THE POEM WHICH PROVES FRANK MARSHALL IS OBAMA'S BIOLOGICAL FATHER

LUTHERAN SURREALISM:

Obama's Adolescent Poem

The following poem has been published in the Guardian. It's by Barack Obama. I liked it quite well, and felt that it has a certain lyrical urgency. He was 19 when it was written.

It was published in a student journal at Occidental College in 1981.

The poet to whom he is writing in the poem is pretty clearly Frank Marshall Davis, whom he addresses as "Pop," and who is one of Obama's mentors in Dreams of My Father.

Davis was a communist poet who was under heavy FBI scrutiny for decades due to his adherence to the CPUSA.

If you want to find his FBI file, it exists online. It's not clear to me to what extent Obama's mentor and he himself share a political line. But they shared poetry. I think Obama is quite lyrical in this piece.

Some think he didn't write his books, but I say he did. He clearly has an ear, and an eye, and a soul for poetry. See what you think. (The word shink three fourths of the way down may be a typo. It has a dictionary meaning of to shrink away.)

Pop

Sitting in his seat, a seat broad and broken
In, sprinkled with ashes,
Pop switches channels, takes another
Shot of Seagrams, neat, and asks
What to do with me, a green young man
Who fails to consider the
Flim and flam of the world, since
Things have been easy for me;
I stare hard at his face, a stare
That deflects off his brow;
I'm sure he's unaware of his
Dark, watery eyes, that
Glance in different directions,
And his slow, unwelcome twitches,
Fail to pass.
I listen, nod,
Listen, open, till I cling to his pale,
Beige T-shirt, yelling,
Yelling in his ears, that hang
With heavy lobes, but he's still telling
His joke, so I ask why
He's so unhappy, to which he replies ...
But I don't care anymore, cause
He took too damn long, and from
Under my seat, I pull out the
Mirror I've been saving; I'm laughing,
Laughing loud, the blood rushing from
his face
To mine, as he grows small,
A spot in my brain, something
That may be squeezed out, like a
Watermelon seed between
Two fingers.
Pop takes another shot, neat,
Points out the same amber
Stain on his shorts that I've got on mine,
and
Makes me smell his smell, coming
From me; he switches channels, recites
an old poem
He wrote before his mother died,
Stands, shouts, and asks
For a hug, as I shink*, my
Arms barely reaching around
His thick, oily neck, and his broad back;
'cause
I see my face, framed within
Pop's black-framed glasses
And know he's laughing too.*

Posted by Kirby Olson at 5:40 PM

I HAVE POSITED THAT FRANK MARSHALL DAVIS IS OBAMA'S BIOLOGICAL FATHER HERE AND HERE AND HERE.

ANOTHER HERE.

AND HERE.

MORE HERE.

THIS ICES FOR ME: OBAMA CALLS DAVIS "POP".

THE JIBES WITH EVERYTHING ELSE I'VE POSTED - INCLUDING THE TIMING.