the first stone shall be the last
the voice of our millenium is a niggah junky
gagging on stage
to heart-felt bass & trombone
pissing rhythmically in his jock
snot running into his forbidden funky os
now that machines have finally taken over
we can get into something serious
like art
i have my one-way ticket
to the moon
i am inculcated with the dangers
of incriminating love
after riding the desert in her ’63 cherry cad
she uncovered herself beneath the sphinx
rut on her breath
the t.v. is preaching my children hibakusha
i am in love with a fuck freak who
lives in my alley
the constant preoccupation of a sphere
is in traversing the Möbius strip
i throw the symbols. i make reverberations
myth/my girlchild and me
cackle joyfully in the kitchen
as we make cookies
for the party of the world
Bottom Out Blues
you scoot along the bottom
think you goin’ somewheres
you scoot around on bottom
think you gonna go somewheres
you walkin’ in the darkness
see daylight everywhere
boll weevil in your cotton
gettin’ fat down in the hole
boll weevil in your cotton
got his nose down in the hole
you fishin’ in the darkness
with a broken fishin’ pole
refrain: 3x6 i left my man for somethin’ new
3x6 i left my man for somethin’ new
so tired of fuss ’n struggle
don’t know what to do
love’s like cotton sleepers
takes a lot of wear & tear
love’s jes’ like cotton sleepers
takes a lot of wear & tear
abuse them rags too often
gonna leave your behind bare
Ms. Pac Man
video fever comes late. i am found
in the neighborhood family arcade dropping quarters
i race the phosphorescent yellow critter across the diagram
eating dots as she zooms
something in this computer chase sweats me
it’s not a game i’m good at—neck and arms tensed
tongue against teeth
i’ve gulped the cherry raspberry, orange and pretzel
once i scored the apple, but the pear and banana elude me
i can’t stand being watched by better players
when the pastel spooks trap my glowing yellow self
i curse loudly and ignore the stares
i’m careful not to blow many quarters—even this
engrossing little chase is luxury—
my metaphor my life (the harder i play the lower i score)
as the board promises a goal of 5000 points plus free game—
too little for too much effort i pursue my dramas/those
tasty shimmery blue spooks bursting into points i’m certain
will put me over
but don’t
Bruno
washing six-months’ worth of dirt & the devil off
the old car
is cheap stress therapy
the front window on the passenger’s side
was shattered by a vandal
twice this year
the first time we had the money to get it
replaced. the second
time we didn’t
we keep it parked across the street in front of
the movie studio
sound stage
it’s a 1968 Buick Skylark we bought together but
it belongs to me
it was towed away once. we had to cough up a
few hundred to
cover tow fees
delinquent registration and a ticket gone to warrant
what’s she doin’ drivin’ a rogue’s car?
it used to have a stylish vinyl top which has
cracked and
peeled off
when driving the jagged edges make a strange
flapping noise like
retreads about to blow
what’s left of the paint job suggests metallic green
now it’s primer gray
cracked and blistered
dented in spots
the tires have been borderline flats for some time
we’re careful never
to drive it unless
absolutely necessary. the transmission has a leak
it needs fluid
every 7–10 days
the rear brakes are shot, the radio/tape player defunct
altho the black leather
interior is still nice
if dusty and worn at the rear window deck & speakers
i maintain it minimally until the day when we can
afford to either
restore or replace it
i wonder how long it’ll be before it’s stranded
in an intersection
and has to be junked
like my raggedy hand-to-mouth
Emmett Till
1
river jordan run red
rainfall panes the bottom acreage—rain
black earth blacker still
blackness seeps in seeps down
the mortal gravity of hate-inspired poverty
Jim Crow nidus
the alabama the apalachicola the arkansas the aroostook
the altamaha
killing of 14-year-old
stirs nation. there will be a public wake
works its way underground
scarred landscape veined by rage
sanctified waters flow
go forth
the bighorn the brazos
along roan valley walls blue rapids
wear away rock
flesh current quickly courses thru
the front page news amber fields purple mountains
muddies
the chattahoochee the cheyenne the chippewa the cimarron
the colorado the columbia the connecticut the cumberland
waftage
spirit uplifted eyes head heart
imitation of breath chest aheave
that grotesque swim up the styx
level as rainwater culls into its floodplain
the des moines
blood river born
2
ebony robe aflow
swathed hair of the black madonna
bereft of babe
the flint
that hazel eye sees
the woman
she fine mighty fine
she set the sun arising in his thighs
the hudson the humboldt the illinois
and he let go a whistle
a smooth long all-american hallelujah whistle
appreciation. a boy
the james the klamath
but she be a white woman. but he be
a black boy
the maumee the minnesota the mississippi the missouri
the mohican
raping her with that hazel eye
the ohio
make some peckerwood pass water mad
make a whole tributary of intolerance
the pearl the pesos the pee dee the penobscot
the north platte the south platte the potomac
vital fluid streaming forth in holy torrents
think about it. go mad go blind
go back to africa go civil rights go go
the red the white the green
run wine
3
silt shallows the slow sojourn seaward
they awakened him from sleep
that early fall morning
t
hey made him dress
they hurried Emmett down to the water’s edge
the roanoke
after the deed
they weighted him down
tossed him in
for his violation
the sacramento the salt the san juan the savannah
the smoke
from the deep dank murk of consciousness a birth
oh say do you see the men off
the bank dredging in that
strange jetsam
the tennessee the trinity
a lesson
he had to be taught—crucified (all a nigger
got on his mind) for rape by eye that
wafer-round hazel offender plucked out
they crown him
the wabash
cuz she was white woman virtue and he
be a black boy lust
the yazoo the yellowstone
oh say Emmett Till can you see Emmett Till
crossed over into campground
spill tears
nimbus threatening downpour
sweetwater culls into its soulplain
come forth to carry the dead child home
4
at my mouth forking
autumn 1955, lord!
