Sweet Baby Tears of a Boy I named Phoenix
by Joules
written August 26, 2018

Watch The Short Film of this very same poem here:

Is it a paradox, or conundrum,
irony, or just plain old hypocrisy?
To rattle and hum in the humdrum
of what you can hear, but you can’t see.

 

For me to be lame like you and complain
about all your complaining.
When each drop of pain is so insane
as it thunders your constant raining.

 

It’s not just one, but each one
of you bad apples floating and rotting this cesspool of dis-ease
with your stupid bored intents to have fun
at the expense of the innocent joy that you steal without saying please.

 

Believe it or not, I have rights to care for my baby in public places.
Having a child should not bring a sentence of house arrest,
neither for me nor the safely supervised child just because we might see one of your faces.
I am showing him what’s wrong with your social culture and what’s for the best.

 

Think twice before shooing us away
from a public printer at the library,
while I’m filing for child support to my dismay,
as if we came just to personally annoy you, yet on the contrary…

 

It’s so easy to pick on the innocent
to fuel your outburst of power trip
to make your sick weak self of a stronger sentiment,
when we are trying to stay afloat and you want to sink a small ship.

 

Step back before throwing some hot
dirty blanket to smother my nursing baby at your thrift store
who’s feeding on the only energy I have and it’s not
even legal for you to interfere, then shoo me out the door.

 

At the store you get off on the cheap thrills
of getting caught snapping photos up my skirt
demonstrative of your petty life’s ills,
while I pay attention to my child and you are impossible to avert.

 

Seek and destroy the innocent targets,
your mentality screams to pursue
before everyone forgets
your pathetic life too.

 

When my child is moved to tears
by your whimsical poetry on this very stage
it actually means he was listening to your fears,
so swallow your own distracted attention-less rage

 

When I’m following my heart to merely lay eyes
upon an unrequited love of 10 years,
you may hear my baby as he cries
for me and for you as you drown yourself with beers.

 

While I remain designated in almost unwilling sobriety,
he sweetly whimpers, a high honor to witness your presence in your show for him to emulate on.
Although forced into a dingy toilet room too far back to be heard by your misconstrued propriety
of the tragedy of our tribute to the comedy sacrificial for our oppressed tribulation.

 

His cries are only of those that I hide,
to fit into the fake facades of the masks you all wear.
His cries threaten to strip them off to reveal what within you has died,
because it’s a lie that you can’t drown out background noises that you don’t want to hear.

 

It only makes him cry louder
to not allow me to bring his stroller to public shows.
As the crowd screams too loud, it gets harder
to carry another 30 lb body up a red rock mountain as no one cares and no one knows.

 

I refuse to stuff his little body as he fights
the 150 degree grim reaper heat inside a car at daylight.
Yet you step on our civil rights,
when you sweep us off your public sidewalk of the cooler night.

 

I can’t set him free on your toxic wasteland
of pesticide poisoned grounds, since his hands can reach his mouth.
Rip your hands off his mouth and
stop the silence before my foot kicks you somewhere south.

 

Speaking of which, don’t snap at me
when I refuse to agree
to your mutilation of baby genitals and forced trauma of parental failure with your stick stuck up stiff
because all the other lemmings are jumping off that cliff

 

Until years after my social lifes suicide,
I’ll face that edge of another cliff wall, so inviting the fall.
Without family to help care for the eyes that had cried,
the cries and screams of the rest of his life best haunt the daily nightmares of you all.

 

So before you shun, stifle, and shoo us away,
remember the tears of a boy I named Phoenix could have healed you if you invited them.
But you lost your chance to see what will and what may
will be the trade off price you pay if you attempt to condemn.