Freedom

Freedom by Cory Ehrlicher What is freedom, really? Freedom is titling your poem “Freedom” In spite of overuse Freedom is walking out Despite another’s truce Freedom is ridicule Though you swore you understood Freedom is speaking Though you swore you never could Freedom is scrapping the rhymes so I can get this over with Freedom is not knowing why you do so many stupid things But doing them anyway Freedom is being somebody you don’t know It’s being a beautiful loser Freedom is sinning on Sunday Knowing God is mad at your malingering Freedom’s eyes are getting heavy Though dreams are dashed day by day The chimes of freedom are flashing, Bob Dylan So go ahead and gawk at it It is a thoughtless escapade And the onus of guilt It is a blissful adventure And the paranoia of a love affair It is the gospel of God And the manifesto of a maniac It is planting a tree And insulting the Earth It’s playing till your fingers bleed On violin strings that burst A girl who’s like a melody But disarms you like a verse I’m rhyming again Aren’t I? It makes you feel like a man An albatross hanging high Freedom is waking up and seeing yourself through the wrong end of a telescope Freedom is waking up under a spotlight, though as time passes, your skin burns worse and worse Freedom is your skin burning in pain Freedom is a kid with a magnifying glass Freedom is God in the backyard playing with ants Freedom’s mom slaps the back of His hand and issues a time-out Freedom lives in the house next door Freedom is tied to a dog-house with a rope Freedom is teased and taunted by that unruly kid for the last time Freedom breaks loose and sinks its teeth into the kid’s heel So what? The little fucker was asking for it It is Achilles with an embarrassing secret It is an insane dog nipping at its own heel Freedom is thriving on doubt And wilting under certainty It is music that grabs you by the lapels and says “listen to me” And it whimpers in deserted concert halls Freedom is strange friendship Freedom is common separation Freedom is a happy childhood memory Freedom is a long-lost father It is that kid who never stood a chance And it is that guy who never gave a fuck That guy who calls your mom asking if he can tell you “something important” But you’re at a friend’s house and she tells him to get lost, so he does Freedom is wizen Freedom is bloom It is rain that falls on the borderline Wind that shrieks down the avenue Thunder that roars through the world And snow that drifts through the universe The white-capped waves and the silence of the sea The highest hope and the messiest misery It is the curse of a family, a tree poisoned at its roots A tree with dollar bills that flutter to the ground at the Fall of man It is a cold Winter, but all and all, money is made of wood It is the Spring of everything’s passing, and a sweltering Summer beyond It is a German boy on a transatlantic liner Seeking the shores of Miami A boy who would become a man Who fights for nothing, becomes nothing, and lets you down Freedom is ringing from the red hills of Georgia Freedom is MLK’s lost cause Freedom is everything which is yes Freedom is e.e. cummings blathering like a child Freedom goes to seek a “Great Perhaps” Freedom is smiling before the white sails lift and you’re gone It is climbing into the rabbit-hole to see dirt It is falling into the rabbit-hole to wake up somewhere better Freedom is wasted on the free It is lightly here, stepping softly Freedom is blundering over the sand Fanning out like a pandemic Washing everything in symbols and metaphors The false ambassadors of a broken land And a tinted-window world Where the bad stuff is out of sight Freedom’s blood is spilling overseas Freedom thinks it is alive in this room Freedom is running into the crossfire Freedom is sitting at this desk writing a pointless poem Freedom is getting gunned down by other fenced-in souls Freedom is vegetating in front of a TV screen Freedom is writhing in the dirt, staring up at the sky for the last time, and as it draws its final breath, marveling at how lucky it is to have lived Freedom is sitting on a couch, throwing its hands up in frustration, and cursing its TiVo for recording Jersey Shore Freedom is parting farewell and saying everything will be okay The faces you saw in the doorway look different now Freedom swears itself away to commit the worst crime ever perpetrated It is someone else’s quarrel and the field and sky Are determined by who can scream the loudest Because freedom is madness While the footfalls of freedom’s men splash and rhyme, you wonder how you got to this point It’s like something placed you here  Ignorant of your consent But it isn’t something you blame Like when you find yourself in the middle of a dream, you just accept it No matter how outrageous or unreal Freedom is dragged to a tower-top Your killing machine hunts for prey The hate in your hands is not the hate in your heart But again, that chilly metal doesn’t have your consent, and it doesn’t care Someone who could have been your best friend Stands within the scrutiny of a crosshair You could have had nights together joking around, drinking beer, and complaining about women But you were fated for separation Your index finger trembles The heartbeat in your ear and the lump in your throat ear isn’t guilt or fear It is not something of this world You know this man His profile is familiar Something about his face recalls your childhood Or does it? Rearranging your thoughts doesn’t help you But there is something there Something that no mind can conceive Freedom’s skies rush above the majesty of mountains Above a bamboo world  Of fruited fields That puts honor above all else Freedom was there Where the field and sky met Across the way Beyond the purple jags and mud-hut terrain Somewhere no mind can touch, or ever has Where people don’t kill each other just because they’re dizzy And have spent their lives spinning in circles Whys and hows won’t get you any closer Freedom’s arms are outstretched And after a bowl of rice, some milk, and some honey You fall in a field and laugh away the afternoon Wondering up at a sky that parts open and speaks to you The estrangement was an artifice crafted by a machine A tinted-window reflection of busted glass The shattered shards of a great nation A good lie shot between the eyes Freedom, you knew this all along But never saw it until it was at the mercy of that cold metal Freedom, lay down your arms Freedom, reach for the sky