the language of black bodies

how he can't
stand he must
kneel, how you
can't stand how
he kneels
when the flag song trills,
your heart covered
by a cold hand
blood stained, forgetting
the language forced
into African bodies

savage! hands and feet
in shackles, get down
in that boat, come
build my nation, savage!
have some jesus
cup your hands and pray
kneel before your savior
you never needed
but will need hereafter

ignorant slave!
3/5's constituted subhuman,
move those feet, work
those hands, pick
that cotton, plant
the seed of this nation, lie down
when i rape you, kneel down
when i whip you, cup
your hands when you pray
to save your ign'nt soul

negro! hang your head
down low, willow trees
gonna swing your sweet
chariot low and lynch
your negro body two feet
off the ground down
to six feet under, where
you'll forever lie unknown,
a grave situation

say, cool cat, play me
some of that boom bap that
ragtime jazz, shake my
blues away, take my
blue balls in your sway hip
swing and sing for me,
dance, blackie, dance!
blow your horn, tap
those keys, scream
trane scream, scrape
that living off
the chitlin circuit

n*gger! sit down
back of the bus, march down
town we'll hose you down, sit in
we'll beat you down, stand up
we'll shoot you down
>oh you thought you was dreaming<
fist up we'll send you down
to penitentiary oblivion

hoodlum gangster thug criminal
drop out rapper baller
suspect suspect suspect!
hands up
down on the ground
out of the car
hands up
hands behind your back
stand up and sing
oh say can't you
kneel down and pray
hands cupped
hands up
stay where you are
salute the flag
hands up
hand over your heart
stand up
sit down
kneel
lie down
face down on the ground
go back to africa
run n*gger run
play that tune
sit down
line up
wait on death row
die slow
die young
run die run
freeze get shot freeze
lie dead on the street
stand up
be grateful

crazy light

like taking a walk
and sun
light tells
you which way
the shine shines,
except
you look
up to it,
to something
else bleeding
through, that
small under
standing
of what things
feel like. when
it's alright, and
there are no
words
for it, just
you and the light,
that crazy
dance
you interpret
as you stroll along,
getting it.

measuring solitude

perhaps a mythic dis
proportion of com
                            mon
sense, as understanding,

wherein we are
so old, solidly
sold into static
chains b
             or
                 n
into us, in
      to us,
we can't get so
                    lutions
long term for current
                    dis
                   solutions.
this
dissssolving
of self and other
            selves
we sold our
                   selves. see? we
want all the pretty
loves and perfect
lives pretty and perfect
lies we conspire
again
         st
a cold fact uni
                      verse. see? we
all want our de
                    serving, our
right shit entitle, even
as we are
stripped daily, con
                           ceits
     broken, thrown
                     down
as wind in the grass, pining
for the real
    shit, a lover
                     's lips
on our
          own, or
methods whereby we
travel from cradle to grave
without being completely fucking afraid
of the everything\everywhere oblivion.

no answers to questions,
merely guesses. and we are
        merely guests here. getting
lucky, maybe
finding        love
to fancy, as life
    is the ultimate
              annihilation.
different
    differences
can be made, no
way to know though, other
                than f***ing:
                        feeling,
                                  that is,
  the     
    space
           in
      side
                                    solitude
and it grows,
an inflation
    of what can
          not
be measured, no matter
how much i ex
           plore this
         ex
            panse.
still, i
have yet to quantify
        it, yet
numbering days numbered,
all those     days
                  between  then
and now....a heart on
walkabout, at sea, con
              fusing the light
with semblances
            of meaning, where
    there is none. and who
can swim forever
    ?
thank the gods, there is no
    after
                  life, but
    after    this life
be
     comes some
        thing less
than a complete
mystery, i
might learn from
        it.              

me-ning

as a means of meaning,
of what sense is sense
     less like feeling more
                like a float
ing, a
           ~ drift ~
   with       
    out
direction. yet
secure in
     space/or/time

but not particularly

like how things be -
     come
    this
           way
, word and s
         peech
 >silence as if mere gesture<
and howto
suffice insufficience
    ?
still, it's
a suffer, not des
    -           titution
    -          solation
but a quietude, a see
ing observation, as a sci
ence de
    fining
            solitude

no laws abide
    , to bind
, only what is
    perception. and that
is hypothetical

can
this
    be real,
this
    i am
this               ?
     not as
    i was, but
                        still,
here i be @
this

and what
's hap'nin, they ask.
                   i
     a conjured trick of the
mind, so.....
        i can't know. is it
what i say what i feel
what i think it should
be   ?    all
of this story, an is ,
how fiction
               is ,
a reflection

