The Negative Man Poem by Naveed Akram

I protested and howled from courtesy and righteousness,
I was in pennies, I was in a coax of shrunken wisdom.
I made up my sobs, collecting my taxes, protruding the taste,
So finishing my task of powder and slime, of present and past.

And so I protested about the same, the very same wheel caught
By its spokes, very good enlightenment for the soul that shines
Farther than the reaches of the Earth and the Sun combined;
I love to feel the ears and their sounds, forcing the protestations.

Now, an income was weaker, contracting my muscles, like inner
Light combined with permuted souls, looking out for a foe to steal.
And so I objected, and I protested to the best of being and ostrich,
Like a bird so full of flight and rigidity, that quakes atrociously inward.

My better held day was an introduction to a present called Life,
And to a modest income was my day a forgotten matter of might.
I was a muscle, not a nerve; I was a mouth not a nose, my neck
Cropped out like sudden branches of the holy wells and trees.

My thin welcome was a forgotten man, a forgiving woman, and
A child of force and wit, my thin welcome was a plot and story.
It was when I started to complain, when my residence was sudden,
That people called out like a prayer so as to quieten the negative man.