On another writing day in Word Play Friday, Pacia decided to express her love for reading and I ever so inspired was compelled to offer my own rebuttal that we might be twins in tandem page turning and I submit to you a freewrite about freereading, the next great sport in human existence.
they are / tools of the trade / the needle’s point / where parables are sown / the fuse by which / imagination is sparked / a playground where we / commune with muses / consort with impossibility / indulge our intellect / and align in inspiration / majestic epics / or short literary relics / quests and zealots / or how to better sell it / weld it / antiquity / I’ve held it / letterpressed and smelled it / like tree rings from tall oaks / dead poets give rise / cuz see / when books come alive / so do I / from first editions / motivational speakers / free Riverfront Times / the lines / on a parking meter / I am a deeper / free thinker / because I am / a reader / a knowledge seeker / open-minded unblinded / critiquer / a free speecher / ink bleeder / I be her
be he me / long arm of the law / reacher / for ideas seeming fleeting / explicitly exploratory / especially exotic / once nicknamed “quixotic” / for i pursued knowledge / until knowing curiosity / became a nuisance / a black man / made his home in stacks of ancient tomes / making mischief of history’s mystery / dub me encyclopedia brown / not snuff enough to be ruffled by the limited reasoning / of wikipedia-ed down / writers / i need insight from an insider / an elder’s eloquence / first hand stories from the unforgetting elephant / that left footprints next to harrison / marcus martin or malcolm / my mental mark must be broader than an outcome / we need more study of the “how come” / breed us more readers / who won’t be held hostage / that what is hidden between the lines / goes unnoticed by black folk / who so caught up in a chain game / they chase debt / until permanently reattached to that black yoke / but i proclaim sallie mae must give us free / cause my tuition at the public library / means i can put more of what i learn to work / for me.