{ still
i cannot
talk} you? all i am
      is this
               /hidden\
meaning  meaning
                    less
than under |
                  | standing,
                 stand?
under   ^

crow woman

like laughter, her.

as if crows were
her feather, her
wells of twilight
as sight, eyes
the sea has
yet to match
for color or
depth.

what i found there,
within that
mystery, mist
and fury
of fire
passion, action
as wisdom
and wisdom
is her
freedom.

i have no
claim upon knowledge
of love, save
what i know
of her, her
laughter, a
feather.

it goes with words,
though none
are adequate,
lest the language
of crows
be deciphered.

these are reasons
to recognize
some gifts come
unwrapped, given
as they are
to the rest of us:
without pretense
and simply
what the world
needs
more of.

pride

sometimes
there are times
like these times
when the times
i find myself
spending time
with them
i am outside of time
like being back in time
when i see myself
in another time
that was
but never was

as if
they are everything
i wanted to be
as if
they are every
thing i ever
was, but
better
smarter
wiser

if this is pride
then let it be
if this is love
then let me
cease to seek it
for it has found me
willingly, unwittingly

offerings

the way i carve
off my
pieces of self,
those chunks of sincerity,
if only it weren't so
connected to my
self. an invisible
string, and here i am
strung out
on this end. of
love?

well, here i am,
speaking of nonsense.

i am the offering,
and cut open, parceled,
in parts given away, taken,
or both,
and it's either
nor neither
and all of
the sides i have
developed shadows for.
where it's cold
and comfortable. some
where in between.
other temporary fevers.
some cyclical season,
as ritual. but ever, ever
but ever, as hope.
and whoever died
of despair, save
those who hope.
and whoever died
of hope, save
those who
believe in poetry.

your honor,
i cannot deny
the charges
against me. but still,
i proclaim
innocence.

that laughter

if at all, that that
is all, that all
it is was
a smile, those
lips parted
letting those
deep eyes
draw forth
the depth
of your pleasure
passion abandon,
then let that be
the only thing
the world needs.

if ever
i were to die
with prior knowledge
of my demise,
let the last thing i see
be your sky
smiling, let the last
thing i hear
be your laughter,
for there would be
no better way
to journey into
that great nothing
on the wings of you
and the pleasure
you bring to me.

ode to thelonius

what the funk, monk? where
form is found, that sound
but you emerge
as a bright shadow shaping
the void, your voice
speaking within the spaces,
giving shape
to the silence
only you
inhabit.

sometimes
it's not what's there
but what could be,
as you leave us
hanging
onto the next life
line you offer, a trill
a whirl
wind over keys
unlocking
your mind, opening
doors you alone
know. and there
we step through.

a whole other side,
dumbfounded, lost
but found.

insomniac's viticultural critique

The latest interlude in insomnolence...staring sleepless dark in the face, 23 degrees of longitude separating me from first dawn light. First it was wine and spaghetti, cake and all that jazz and now it's brother Thelonius after all that toss turn and tumble through a maze of pillows and blankets. Coffee, maybe some more wine...why not? Wine-ot, I say! This is no time to be coy. People are burning a football thrower man's shirt because he kneels during the patriot-prayer song, as if he burned their lack of intellect. Somehow it's too much for them to digest, because we're Making America Great Again, ya know. There's an orange man, with all the smarts of an egg salad, who wants to wear a funny hat on stage and remind us of the Alamo, because Davey Crockett died for our sins, so make someone pay. He maybe gonna be the new Boss Man Mr. Charlie because he missed out on getting to own a few negroes, like back in the day when America was really Great. Someone send this priapic mack-man, by horse preferably, out to the Dakotas for some kind of last stand in his quest for greatness. Lots of oily scalps ripe for the picking out there. Grrrrr...grrrrr....who's a good doggy? Sic 'em! Bitches in heat. What?? Hormones and nuclear codes should never mix, therefore no uterus for president, menopause notwithstanding. I love how we have evolved the thinky-thinky parts. I've heard of dudes who swim good and are even gooder at raping drunk girls behind dumpsters and are the goodest at walking out of jail shortly thereafter. I've heard of others who are daily beaten, tortured, kidnapped, raped, treated with suspicion, and murdered by the good guys, who don't get to walk away from that, and that's the law. And spoiled rich privileged (half-white and raised by white adoptive parents, don't forget, because all lives matter) football thrower man can't (literally) stand it any more, so now the entire HIStory of these You-Knighted States has been jihaded. Someone call Joe Montana! Fuck that, get Chuck Norris! Someone must pay for the wall! Just ask a Berliner, Palestinian, or your local inmate. There will be taco trucks on every corner and Salsa dancing on Tuesdays if we're not careful. Falafel and shawarma will be jumping out of the bushes. Thanks, Obama! Now my coffee has gone cold commie! I would make more but the kettle and the grinder are making out. Homosexual sin and fornication! More wine then...gah!!...goddamned French surrender-monkey swill! Where art thou, oh freedumb? Alas, dawn penumbra creeps to within a few degrees longitude, my children are hours away from their first ever day at high school, I will saunter off to work, people will throw footballs, and Monk will always make more sense to me than the current patriotic onanism.

