Dennis Leroy Kangalee
The Passion of an Outsider Artist
Tag Archives: acceptance
So Much Beauty to Offer, But too Ugly To Move
Just remember to write, tuck the face, face the soul
Until the foul
Erodes
Like the million splintered tiny silver angels that floated on that morning when everything changed.
Receive the vision so you may heal the tribe
Write the stories only if you feel the vibe
But don’t outsource your soul
Not everyone
Can have
An Elephant Man
so stay down in the trench and come up just once when night appears
or the day the sun has decided to make you his ally.
!["A Kangalee Mourning" [photo by Nina Fleck, 2009]](https://dennisleroykangalee.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/dlkangalee.jpg)
“A Kangalee Mourning” [photo by Nina Fleck, 2009]
*this poem was originally published in the Outlaw Poetry Network
Unseen Portrait
I realized this morning that I could never have met Mandela after he had been released from jail
Because I was not famous
Just another brown face trying to carve out my legacy amidst rejection letters, poorly written poems, and richly dreamt dreams that try to reconcile all of the sins
of irresponsible men in waiting rooms
and the eulogies for all tomorrow’s children
who, further removed from the gray heaven of blood and electric typewriters,
have come to accept a world where folk heroes are not born
but made
by a media conglomerate
who had no interest in freedom or humanity in the first place
I accept tonight that I will never meet the Dalai Lama,
I am not powerful enough
In fact, I am quite weak –
Too weak
And, as some bird in the twilight corner of the sky knows,
The way my sore teeth concede:
A raw nerve never gets a break
It only gets
removed
*
A Loser Can Surely Find Time For Love
Before that I thought I was just another waking asphalt animal perched on his shaky brick-limb trying to do what it is that rats do to stay alive.
The rats are the true underground.
Hamptons in Harlem.
Condos creeping.
My belly is torn asunder.
They’ve pulled apart the letters of alphabet city.
Don’t mind me–it’s just my feet are getting wet and I never realized I could swim. The Mets are Citibank pets in steel cages.
Plastic surgeons from the west coast have brought their palm trees with them, they’ll be importing the rest of the emptiness later.
They’re sending me to the outbacks, the caves in the dunes where books meet man and clean hands are an ideal to achieve.
Losers
Like Loners
Make the
Best
Lovers.
They have so much to give.
They don’t need me here. Give me my apocalypse and ship me out soon.
I am not sure how long I can carry this battery.
*
originally published in the Lower East Side BOOG City poetry journal, Summer 2012
& included in the chapbook “Lying Meat”
On Discovering a Poet Inside Me While At a Day Job
Poets toil, poets sweat, poets even steal to pay the rent.
Even a bad poet has an original thought or two–one worth thinking about…if only he could get from under his boss’ foot.
Submission fees.
Subway fares.
Sounds suspicious to me.
But if they done it to Christ they can do it to you. He was a poet wasn’t he?
A carpenter with ideas that were later hammered home-his own lyrics nailed him to the cross.
It’s 11:03 and I’m still here. I’ve lost my voice. I still fear the emptiness. I’m packing boxes, sanding latches, logging on and smiling so I can sing my songs at night.
What Happened to me?
Somewhere along the line
There was a dash I slipped between
Crossing chasms and ugly paper
Nasty train knees and looks of corporate dough;
Somewhere along the way
They locked my soul and took my place
I donned a mask and hid my face
But I sat at the table so I could eat
Beneath the crumbling sky made of paper Mache’
And tiny bleeding nails.
I may die a nobody, I may work as a slave
But I know in my heart there was somebody
Driven
Proud
And brave.
Dennis Leroy Kangalee 