Mary’s blog

This was a poem that James wrote for his Pre AP Language Arts Class.  The assignment was to write a poem as if you were a poet in the 50's during the Beat Movement era.  He was told to include historical events and use figurative language. :D

20,000 Leagues Under the American Sea

I am sodden with the words of the conductor

Who leads his chorale of men through their next redden symphony

Singing the notes of America

Loud enough to reach the ears of Hollywood

And to silence the blacklisted choir of cinema

I swim to find a seat beyond the twelfth row

Beyond the white hooded threads and charred crucifixes

Beyond the man who lets Willie Edwards lie at the bottom of the Alabama River

Where blacks are the hideous flat-headed stones

Thrown into the water only to be eternally forgotten

I am forbidden to reach the surface

To breathe the air, the bread, the rule of man

Chained to the floor and suffocating

While they float to the top and perform their tricks to adoring eyes

As I sit below and hand out the smile of June Cleaver and the tuna casserole of Betty Crocker

I shout to be heard and end up gasping for air

I find a wave of grayish emptiness in commercials for saddle shoes and Ford Mercury’s

I break apart the shards of glass that repress us

I am aware of your indifference to help us

I am blind to the differences between us

I am drowning in your sea