A poem by Donny Lee Duke

How big did it get?
Donny you can see the failure of humanity.
There it tipped over.
A politician’s might
has not these ears.
Are you sure it’s the outcast?
The person hated among his kind,
that’s what we’re lookin’ at.
The person everybody hates,
we just can’t get over that one.
Is this a disaster?
It’s worse than that.
It’s the spirit in each one of us
on which the world fails.

You hate me still?
I have no red to play.
I’m alone in the room with you.
You throw stones at me,
so judgmental in the room:
let’s delete your comment, shall we?
Let’s not even give you room to speak.
If we do,
you’ll show our shortcomings,
you evil idiot
so cunning in process.
You will show us our sins,
like you see your own.
We have to run from this,
the speaker that sees all of us in his own sin.
It casts the lot of us
as guilty as sin.

Come on I’m marrying the world.
I see human unity
and the brotherhood of man.
I believe in equal rights for all,
and I can paint high words upon the page,
and I can listen to your stories
oh great big humanity.
I love children
and the light of day.
I control myself.
I have offerings to give,
and that is my gift to you,
my virtue and compassion.
I am here to help.

Oh my God he’s second nature,
like he’s put us all on for size.
No, I’ve seen you
infinity this:
oh my God don’t let him near us,
not that person,
never that one.
The most virtuous among us have done this to me,
the ones with open arms to humanity,
the ones saying I can help, I can help.
Each time I’m surprised
because I’ve studied their words
and thought I’d found a friend.

What do you do with this?
Okay world failure,
here it is.
Here it is your hate seen on the page,
you who’ve claimed the good for humanity.
Here you are exposed,
where I’m exposed,
and that’s the engine in the room:
I listen to you;
I have equity in my hands.
Do you?

It’s the right way to conceive people
if they are good or if they are bad:
human being.
It’s the failure of the world you don’t.
You have this list they have to live up to.
It’s not only TV assigning these roles,
not by a long shot.
This is really appointment
by the everyday people.

I had to do it.
I don’t mind
to be the one to sing
about who we are.
“Above National Commitments”,
when it comes to the thoughts,
there’s none paralleled.
Puttin’ it on
something like a family movie,
brings it home to all of us,
brings it right in your lap.
Nobody said anything,
no feedback
as of today.

It’s right at my house,
right where I walk my dogs.
It’s amazingly shot,
so much attention to detail,
a real record of the human being.
The terrible inane
read it each time.
So much sense of humor
on such a serious board,
now I’m talking sunshine.
No comments, likes, nothing.
A communiqué of doom
it got read.
You have to remember
it was the question of the ages:
tell me this person doesn’t stink,
and that’s how they read it
or chose not to.
It be library
that I’m human.