Shake the Dust
Anis Mojgani





This is for the fat girls
This is for the little brothers
This is for the schoolyard wimps
For the childhood bullies that tormented them

For the former prom queen
And for the milk crate ball players
For the nighttime cereal eaters and for the retired elderly Wal-Mart store front door greeters
Shake the dust.

This is for the benches and the people sitting upon them.
This is for the bus drivers driving a million broken hymns
And for the men who have to hold down three jobs simply to hold up their children.
For the nighttime schoolers
And for the midnight bike riders trying to fly
Shake the dust.

This is for the two year olds who cannot be understood
because they speak half English and half god
Shake the dust

For the boys with the beautiful, beautiful sisters
Shake the dust
For the girls with those brothers who are going crazy

Those gym class wall flower
And for the 12 year olds that are afraid of taking public showers
For the kid who's always late to class because he forgets the combination to his locker
For the girl who loves somebody else
Shake the dust.

This is for the hard men
Who want love, but know that it won't come
For the ones whose amendments do not stand up for
For the ones who are forgotten
For the ones who are told to speak only when they are spoken to
And then are never spoken to
Speak every time you stand
So that you do not forget yourself
Do not let one moment go by that doesn't remind you
That your heart beats 100 000 times a day
And that there enough gallons of blood
To make everyone of you oceans

Do not settle for letting these waves settle
And for the dust to collect in your veins.
This is for the celibate pedophile who keeps on struggling

For the poetry teachers
And for the people who go on vacations alone
For the sweat that drips of a Mick Jagger singing lips
And for the shaking skirt on Tina Turners shaking hips
And For the heavens, and for the hells through which Tina has lived

This is for the tired and for the dreamers
And for those families that will never be like the Cleavers
With perfectly made dinners, and songs like Wally and the Beaver
This is for the bigots
This is for the sexists
This is for the killers
And for the big house jail sentenced cats becoming redeemers
And for the springtime, that somehow always shows up after every single winter

This is for you,
This is for you.

Make sure that by the time the fisherman returns
You are gone
Because just like the days, I burn at both ends
And everytime I write, everytime I open my eyes
I am cutting out a parts of myself
Just to give them to you.
So shake the dust and take me with you do

For none of this, has ever been for me
All that pushes and pulls
And pushes and pulls
Pushes for you

So grab the world by its clothes pins
And shake it out again, and again
And jump on top and take it for a spin
And when you hop off, shake it again

For this is yours
Make my words worth something
Make this more than just another poem that I write
More than just another night that sits heavy above us all
Walk into it, breathe it in
Let it crash through the halls of your arms
Like the millions of years, of millions of poets
Coursing like blood
Pumping and pushing, making you live

Shaking the dust
So when the world knocks at your front door
Clutch the knob tightly, and open on up
Run forward into its wide spread greeting arms
With your hands before you
Your fingertips trembling
Though they may be