The subject must speak as if he or she is witness
To a story no one who has lived in the entire
Tangled future & history of the world has told.
What if it were possible to make a noise so lovely
People would pay to hear it continuously for a century
Or so. Unbelievably, Miles Davis & John Coltrane
Standing within inches of each other didn’t explode.
AMERICAN SONNET FOR MY PAST AND FUTURE ASSASSIN
The song must be cultural, confessional, clear
But not obvious. It must be full of compassion
And crows bowing in a vulture’s shadow.
The song must have six sides to it & a clamor
Of voltas. The song must turn on the compass
Of language like a tangle of wire endowed
With feeling. The notes must tear & tear,
There must be a love for the minute & minute,
There must be a record of witness & daydream.
Where the heart is torn or feathered & tarred,
Where death is undone, time diminished,
The song must hold its own storm & drum,
And shed a noise so lovely it is sung at sunset
Weddings, baptisms & beheadings henceforth.
AMERICAN SONNET FOR MY PAST AND FUTURE ASSASSIN
A remix of “Pony” by Ginuwine plays
While half a dozen beautiful black men
Strut onstage wearing translucent black
Housecoats then pause with their backs
To us before a slow twerking as half a dozen
Beautiful black women walk onstage in sharp
Alabaster tuxedoes and surgical masks
But we can see the weeping inside them.
A white audience member, it may be a man
Or woman of any age, is invited up to crow
In the middle of a circle the dancers make.
I have sent tickets of this show to my white friend
Who is determined to write about black people
And to my black friends determined to police him.
AMERICAN SONNET FOR MY PAST AND FUTURE ASSASSIN
The umpteenth thump on the rump of a badunkadunk
Stumps us. The lunk, the chump, the hunk of plunder.
The umpteenth horny, honky stump speech pumps
A funky rumble over air. The umpteenth slump
In our humming democracy, a bumble bureaucracy
With teeny tiny wings too small for its rumpled,
Dumpling of a body. Humpty-Dumpy. Frumpy
Suit. The umpteenth honk of hollow thunder.
The umpteenth Believe me. The umpteenth grumpy,
Jumpy retort. Chump change, casino game, tuxedo,
Teeth bleach, stump speech. Junk science. Junk bond.
Junk country, stump speech. The umpteenth boast
Stumps our toe. The umpteenth falsehood stumps
Our elbows & eyeballs, our Nos, Whoahs, wows, woes.
AMERICAN SONNET FOR MY PAST AND FUTURE ASSASSIN
Drive like fifteen miles along a national parkway
Where the confederate statues have been painted
White so often they will probably look like ghosts
Or men covered in sheets at the speed you pass them.
Join the bottleneck at the mouth of the tunnel running
Beneath fathoms of the river. You may recall a bomb
Was set off there some years ago: Caution tape,
A rise in cargo takes, a till of bodies bobbed at the piers.
How much have black people been paid for naming
Emmett Till in poems? How much is owed? Never mind.
Never fear, the tunnel under the uproarious river
Around our lives has been repaired. When you exit,
Take the second right toward the oldest part of town,
You will find me bearing a sign on one of the corners there.
AMERICAN SONNET FOR MY PAST AND FUTURE ASSASSIN
After you turn off Shop Road where the flag leans
Forward like an old goose contemplating her next step,
Ride for another half hour or so beyond Bluff Estates,
Star Light & Harlem Street to find inside
What is Betty Joe’s Fish & Chicken Shack by day,
A mobilized after hours juke joint full of the kinds
Of dancers & drinkers, loners & lovers who have
Probably never listened to a poem or banjo at length.
In this we may be alike, Assassin, you & me: we believe
We want what’s best for humanity. I’ll probably survive
Dancing with the kinds of people who must find refuge
Among the sweat & rancor of a Fish & Chicken Shack
But Assassin, they’ll probably murder you. Do you ask,
Why you should die for me if I will not die for you? I do.
AMERICAN SONNET FOR MY PAST AND FUTURE ASSASSIN
This one goes out to DeMascas Jackson,
Who named his beloved pit bull “DeMarcus”
Because he wanted a twin & named each part
Of his body, “nigga”: his ten dirty danglers,
His fifteen-year-old bully elbows & regions
Of his mouth running between lunch & bells.
“I bit that nigga,” he said once of his bitten lip
Over cafeteria hair in a salad of withered lettuce
And shaved carrots. When I called him “DeMarcus”
In the heat of a game, “That’s my nigga,” he said
Before shoving me into the same fence I’d stand at
An hour later holding my father’s crippled pistol,
With no bullets & no wooden handgrip, so I held
A little frame of metal in my fist when I pointed it.
