Biography (Thesis Statement)

I rose not like flower or like tree Not like eagle's hubris in the sun Old skin shed in the divided city Last clone of a manhood almost done And so I tasted the salt that lingered in blood When the sea was pushed to the edge And the land was wet and squirming in mud I was in the litter of its self-knowledge I know my city better now, where met The passions of my birth, life is beautiful But shallow here, much to regret and forget But I will exhume me from the bountiful Shallowness and litter, I will my heart To the silent stars and write my life In words of truth. Montego Bay, let me start In you, the doldrums where the fear was rife. It was not the wind, but the fire that sent My mother descending through smoke of tears Along the pavement hard without lament And her three children pined at crowded stairs My brother was swallowed by the city's mire My sister's drug was her desire, she called Eight from her flesh to mother's feast of prayer Thank you God for your mercies that enthralled That's context now, while I bleat my life From the ghetto's battlefield to stable and school Something provoked my hunger and strife Something led like a pen along the edge of a rule For I have smelled the cordite fumes of death And the magic scent of ganja on slum night air I from school have fled and gasped for breath Along a street where splintered blood appeared So I dispense this news for you struggling child Wriggling sand to walk out of my burning shoes Soon I shall strip away the mask pile by pile Promise you will dance, dance slowly to my blues I give you more than wax feathers for the sun For old Sisyphus by labor endless was worn down And did not see the rise sinking to the run In each man's failure another man's victory abound.