Free Chorus by Saul Williams

curse of integrity.
    Â Â Â Â Â The poison slips off in malformed droplets, my toes struggle to reabsorb them, but they have no tongues     no tongues       no
    Â Â Â Â Â The poison surrenders.
    Â Â Â Â Â Sobriety overwhelms, almost unnoticed, drawing lies upon
    Â Â Â Â Â my spine, over my head – to suffocate
    Â Â Â Â Â It begins plastering an artificial masterpiece ; a disguise; a
    Â Â Â Â Â false sense of nature
    Â Â Â Â Â The new skin is made up of unnaturally restrictive fibers –
    Â Â Â Â Â papier-mâché soup
    Â Â Â Â Â Strips of gummy glue and tatty newspapers
    Â Â Â Â Â with stories of the 1940s and ’50s
    Â Â Â Â Â I only want to clutch at my breast and rip the soggy bits of paper from my skin
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  before they dry
Too late.
    Â Â Â Â Â I am a doll once more, mummified in traditions and encapsulated in cruel words
    Â Â Â Â Â I explore my mouth, open, close, open, close
    Sticky spiderwebs form between my lips – glue
    My tongue is trapped – I make mere noises;
    articulation a lost skill.
    no Voice

67
    Listen: the cavalry rides at dusk
    Whiskey short on breath in the bonfire nights
    A curse, a daydream, visions of fire, a string ’cross wood
    Plucked from shoulders unsteady and years too soon
    Air scorched with some Hell I haven’t known
    (And babe: I’ve seen a few in my time)
    Here they keep the bones, withered and wilted, flower to dust
    Bleached to oil stain under northern lights
    The Summer is the end of all things luminary
    After decay comes the obscurity, my good old friend
    Fifteen years it has been since they came
    The Bird-men, painted all the colors of death
    Feathers slicked back, smiling toothless maw Hello
    For my daughter, auburn and heart beats an hour
    Head asunder, thighs pale in bare sunshine
    At the foot of this pine tree your
    Baptismal waters run red across your love
    Meanwhile watches with pinhole eyes
    Blind but to presence, creature of scent and touch
    Waits
    Undiscovered are means that our ends are a mystery
    Slipping forth from darkness cavernous
    Echoes blood from the font
    Voice of a man forgotten, a blue room filled with smoke
    A green world constructed for tenants unfound
    The flickering lights of a world’s stolen electricity
    Batteries and acids corrosive in nostrils meant not
    Even in the right direction lost to haze
    Flows a river, wonders the flesh how we ever got by without it
    The man docked in his cruel Owl mask, finger raised
    Summoning from the rocks struck a wind
    And words without voice, life without end
    â€œCome and see, traveler, come and see”
    At the foot of the mount the burning girl lays
    Processional runs the blue vigil
    Stirs the blood not to see, not to come forward
    This world you’re rid of, I see
    To the head of the line the faces are dust
    And forward, finger curled, you cinder me
    Voice lilting, soul and heart are nothing
    There is nothing that you cannot be, so sing your song
    I will come to you
    Waters forth, calling to sheets laid ago
    Underneath the gauze veil, touch at your lips
    In other kingdoms I cannot discern with these eyes
    The velvet dark blew in
    Hold me close, my dear, my love, hold me
    I will show you a world you never heard of in this life
    Oh, sweet girl, your fingernails run across
    my shoulders like ice flakes
    Damp to the touch and carved in rocks skipped across stillness
    No, no, soon, too soon, what have we become
    Rubs the flesh to the mind, so close to sunshine,
    O God, daughter
    Climb onto my shoulder and don’t say a word
    We’re leaving and we’re leaving for Earth
    Don’t look back for a second, not a second, I
    unto you as you unto me, to the starlight
    To the warm tendrils of the sun beyond
    The moon is only a reflection, dear
    Close your eyes, have no despair, don’t listen
    Not a