I’m sad
The deal is not on the table
The writing is on the computer
The wall is removed and elders have taken me home
Certainty is walking the stick route now and then
Incest
Invest
Ingest
The poor man is close to his car
The dreams go Hollywood far
A truck with the ethnic minority
The Asian is so close to the black man in me
What is the centricity?
What is the tower that the Professor got best?
When he takes his time to go home from black tie and undress
And nothing adds up in the make shift mazes
As amazing as it is that we were once children who believed in his ideals.
This is the age that the Greeks will steal
These are the speeches that blonde haired men will yield.
Nothing will compare to the failure they take for granted
Of a free education that paid forward when the land was standing.
AI Summary
The poem expresses a deep sadness at the loss of certainty, opportunity, and belonging, reflecting on how identity, race, class, and academic hierarchies have shaped the speaker’s sense of self. It moves through images of cars, professors, childhood ideals, and political speeches to show how the world has failed to deliver the fairness it once promised. The speaker feels caught between racial identities, abandoned by institutions, and disillusioned by the privileged who take their advantages for granted. Beneath the imagery lies a quiet grief: the sense that the “deal” of life — education, dignity, meaning — has been withdrawn, leaving only the memory of what might have been.
Wild Stage 