Has everybody but me heard about this poem that Obama wrote when he was a sophomore at Occidental college?
Not that there’s anything wrong with that!
Originally Posted by Fellowship of the Minds
When Barack Obama was a 19-year-old student at Occidental College, he published two poems in the Spring 1982 issue of Occidental’s literary magazine, Feast. One is the cringe-worthy “Underground” about “apes that eat figs.” The other poem, “Pop,” is much more interesting, biographical, and disturbing.
“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 shrink, 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.The poem reads autobiographical — about a young Obama’s relationship with a much older man whom he calls Pop. In his article for WND on March 7, 2012, Dr. Jack Cashill singles out this passage from the poem:
“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;”
Cashill writes that the most innocent explanation for the “amber stain” on the shorts of Pop and young Obama or “his smell, coming/ From me” is that Pop got the teenaged Obama drunk, and they both spilled whiskey (Seagrams) on themselves. But that interpretation does not explain why the spill is specifically on their shorts and not on their shirts or how Pop’s smell is also on (“from”) Obama.
