I WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT I HAVE PERSONAL AUTHENTICITY AS A POET BECAUSE OF MY IDENTITY

I WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT I HAVE PERSONAL AUTHENTICITY AS A POET BECAUSE OF MY IDENTITY
from Pearl and Other Poems

I am a victim of genocide and atom bombs.

I am a minority and also foreign.

I am a blue collar person of enormous sensitivity.

                                                   

I was educated at Harvard and also dropped out of school

and also received a rural education on a farm

and also at an urban center in the ghetto.

I am a wealthy urbanite who comes from a lineage of American Harvard professors stretching back to Adam

and also I was born today, right now, in announcing myself in speech.

I committed suicide twice because of artistic vision and also because of pathos.

I am a war veteran and also a war protester.

I was killed by police in a demonstration against police and also by demonstrators in a police protest against demonstrations.

I invented myself out of thin air and was created by my environment.

I am a woman and also a child.

I am a man and also a mentally retarded man.

I am blind and deaf and mute and dumb.

I am a great hulking beast of a muscular man

and also a graybeard sage of skinny wisdom.

I am a young man with no money, a white recipient of unemployment benefits and Medicaid

a father of three, a husband, and no one you’re likely to know.

I am no one at all.



(c) 2014 lee sharks

from Pearl and Other Poems:
http://www.amazon.com/Pearl-Other-Poems-Crimson-Hexagon/dp/0692313079/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1429895012&sr=8-1&keywords=lee+sharks+pearl