AMERICAN SONNET FOR MY PAST AND FUTURE ASSASSIN
Because a law was passed that said there was no worth
To adjectives, companies began stringing superlatives
Before unchanged products manufactured by men
Who know how to make money, but nothing else.
After a law was passed that said there was no worth
To adjectives, the afflicted became addicted to property.
Because they passed a law that said there was no worth
To adjectives, all the news was as bilateral as a headline
In the sand. A racehorse became a horse, a horse race
Became a race. The race was made of various adverbs
And adversaries. The relationship between future
And pasture was lost. Because a law was passed,
There was no worth to adjectives, there was no word
For the part of the pasture between departure & the past.
AMERICAN SONNET FOR MY PAST AND FUTURE ASSASSIN
But there never was a black male hysteria
Breaking & entering wearing glee & sadness
And the light grazing my teeth with my lighter
To the night with the flame like a blade cutting
Me slack along the corridors with doors of offices
Orifices vomiting tears & fire with my two tongues
Loose & shooing under a high top of language
In a layer of mischief so traumatized trauma
Delighted me beneath the tremendous
Stupendous horrendous undiscovered stars
Burning where I didn’t know how to live
My friends were all the wounded people
The black girls who held their own hands
Even the white boys who grew into assassins
AMERICAN SONNET FOR MY PAST AND FUTURE ASSASSIN
Of anyone into an engine & your long lost half brother
As well as whoever else possesses a version of his name
Will appear before your face in bits of pixels & data
Displaying his monikers (like Gitmo for trapping, Bang
Bang for banging, Dopamine for dope or brains),
The country he would most like to visit (Heaven),
His nine & middle finger pointing towards the arms
Of the last trill trees of Bluff Estates & the arms
Of the slim fly girls the color of trees cut down & shaped
Into something a nail penetrates. I admit, right now:
Technology is insufficient, but you will find them
Flashing grins & money in the photos they took
Before they were ghosts when you click here tomorrow.
AMERICAN SONNET FOR MY PAST AND FUTURE ASSASSIN
This word can be the difference between knowing
And thinking. It’s the name people of color call
Themselves on weekends & the name colorful
People call their enemies & friends. It used to be
The word for the absence of inheritance. Before that
It was the word for the feel of burlap. When Lincoln
Witnessed a slave auction in his boyhood, it was
The first word to enter his mind. Before it evoked
A kind of bewildering mothering, it evoked Job’s
Afro silvering with suffering. It is the difference
Between cursive, tantrum, assault & pepper spray.
It is the title of that absurd three-act play
Where the actors say nothing but “Who can say”
And who can say “Who can say” for two hours straight.
AMERICAN SONNET FOR MY PAST AND FUTURE ASSASSIN
Why someone would crowd into a church is beyond me.
I would remodel Alabama. Why there is a science
For God is beyond me the way the word wallop
Is beyond me. And when my id is arrested, I am usually
Thinking of the tragi-comic implications of the word
Mall & eyeballing midriffs. Why youth seems to be
My only requisite for beauty now is beyond me.
The interiors of the words botox & toy box are beyond me too.
History is beyond me. I will need a black suit & umbrella now.
The carpet along the aisles will be so thick, our shoes
Will never touch the floor. Limousines tinted with flowers
Will be parked in front of the church. Ma will say “Good God,
Good God,” dipping money in her eyes. But why
Give God your money? Why give good money to Death?
AMERICAN SONNET FOR MY PAST AND FUTURE ASSASSIN
From now on I will do my laundry early Sunday
Mornings when all the young tenants are hung-
Over or worn out, all the old people in church,
And the elementary parents parked at playgrounds
With their children inside the “Play At Your Own
Risk” sign on the fence. I tried to tell the woman
Who sent me songs, it’s departure that makes company
Hard to master. I tried to tell her I’m a muser, a miser
With time. I love poems more than money & pussy.
From now on I will eat brunch alone. I believe
Eurydice is actually the poet, not Orpheus. Her muse
Has his back to her with his ear bent to his own heart.
As if what you learn making love to yourself matters
More than what you learn when loving someone else.
AMERICAN SONNET FOR MY PAST AND FUTURE ASSASSIN
Otherwise home is the mess laid bare,
The less made air, the addressless there
Less clear, where the wax in my left ear makes
Half of what’s said unsaid, on the air the mute
Newshounds ponder the tweets of a bullhorn,
A rat in the cabinet beside the liquor. Anger
Is a form of heartbreak, yes it is. If you can
Give the world half of what Nina Simone gave it,
You will have lived an exceptional life. All you
Have to say is, tomorrow you’ll try to be better.