kidnapped from his family visit
lord!
money road shanty
lord!
his face smashed in
lord! lord!
his body beaten beyond cognition
river mother carries him
laid in state
sovereign at last
that all may witness true majesty
cast eyes upon
murder
the youth’s body too light
was weighted down in barbed wire & steel
dumped into the river agape a ripple a wave
(once it was human)
aweigh. awade in water. bloated
baptized
and on that third day awaft
from the mulky arm of the tallahatchie
stretched cross cotton-rich flats
of delta
on that third day
he rose
and was carried forth to that promised land
Auguries
pied-eyes rhythm sticks & ginger root
a black bird with one red feather
yellow drapes
immediate revelations of unsolicited intimacies
a movie recalled one day
on television the very next
dropsy
an epidemic of spaced-out street people talking
to angels
calls out of name
a black baby succumbed to fire that finds its way to the crib
from the slumlord’s faulty fuse box
nystagmus
sudden eruptions on the upper torso which appear
disappear reappear and disappear
forty giant squid beached the death day of
a poet
missing chapters
blank billboards above sunset boulevard
are you watching the skies
even my dreams have dreams
African Sleeping Sickness
for Anna Halprin
1
four centuries of sleep they say
i’ve no memory
say they say they i talked quite coherently
i don’t remember
four centuries gone
i walk eternal night/the curse of ever-dreaming
sing me a lullaby
2
my father hoists me over his shoulder, holds me
snug to him. i cannot walk
we move thru the sea of stars in blue
i love my father’s strength
i love how blue the blue is
and the coolness of stars against my face
he sings me “my blue heaven”
3
i am tied hand and foot
astraddle the gray county hospital bed on the basement floor
my scream smothered in 4x4 adhesive
nothing on but the too short too thin cotton gown
above a naked saffron bulb in socket
nothing else in the ward but empty beds row upon row
and barred windows
i do not know why i’m here or who i am
i see my wounds
they belong to the black child
4
giant green leech-dinosaurs invade the city
superman flies to rescue but weakened by kryptonite
can’t stop the havoc
the slug creatures destroy the city, ooze into the Sierras/
along my back into my spinal cord leaving a trail
of upper Jurassic slime
(it gets down to skin and bones. skin/the body’s last line
of defense. when awakened the impulse to become—a
cavernous hunger unfillable unsated
bones/the minimal elements
of survival)
“who am i?”
the physician observes my return to consciousness
the petite white man with sable hair and clark kents
makes note. he is seated in front of a panorama
hills and A-frames sloping to the sea
“who am i,” i ask again
“who do you think you are?” he asks
“i’m not myself,” i say
5
the encephalopathy of slavery—trauma to racial cortices
resulting in herniated ego/loss of self
rupture of the socio-eco spleen and
intellectual thrombosis
(terminal)
sing me rivers the anthem of blue waters the hymn of
genesis
6
lift up your voice and
the tympanic reverberation of orgasmic grunt
ejaculatio praecox
traumatized. infected. abrupt behavioral changes
the vomitus/love-stuff
he watches me masturbating with the Jamaican dancer
whose hand is up my womb to the elbow
and starts to cry
the weight swells my heart/cardiopulmonary edema
doubled in size it threatens to pop
i ask the doctor why things are so distorted
“we’ve given you morphine
for the pain of becoming”
7
chills. sing to me fever. sing to me. myalgia. sing to me
delirium. sing to me. fluid filled lungs
i walk eternal night
in the room done in soft maroon warm mahogany amber gold
we disrobe to the dom-dom-dom a heady blues suite
i pity the man his 4-inch penis
then am horrified as it telescopes upward becoming a
2-quart bottle of Coca-Cola
i talk quite coherently they say
8
fucking in the early dark of evening
mid-stroke he’s more interested in being overheard
i go back into my trance as we resume the
6 o’clock news
the car won’t start. the mechanic is drunk
i can’t break his snore. the engine whines sputters
clunks shutters in the uncanny stillness
they’re coming for me. i’ve got to escape
angry, i lash out at the steering wheel, strike
my somnambulate lover in his chest
he jumps out of bed yelling
“what’s wrong?”
the curse of ever-dreaming
sing to me, i say. sing to me of rivers
American Sonnet
the lurid confessions of an ex-cake junky: “i blew it
all. blimped. i was really stupid. i waited
until i was forty to get hooked on white flour
and powdered sugar”
white greed black anger
* * *
X
* * *
=
socio–eco dominance socio–eco disparity
a) increased racial tension/polarization
b) increased criminal activity
c) sporadic eruptions manifest as mass killings
d) collapses of longstanding social institutions
e) the niggerization of the middle class
the blow to his head cracks his skull
he bleeds eighth notes & treble clefs
(sometimes i feel like i’m almost going)
to Chicago, baby do you want to go?
The First Day of Spring 1985
polemic for Tim & Kathy Joyce
lust for liberty sprouts seventeen dead
blackest black South Africa
camera action: blood & shoes. (remember the mountains of shoes?)
Wicked Enchantment Page 5
