It is 11:25 PM, and the little squeaks, squeals, bumping, banging and hooting around the poet’s van tonight which woke her and have kept her awake, scientifically, every time she achieved sleep so far tonight ~ and for which her presence, just as intended, will be blamed by neighbors in the morning ~ shows no signs of abating.

Neighbors may also be noting the powerful odor of methamphetamines presently invading the van.

Shall we use the time to offer a work of poetry?

*****

Recorded Reading (4:16): https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/1u34gg4bkptrixhwc6o79/Free-Not-Cheap.mp3?rlkey=te3prbl9eklq7g12vrpod8w0m&dl=0

*****

Free Not Cheap

This has been a problem
When I meet and greet:
A little too street
For the elite
And a little too elite for the street

Insufficient militant
For the activists
Don’t fit in
Any boxes
On surveillance lists

I shave my head, though not a nun
Any known religion of,
And spend my days
In lotus posture
Writing of redeeming love

Between the rich and poor,
Also between the poor and rich,
Encouraging the liberated
Woman be
Less of a bitch

To men, perhaps misplaced, but
Genuine in effort are
(Without each other,
Ladies,
We would not get very far!)

Appreciative I am, as is
Any staunch conservative,
Of value which
All things unique and precious
Truly give

Yet open to communion,
And not patronizingly,
Either, but
As a true equal,
To the less fortunately

Disposed among my brethren,
Giving value to
The more heart centered
Understandings
They tend oft’ner to…

It’s easy to discover
Who I’m “for” —
Most everyone! —
Responsible adults
And kids out for a little fun

Things that change
Before our eyes
A single generation in,
Also things which haven’t changed
Since ever earthly time begin

What is much more difficult
To find is what I am “against” —
Naught there be
Which I refuse
To be by well influenced

One by one,
I speak in voices
Each consciousness of,
Nor find any object’ionable
When gazed upon with love

None jettisoned from my regard
However hard their stumble
However steep their fall
However dark the inner night
Which thence their soul appall

But even these confusions
Somehow fail to well explain
The dedicated
Trouble to which
Some will go to bring me pain

I am the very essence
Of a hanger in a gown —
And here we have,
I think, at last,
To that gritty nit come down:

Safe at lifted noses’ length,
In society, we try,
With fervor and
With diligence,
Unceasingly to classify,

By any necessary means,
All deviance as declasse
From strict
And ugly mandates
Of the fashionable day

If someone comes along
Not only such conventions flout
But by this means becomes
More lovely than
Themselves turned out

And one readily humorous
As well, with something of
Actual substance to say —
The ladies will agglomerate
To put that one away

No use attempting all to please:
I’d never move
A leg or arm
Without digressing to assure
It fit some passing norm

So they may keep
The drawing rooms
Where they encourage
One another to consider
Belly laughter sacriledge

And in the baser hovels
They can also keep their scorn
Of anything
They haven’t known
Since the day that they were born

Artists may keep
The jealousy
Which scattered makes our brotherhood,
Owners keep the rabid dogs
Guarding in their neighborhood

Manipulators keep
The carrots they
Prepare to offer me
To be anything but the
Genuine self that I be:

Granddaughter of a duchess,
Disinherited
Fate’s flying
Fickle finger by,
Into indigence led

Now I remain there only by
Th’integrity I stubborn keep ~
Unexpected though it be:
I am free
Not cheap.

*****

This poet presently lives at a fraction of her nation’s poverty level.

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