escape

tried to run

to flee the rising flood

to get to higher ground

instead I go around

back to the place where I no longer belong

find myself in charted territory

map in hand

willingness bound

by hard water chains

Wade in the water

Wade in the water children

Wade in the water

God’s going to trouble the water

Wade in the water children is what the old spiritual says

wade in the water and get your soul wet

so I step into my chest of my trouble waters

plunge deep into the whirlpool

lift my feet planted on the bottom

watch as the finger of God stirs the waters

watch as he stirs them fast

in vertigo realizing

that my troubled waters are a gift

a baptism

a reconciliation

that the footprints I’ve seen

are a getting-through trail

left by those that walked before

left when God troubled the waters

by making them part

pushed them aside

smoothed them out

so the way becomes clear

that the trembling and shaking

that the hurting and fear

that the ripples and the waves

are signposts

mile-markers

step by step instructions

“Let those that have the ears, hear.”

In my chest are troubled waters

I lift up my feet

plunge in

drink deep.

-Brandon Lacy Campos

-Minneapolis, MN

-March 23, 2007

This One is For Coya...

Coya--I love you.

Choke

It takes her again

wraps stiff fingers around her throat

chokes her until the tears run

burning channels into her cheeks

reopening half healed runnels

coffin-nails have left on her face

she calls me gasping

why

too much

too many

why her

why him

why them

bang bang

they found him in a lake

they found her in a ditch

he was murdered

she was murdered

why

why

why

the violence overshadowed by

the mist that leadens her voice

sodden from her throat

she exhales between her questions

I don't have the answers she needs

the ones she deserves

can't loosen the grip of too much time

cut short

wrapping around her throat

can't breathe enough for her

can feel the damp

as it pours out of my phone

fills my mouth

runs out of my eyes

mother-brother-aunt-cousin

two killed

unsolved crimes

two taken too early

all died

this year and last year

too few years between them

too little time for healing

while prayers and prairie dirt fills the holes

they left behind

We've sat up nights talking

trying to make sense

of senselessness

of grief

of acceptance with no understanding

while the reaper keeps reaping

scything

through native lives

her life

cutting

cold voice laughing

hollow

like lines dug in her face

hollow

echoing

empty

open wounds festering

fearing that she might use alcohol to sterilize

knowing its ability to cauterize

too far away

too far away

to fly to her

pry death away

breathe for her when she can't

pray for her when she can't

promise her what I can't

that it is over

that it won't continue

when I can still her the laughing

and the scything of the reaper.

-Brandon Lacy Campos

-Minneapolis, MN

-September 4, 2006

This Ain't Shakespeare...

Here's one more for you...a little more serious this one is....

This Ain’t Shakespeare

To be or not to be has never been the question

the reflection in the mirror answers in carefully broken boxes

Elmer’s glue and masking tape showing at the edges

that to be or not to be is a predetermination

an arrived at destination

outlined carefully by Congress and kids on the playground

DNA, nurture and nature, scientific nomenclature

That explicitly determines the species of our marginilization

FACT: On any given night 800 children sleep on

Minneapolis

streets

To live or not to live is the question, the rub

actively overcoming the sum  of our composite parts

the product of our actions multipled by our heredity, drugs, and cross addictions

are all denominators in the problem at the heart of this inquiry

this seemingly simple decision dipped in innocence that is only candy coating

corrding the American Dream

which wasn’t meant for men like me, men who see past the present into Orwellian reality

and Orson Welle’s history—the Aliens landed in 1492

took our leaders and gave us cell block pacifers

blankets, methamphetamine, and fire water

a War between World’s is raging

where

Jordan

meets

Camden

where

Lake Street

becomes the Berlin Wall

where Lyndale is an international border

where penthouses are built on

Chicago

where the poor are given marching orders

to start  a new trail of tears from the North Side and the South Side

to the city limits

suburban ghettos with invisible signs that still read: No Niggers, Gooks or Spics allowed

FACT: Within three days on the streets, even a child raised with the strongest moral values will turn to sex work to get his needs met

To thine own self be true

doesn’t mean shit

when living means economic brutality, the perpetuation of poverty

generations raised on commodity cheese

canned meat and peanut butter

powdered milk and WIC provender

where food in yellow boxes are brand name

and cereal only comes in bags

where to get a full time job

that pays part time wages

guarantees only EBT cessation

so dealing and banging become a means to feed the family

and fill private prison quotas

because this nation is still run by slave labor

inmates paid pennies an hour

to mass produce dollar power

FACT: Nearly 50% of young people living on the streets identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender

Out damn spot

that has stained hands choking the life out of the future

kids that learn sometimes the streets are saner

than houses called homes where safety

is a stranger

and rare as full bellies

or I love you

where daughters tuck moms into bed at night

and newborns fall asleep to the lullaby of beer bottles breaking

taking care not to wake up daddy

because his bark is always followed by the bite

of leather, steel, cords on skin

branded Bacardi, crack, Phillips, meth, Smirnoff, weed

the man on the corner always has what you need

no money? He’ll take body in trade

cut you a deal: a gram for your soul

FACT: More than one million children are homeless in the

United States

Something wicked this way comes

dips claws into our hearts and minds

defines acceptance by what others think

so we stop thinking for ourselves

turn inside out to get attention

seeking approval from anyone willing to validate

self-hate keeping us from seeing

each of us is a perfectly imperfect being

made by the All Seeing

who broke the mold after each master piece

living art breathing vitality

each of us complete, whole in and of ourselves

made in His image and therefore unblemished

no matter what lies the mirror tells us

no matter the poison we’ve ingested

no matter the wrongs done to us or those we’ve committed

our only sin in not accepting

that we are loved without exception

without condition or reservation

FACT:  There are 20 million children living in poverty in the

United States

no man of woman born

was ever denied salvation

when he became willing

to work for it

honestly and openly tearing apart

spiritual infections

disinfecting psychic maladies

parasitic invaders draining

peace and serenity

on bended knee we ask

for the communion of the beatified fellowship

Holy Addicts and Sainted Alcoholics

spreading the word according to the gospel of Bill W.

each day receiving a reprieve and absolution

a simple solution

each step forward a step towards awakening

shaking off the collective hallucination

that what we see is how things have to be

that what we think is reality

that what we know is infallible

until we come to understand that there is a master plan

and a Master’s hand guiding us along a new and loving path

FACT: No man, woman, or child ever need go hungry or without love, never need be without shelter or comfort, never need know isolation or beg for acceptance. This a world of abundance, and ours is the gift to rebuild it, reinvent it, so that no one ever need walk in darkness. Fact.

-

Brandon

Lacy

Campos

-

Eden

Praire, MN

-30 June 2005