The Knowledge Degree, A Poem

Spoken word can be so liberating. It is almost as if the poet is throwing a pretty fit with rhymes, and alliteration and sprinkles of metaphors and imagery that keeps you hanging on until their very last period.

It is an art form that must be practiced. A true performance of emotion within a poetic structure that demands attention from its listeners.

Here is a poem I wrote that is inspired by Zora Howard and her poem Bi-racial Hair. 

The Knowledge Degree

This day in age,

you need a college degree to do anything.

A skinny sheet of paper

equipped with a scribbled signature

of someone who is a little more knowledgable than you

(who probably attended the same college as you).

Proof that you endured a structured system,

allowed yourself to be punctured by them,

poked and provoked by them.

The old you, murdered, resurrected, and molded by men

who trapped you at the age of five

and told you that the world has one divide

between black and white.

No vision of religion.

Folding your hands

in front of your face at the lunch table

was a disgrace. So you dissed grace

and God became a name

you were no longer allowed to say.

But the teacher makes you stand!

and pledge your allegiance.

Place your hand over a heart you don’t understand

because since you pledged to America

you are part of a united State

and no more your own man.

Instead, you are a student.

You will disover only what is uncovered.

Dig for the truth,

it will take tears to recover.

Red blood is first blue,

Old is first new,

and most times,

we don’t feel the pain until we see the bruise.

Let us open our eyes

and truly Unite!

Break out of these chained-brains

that have been overrun and overwashed.

Reclaim this blood in our veins and

Fight!

for the slaves of our day.

I have gone to school

and followed rule after rule.

I’ve memorized the lives

of Harriet Tubman and Martin Luther King.

Tell me ONE thing,

who eXed out Malcolm

from my favorite, sacred texts?

Don’t tell me about the American eagle

but leave out the Falcon.

Honestly, what else happened?

Oh, that takes graduation and further documentation?

Lord, give me patience-

and money to make another payment

to a government who uses my currency

for their own entertainment,

when all I want

is a fair, complete education.