Like a mother lovingly calling her son, a son
Of a bitch. My lover never believed I held a gun
In my mouth. So I talk to myself like a witness.
I’d mutter whatever, whatever forever otherwise.
AMERICAN SONNET FOR MY PAST AND FUTURE ASSASSIN
I thought we might as well sing the fables of sea
To fill our mouths before sailing out to whale.
I thought we might sing as well of the feeling
Of sea moving about the whale like a coat.
The color of water is always the temperature
Of a mirror. I thought we might drown
Our reflections in a swaying like our songs
Of mother wit & mother woe, our toasts
With the water a deep dark blue, an almost
Indigo we paled from the well before sail.
Whale-road is a kenning for sea. Time-machine
Is a kenning for the mind. Alive is a kenning
For the electrified. I thought we might sing
Of the wire wound round the wound of feeling.
AMERICAN SONNET FOR MY PAST AND FUTURE ASSASSIN
I’d played silence but later realized my word
Of the year was quiet. Especially the chasm
Of quiet in cataclysm, one of those scrabble words
Played but once or twice in a life. Maybe scrabble
Is a portmanteau of scream & babble or scrap
And bramble. Sometimes it is best to sting,
Sometimes it’s better to scramble away. Sometimes
Is a good answer to any existential question.
Moving through the tangle of bramble on your way
To scrap with Death at the pier, remember to sing
A battle song. The one I’ve prepared goes this way:
Come & meet me in the water, swim the twilight by & by.
Come meet me in the water, swim the mirror of the skies
Come & meet me in the water by & by. I sing it every day.
AMERICAN SONNET FOR MY PAST AND FUTURE ASSASSIN
Suppose you could speak nothing but money
And acrimony. Suppose all the sunflowers
Van Gogh destroyed, all the stones in Virginia’s
Pockets & all the stones Georgia painted as vaginas
Were simply a matter of making something greater
Than money. Prince taught us a real man has
A beautiful woman in him. Suppose we cannot
Forget what happened in Money. Suppose
You’re someone who celebrates Thomas Jefferson’s
Birthday. Suppose he was someone whose love
For a black woman was blinded by blackness,
Hers & his, yours & mine. I ain’t mad at you,
Assassin. It’s not the bad people who are brave
I fear, it’s the good people who are afraid.
AMERICAN SONNET FOR MY PAST AND FUTURE ASSASSIN
One of the most amazing things about me is
I know how to cut my own hair. I learned to do it
After my father moved away. So I’ve done it
For years, traced the shape of my thinking
With a motor blade to rewrite the hairline
A punctuated sentence, a handful of verbiage,
I could offer a poem for each cli
ppered hair
And the mole behind my ear & the line I fear
Above my nape, the rope burn there, the wish
To snip the jugular is simple fear, I wish to remain
Here where you will love me simply because
Of what I say: one of the most amazing things
About me is: I know how to cut my own hair.
I learned to do it after my father moved away.
AMERICAN SONNET FOR MY PAST AND FUTURE ASSASSIN
My mother says I am beautiful inside
And out. But my lover never believed it.
My lover never believed I held her name
In my mouth. My mother calls me her silver
Bullet. Her mercy pill, the metal along her spine.
I am my mother’s bewildered shadow.
My lover’s bewildering shadow is mine.
I have wept listening to a terrible bewildering
Music break over & through & break down
A black woman’s voice. I talk to myself
Like her sister. Assassin, you are a mystery
To me, I say to my reflection sometimes.
You are beautiful because of your sadness, but
You would be more beautiful without your fear.
AMERICAN SONNET FOR MY PAST AND FUTURE ASSASSIN
A brother versed in spiritual calisthenics
And cowboy quiet seeks funny, lonesome,
Speculative or eye-glassed lass. Shopaholics
Welcomed. Also Prince fanatics, museum
Cashiers, & pragmatists conversant (lipstick
Or no lipstick) with a hipness substantial
Enough to contract around a muscle as well
As expand around a child. Fear of boredom is ideal.
Fear of dereliction is okay. Love for the willy-nilly
And Willie Nelson, welcomed. Crushes, depressions,
And unsightly hesitations are okay. Must freely
Expend humor & grace. Amid long Sundays,
Long drives, long movies, & school conferences,
Occasional acts of disregard or guardedness are okay.
American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin Page 3
