Bilal Moon – The Great Gatsby [Video]

By Button Poetry

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Bilal Moon, performing at Button Poetry Live, November 2017.

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Button Poetry is committed to developing a coherent and effective system of production, distribution, promotion and fundraising for spoken word and performance poetry.

We seek to showcase the power and diversity of voices in our community. By encouraging and broadcasting the best and brightest performance poets of today, we hope to broaden poetry’s audience, to expand its reach and develop a greater level of cultural appreciation for the art form.

Transcript provided by YouTube (unedited)

0:01
a mother cries on her knees in front of
0:04
her lies the grave of the green light of
0:06
her life too young for the deep end of
0:09
the earth there is a man crying in a
0:11
church confessional for a woman’s tears
0:13
he did not intend for a cold case he
0:15
does not intend to start a fire
0:17
a detective fumes because the church
0:19
pastor refuses to wear a wire for the
0:21
sake of God a fireman preys on his knees
0:24
for rain in a world flooded with smoke a
0:27
convenience store clerk is being held at
0:29
gunpoint for a pack of cigarettes by a
0:31
robber too proud for the church
0:33
confessional a plainclothes police
0:35
officer wrestles him from behind neither
0:37
of their daughters know that tides of
0:39
trouble they go through they are still
0:41
students learning fractions from a
0:43
teacher who could write an autobiography
0:45
about subtraction her husband the
0:47
fisherman who trusted Poseidon and their
0:49
baby the target of an unsolved
0:51
kidnapping the bell for recess does not
0:53
free her she hears children chasing each
0:56
other’s laughter she gave up the chase
0:58
when laughter trapped itself inside a
1:00
boy on the playground with not enough
1:02
real friends and too many broken crayons
1:04
flips through a used coloring book given
1:06
to him for his birthday the girl who
1:07
first owned it was encouraged to stay
1:09
within the lines but sometimes her heart
1:12
poured on to the page there is a patient
1:14
who wishes for his heart to stop leaking
1:16
a doctor struggles to break the truth to
1:19
a family who watches the waves on the
1:21
cardiogram like the student who counts
1:23
down the clock to end of school the
1:25
ringing Bell does not mean freedom he
1:27
must serve detention the way his father
1:29
serves attention he has not been taught
1:31
that he can be something more than the
1:33
holes in his genes there is a tailor who
1:35
has never faced a tear she cannot patch
1:37
but she is running out of fabric for the
1:39
homeless man outside her business he
1:41
raises his cup to the sky but change
1:43
does not come to the passerby struggling
1:46
to stay afloat in the rapid stream of
1:48
bills he fails to land of job because of
1:50
the way he looks his faith and justice
1:53
comes crashing like a tsunami of cases
1:55
upon his lawyer who has not slept in 25
1:58
hours she comes home to find her
2:00
boyfriend sleeping with his wife love
2:03
has always been a four-letter knife
2:05
inches away from ending her life a
2:07
victim of bullying remembers her father
2:09
is coming home from the war today he has
2:11
seen enough murdered children to shed
2:13
river beds for the
2:14
see of their bodies an orphan barely
2:17
breathing begs the soldier to take her
2:19
back home with him she dreams of streets
2:21
where children can play without fear of
2:22
death there is a boy who never knew his
2:25
parents he kicks the ball back and forth
2:28
with his only friend until he hits it
2:30
into the street his friend goes to get
2:32
it but does not come back the green
2:34
light is all he knows he takes this
2:36
wisdom to a mother who has not been home
2:38
long enough to dry her tears he
2:40
confesses his ocean of guilt she holds
2:43
him tight like the Sun she held earlier
2:45
this week and breathes into his drowning
2:48
heart so we beat on boats against the
2:54
current
2:57
[Applause]

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This post was previously published on YouTube.

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