The Joy Out (an erasure remixed)

Sometimes I wander about looking for some sensible
artful words to say—
I find
I scramble
in public domains—
I breathe life different—
not better or more artful
life into said words—

I suck the joy out

give you a bushel of moldy lemons—
you ain’t making lemonade out of—
you’re “making due.” (do do do do)

Let there be a day when frozen brown rice, shredded cheese, and raw unsalted sunflower kernels are government issued—sometime today.

See if you make a nutritious pablum
from an unpalatable bolus
and how it changes your life.
No one is pleading for joy—
everyone is looking to get paid—
It appears like this, inside this skull,
inside this skull, anyway.

oy

oy the wind
the oi wind
stalwart
flood me
rain
flash silver

i abandon
i
i desolate
stumble down
wild

Joy
by Clarissa Scott Delaney

Joy shakes me like the wind that lifts a sail,
Like the roistering wind
That laughs through stalwart pines.
It floods me like the sun
On rain-drenched trees
That flash with silver and green.

I abandon myself to joy—
I laugh—I sing.
Too long have I walked a desolate way,
Too long stumbled down a maze
Bewildered.

(This poem, “Joy,” is in the public domain. The poem originally appeared in Opportunity IV, no. 26, in October, 1926)

“and she wipes the weary from her eyes
still glued to the no-good
glued to the high-definition glare
of low-definition life”

— Jason Reynolds & Jason Griffin / ain’t burned all the bright