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Aris Kian, performing at WoWPS 2023 in Baltimore, MD.
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One time I brought a poem to class it Was a slam poem and I was sharing it With my class I was really excited about It because I wanted to share my art form With this poetry class and my teacher Said my professor mind you said that it Was mostly spectacle and laugh like in Lacking craft Lacking craft And I just want to celebrate everybody That just stepped on the stage real Quick uh because we know what the Craft is Um somebody asked me if I could haunt Any space what would it be and I said um I'd haunt the out of academic Spaces I'd smear my blood over wooden bookcases Watch it drip off the covers cover the Names in red wash these authors out of The Canon I am my own Canon which is to Say I am a weapon that houses the Magnificent destruction which is to say I am my own poem And what is a poem If not the weapon and The gun smoke if not the trigger and the Boom in the Twilight after it's long Gone it's not a song that clings to your Chest at night if not the words you Can't forget My spirit would belt her own lyrics in The middle of a syllabus make Jazz Chords of a lesson plan I like the desks To home with every argument I started
With a white Professor on Dickinson or Williams or Whoever Frost Frost these floors in an Ice cold hush when I enter I am the one You won't forget I am the one they Warned about statistics How hard it is to enter a room that Never had a door for me How I shouldn't be here How in other worlds my name is chiseled Onto more gravestones than degrees How black is both the weapon and the gun Smoke But if I walk through walls that tried To shut me out then I must be the Pettiest ghost ride the tales of my Petticoat as I cast a lovesick haunting On every Ivory Tower where depression Tried to shut me out Or application fees tried to shut me out Where the GRE works hard my God works Harder 21 credits and two jobs were nothing but A soul search I am a poltergeist of high Price and mighty persistence and what is A ghost if not a holy hope if not a wish For a finishing if not a living reminder Of what they thought they could kill Thank you
