Tapestry_of_an_Empire

Posted bySynnika Alek-Chizoba LoftonPosted inPoems, mailbox weeklyTags:,

The smoke is normal. Crashing into
the walls of a burning house has

become common place, a routine
I repeat almost daily. Graying hair

symbolizes the time I have committed
to inhaling metallic culture. A tightrope

is home. Stealthily balancing weight
on an eyelash. Master the grind. Master

the hustle. Master the way sunlight
bounces into a black Nissan Xterra,

doing 80 in the HOV lane, Alexandria
to Chesapeake. Greg keeps the rhythm,

like an urban griot, sensing the pulsing
heartbeats of chipped history, a scarred

tomorrow. The smoke is normal. The
smoke eats enough to grow by the second,

belches, and continues to consume.
I find a lane in the polluted mainframe

of the experience, listening to Rage
or Chuck D or Rakim or KRS One give

instructions on how to breathe. Breathe
after my own fashion, engineering

the present because I ain’t got no manners.
No home training. No respectability

politics to worry about. The smoke is
normal. I am not. The smoke is normal.

I am not. The smoke is normal, normal,
normal. The smoke is normal, normal,

normal. I am not. I am not America’s
cliche, or its child running away from

fight, from light, from flight, from the
state sanctioned violence of ICE.

Everything is a visage, a jungle steadily
evolving–a tapestry of Empire.

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Published by Synnika Alek-Chizoba Lofton

"Synnika Alek-Chizoba Lofton is an award winning poet, the president and CEO of Guerrilla Ignition LLC, host of a Nationally Syndicated radio show, and an educator, teaching literature at Chesapeake Bay Academy and English courses at Norfolk State University. Lofton has recorded more than one hundred and fifty CDs, albums, CD-singles, and mixtapes of poetry, including his highly praised debut, The New Breed. He is the author of twelve books and the founder of Riot Speech, a musical genre combining performance poetry with traditional musical forms, such as Rock, Jazz, and Hip Hop. His poems have been published in Experience Reality Magazine, Quay: A Journal of the Arts, UpStreet: A Literary Magazine, and, in 2014, Lofton has been featured in Blind Sided Magazine. He is a regular on Virginian television programs such as The Hampton Roads Show and Chesapeake’s Thinking Out Loud on WCTV. He teaches World Literature, British Literature, and Composition, while touring the country, performing at literary festivals, musical festivals, poetry readings, open mics, concerts, high schools, and colleges."

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