Didn’t you once believe in art?
Didn’t you once have a beating heart?
when you told me the story
about a poet and her friends
who went to see a king
but he wouldn’t let them in
except for her fine eyes

She told him of the troubles
throughout their country
She told him of her worries
for all their people
She told him this in rhyme
and in the rhythms
of her song
She told him this
in rhyme and with the poetry
of her tongue
& that’s when he began to see

(( ))


Mother you once watched
a monk light himself on fire
in 1963 when you thought fire
might say more than a gun
or all the bombs
over Viet Nam
but his ashes contradicted him
he was burning himself for peace
It was that kind of world

So you took me away
to an ivory tower
In the hills where gold lay
I grew into a princess
and I never learned to speak
in my rightful language
I only learned to choke
on all the beautiful English
that burns my throat today

(( ))


Didn’t you once believe in art?
Didn’t you promise to fight with your words?
Well fight with words we did
stumbling over our own tongues
Mother you were the child
that I failed to love
And I’m sorry if I did

‘Cause now you praise the warfare
& the flags of our follies
& I am just an Innocent
who knows nothing of History
I only know the stories
about the old poets who once
you dreamed of following
bringing the world to reason


As I still dream today