Frank Bana - Not So Old...

I don't feel so old, nor overlooked
I listen to The Clash and skim Camus
Just as I did with revolutionary friends
Open for anything new
I insist that nothing should matter more
Than the poetry of the living heart
To cast humility on powerful men
To serve the suffering of the poor

I share your sore heads in the morning light
And the lonely reds in the deep hot night
The hunger for coffee and the thirst for news
Are sharp as knives and my own deep blues
I don't age visibly in traffic lines
I sit down daily to clean my shoes

I ran against cancer in a race for death
And taught her well, to love me besides
While fending off her obsessive embrace
And even when lost in a chemical haze
Fine wine women could turn my head
Passing me by
Hinting at inner light

It is lately confirmed: we are all of one race!
Diversity's fractions will aggregate
To compose one love, become one world.
And I'm still young enough to be really disturbed
By the wilfully insular. I prefer
To revere tender words
To be holding forth
That children are the sacred ones on earth.

I will keep my faith in humankind
By all and any means necessary
I will love those devoted to other books
LIfe has not kicked the Jew out of me
I extend my hand to evangelists
Who seek to convert me on aeroplanes
Dripping love for Israel, the end of days
And all the passions I don't care to obey.

My poems take aim like suicide bombs
That die on their flight to the ether, unread
I still have heroes, living simply and well
On hills where uncrowned kings are fed
Sitting by the roadside
At the window sill
Preparing to stand where time is still.

Frank Bana

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/not-so-old/