Ten thousand degrees hotter
That’s my fire
What could the lowly phoenix know
I am that kind of revision for what I’ve been through
Even as the bird rises from the ashes it cannot help but to acknowledge
The life I’ve lived and the burden I was given
At my birth to carry
By nations; over their waters, their many hills and valleys
All it has seen is death from who knows what
I’ve had my ankles chained, been whipped and raped
And mutilated before I was lynched
A practice of some of the vilest gentlemen – and their ladies
Who spoke eloquently of peace while spitting on my children and I
They told me of a God who said be good and obedient
Yet there was no love or obedience toward me
I was bound while my daughters were raped by these “goodly” gentlemen
These goodly men who to this day come to prayer and confession
Tell me Phoenix, did they repent or throw away their sacrifice and show mercy
I was even bound in the rain in the open gate, naked
Chained to a tree for nothing more than reading a book
For trying to understand the language being forced upon me
Somehow, they got it in their heads that I was better off for this
Than I was content in my city before these good men betrayed me
Then I heard this fable about a bird that rises after death
And I was through and thoroughly impressed
Until I fully realized in the verse
That this phoenix was nothing more than empty words
That bird never died the way I died
Never was beaten down and was still given strength to rise
Did it thrive under the gavel of oppression without realizing
And then stood side by side with the oppressor as evil assimilated its children
Phoenix can’t know the pain that I know
So what of this lowly sparrow
The good tale spun to make it graceful-like
How dare they give it such a romantic visage
While I strive and never saw elevation
Above the station of a servant to a few
Who forcefully removed me from my beautiful shore
To a land benign and full of cold white snow
Where I was forced to die the death told in the tale of the winged
Graceful-like bird that flew after tasting the empty
Cup of death and rose days after
Hmm – I have to ask you
Oh land that my children reside
Openly denying their ancestors’ rite
During assimilation they were forced to resign
The names of their parents for the name of the dying
Man, the emptiness I feel inside of them
Has the one who told them died in vain
He spoke, He said true to a fault
My people, my people know not who they are
They know not their names
They know not they are vain
They know nothing of their former glory
Because they look only to the place from which their pains come
For aid in times of need
Never realizing that their need to cause pain arises from the pain
And giving their power to the causation of pain clause
The same who told the story of the phoenix
I hear of lands far in the past
Their stories told in glorious allegories turned true
Though spinning of tales that turned history to the blue
Phoenix, phoenix do you now see
What tales came out of my nations
The savages that bludgeoned us while we slept mocks us
Depicting us running through bushes and eating one another
They tell their women and children we have spears and bones through our noses
Fearful and inglorious our riotous fables
Written by the same who wrote your-story
Cities were decimated as beautiful as they once were
Now broken and shattered left to ruins for the generations after to find
And view as monuments of an age said peoples, unknown
With a slight revision of a whisper of a people’s past
How many am I that died
Phoenix, the fortunate fabled bird that dies once and rises
I die for no reason, and die, and die, and continue to die in these days
Where my own children gleefully waste each other in the light of day
We can blame others, for it is shameful to blame the killers
Yet to stop, there is an unwillingness to even consider
This shedding of innocent blood gives each murderer a thrill of sorts
After all, it is just a little sport
Even those calling themselves names with which they were labeled
How foolish is it phoenix, for me to behold
This people, these children of mine once bold
In their ways they can be made peaceful
Now turned the warlords of old
I die again watching them spill their own blood
Bragging shamelessly of the kill like it’s a badge of honor
No code could ever be so divisive as this
Tell me, phoenix what should be made of it
The endless insanity that reaches me
From morning till night when I am in thoughts so deep
I am robbed of peace and tranquility
Because I hear your tale and this is what I see
Tell me in truth, what could you be
More than I, oh phoenix
How would you rise
With my burden on your back or the way I died
Would you sit in a grave awaiting a revival
Would you in your wisdom seek to trivialize
For the sake of peace and getting along daily
The death you’re forced to die again and again
The suffering, the shame, and all the pain held for generations
You are a bird told to die and live
So in truth we have a common element in life
To suffer the suffering of our transgressors
To rise after we have been beaten and killed
But I suffer beyond the point of death
What say you phoenix
Would you rise to face the day under these conditions
For each time I rise it is in the belly of a beast
That killed me seventy times seven and continues killing me still
