Friday, June 17, 2016

Icarus

Today, I heard the story of Icarus in a whole new way,
Today, his wings didn't break beneath the sun,
There was no heat melting wax, no feathers gently falling away,
There was nothing slow about the abrupt end of ascension.
This Icarus crashed against the barbed wire ceiling that hangs over this city,
his wings were torn to shreds, his fall reached a terminal velocity.
We are taught to blame Icarus,
We are taught to see Icarus as filled with braggadocio and  lacking in self control,
we refuse to see that he was only born with a buoyant soul,
Souls such as these long to scratch the sky,
To look down on the world with God at their shoulder, clouds at their toes
and heaven laid out before them.
And of course we fail them.
Barbwire ceilings do not occur naturally,
Our cities aren't meant to be inescapable, inhospitable 
they arent meant to put so many in the hospital,
in the ground,
and if you hear the faint sound,
sneakers scraping against celestial chain link,
stop for a moment and just think,
did you see him today?
did he just start to sink?
did he do a loop the loop,
start from his front stoop,
touch the sky with Kanye,
then hit the green house to hoop?
He wont get a filibuster, he's a forgone conclusion, 
and we pretend not to see his wounds and contusions,
Black's dont crack, dont bleed, dont feel pain,
will always be blamed, always be shamed 
and excuse me if this sounds like a refrain,
but if all lives matter,
why wont we talk about him?
Is it cause when Icarus has ebony wings,
that don't melt in the sun, but shine beneath the moon,
it's that much easier to close your eyes?
fall asleep as we whisper gentle lies,
it'd be harder if you could hear is brother cry,
his mother cry, my mother cried,\
I pray to God that an angels wings are made from more than wax,
That they can transcend barbed wire,
that they might carry Icarus higher,
than our world was ever going to let him fly.