More Mad then Men

​He wants to go back
wearing the tight, whitest
t-shirts without sleeves
to match their lightest skin.
 
They want you to stay
gripping frying pans
while sizzling quietly,
all made up, feeding babies
with nothing else to do.
 
They want to see the streets
paved without color, black
and white, no tints too bold.
Speaking the same traditional
language, no slang, subtitled,
their stories are the only ones
that should be retold.
 
They want to keep us gardeners,
gas pumpers, fry cooks, valets
and never talk, seethe back into
their smallest presence even
though our sweat has more to say.
 
They want to be the only ones
on ballots, to vote on juries, no
one else inquire why the
only color has the palest male tint.
 
They want a world stuck in
TV Land repeats. They fear
our creative tongues, and
our beautiful hues are a danger,
be the ones who fire, aiming
targets who look like me and you.
 
They look outside and see
their dye is changing, leaves
them more mad then men,
see us standing in polling
place lines, ready to exercise
our loudest election voices.
 
We hold all the future color
to their tasteless suits—who
wants to drink Vanilla forever
when Caramello flavors always
taste victorious on Tuesday morning?
 
While fearing windows outside,
inside they bury heads, raining pillow
tears, blue wave forecasts triumphant,
as Steve Kornacki resounds breaking news--
our rainbow faces always reflect the better view.  

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Adrian Ernesto Cepeda is the author of the full-length poetry collection Flashes & Verses… Becoming Attractions from Unsolicited Press and the poetry chapbook So Many Flowers, So Little Time from Red Mare Press. His latest work Between the Spine is a collection of erotic love poems that will be published in 2019 with Picture Show Press.  His poetry has been featured in Frontier Poetry, poeticdiversity, The Wild Word, The Fem, Pussy Magic Press, Rigorous, Palette Poetry, Rogue Agent Journal, Tin Lunchbox Review, Rhythm & Bones Lit, Anti-Heroin Chic, Neon Mariposa Magazine, The Yellow Chair Review and Lunch Ticket’s Special Issue: Celebrating 20 Years of Antioch University Los Angeles MFA in Creative Writing. One of his poems was named the winner of Subterranean Blue Poetry’s 2016 "The Children of Orpheus" Anthology Contest and two of his poems “Buzz Me” and “Estranged Fruit” were nominated for Best of the Net in 2015 and 2016. Adrian is an LA Poet who has a BA from the University of Texas at San Antonio and he is also a graduate of the MFA program at Antioch University in Los Angeles where he lives with his wife and their cat Woody Gold. He is an Alumnus of the PCC Creative Writing program. You can connect with Adrian on his website: http://www.adrianernestocepeda.com/