night wine1

Night is as deep as the wine allows. From where I sit, it's a sweet kind of evil, one that I have an acquired taste for. The night is dark, and darkness is good. With these winespirations I am a flight to behold, a sojourney into a ...how shall I say... I-soul-ation. Like I said, a velvety style of evil. I have the simple pleasure of having simple pleasures. Let me tell you about the meaning of wine entangled lips. On tonight's menu we have night wine entwined with beats boom-bap boom-bap loops. J Dilla, Detroit Champion, scratches his wax way beyond philosophy. From his hip hop afterlife I glide upon his foreverever, that straight dope cut right to the brain. Sips between sighs and damn that last swallow went well with that mellow piano. The rain rhythms my roof top's tip tap, nature's jazz boom bap and now the darkness hand claps as if I should dance. The wood heat wonder, trees spit back sunshine accreted in lignin skin. My home is a glowing memory of sunlight. I have the simple pleasure of my simple pleasures. I find myself at home with itself. After all, the man I am lives inside me, I look through his eyes. He claws open my winter flesh, the wounds of living turning to some music of serenity. It's another world in my little world. It's simple. Poems come in halves. This is the first half, as it happened from this moment which descends down a claret stairway, and I'm passing it to you. If you are a muse, amuse me. Find the other half as it returns with the dawn you hold in your p(s)alm. From where I'm looking, to where I'm looking to, there is all this music entwined with night wine that rhymes with the way light shines. In other words, that's the straight dope. Not just stoned, but beautiful.

night wine 2

night gets deeper as the wine becomes shallow. i call this the inverse square law of solitude. not sorrow, merely a means to draw out the darkness where light gets tired in the shade. night is dark, yes, and darkness is still good. i study its shape and dimension, master its geometry, enfold myself in its meaning. after all, how else am i to understand the light? having stared into it, no wonder i am blind. so much the better then. the solo night sojourn, the stillness of a sonata, sonority within a space outside of time and self. my self is half of silence and purity of wonder. life has its afflictions, having learned about different heartaches. so i teach myself new meanings for redemption. memories are only shifting shadows, a light in reverse coming as backward seasons. and there can be no regrets, only the sublimation of ice into air, and i am the intermediary liquid state of being me: a vessel for the wine, a vein of blood from autumn vines, a tangled thicket of time pressed like grapes between inescapable lips. perhaps i am a simulacrum of sensation. and i wait here, anticipating new modes of silence, unshattered stillness. in the meantime, i find myself killing time, but time won't die. so i am forced into the space within words, deeper within a deepening night. perhaps we are waves of hello and good-bye, currents of the sea's coming and going. and this only moment, where my heart is tattooed to my heart. the ink is invisible but you can feel your way across the lines that sketch the blueprint of my blood. perhaps life is a poem, and my heart is a poet. well then, let my tongue be a feather quill. the ink is in the wine glass, after all. i seek sedation within words, as a possible addiction, kinda like a need. writing is a self sacrifice, and i will bleed for you.

clarity, for L.M.

clarity is like this: you
awake with the diffuse moon
light scattering your dream
across boundaries suspended by
skin soft touches you merge
into sensation.
    you learned this
    from the sea. on sand
and on salt you stand
           between
    two               worlds:
one that feeds on you, one
that nurtures you.
   
    the horror and the hope.

tolerance is the measure
of your mettle, how much
life you respond with
after winter
has its way with you.
    it is how much heartbreak
    you can tolerate
    before you are truly broken.

because of this
you befriend fire, shape
and bend the forge
with the force of your will.
    will you tame your wild
    steed, shod it
    with the horseshoes you
    shape
to protect your feet
from the hard and abrasive
road of your unpaved life?

clarity is like that: moon
paints a mournful longing
of the sun, sculpts your skin
wrapped in your sleep; dreaming,
you merge sensation
from a senseless world,   
    where everything is beautiful
   
    despite the suffering you tolerate.

wither

within, the worn
reaches of things
withering, absence
as my shadow, its
broken appearance as
silent blindness,
when i am only,
and if, and
that is all. such
fantasies as we are, baby,
we come
crashing back
as blackness beneath the clouds,
as waves stumble
drunkenly onto alleyways
between land and sea.

i am no sailor.

i am no longer
defined by these oppositions.
even as it pains
sinks hurts like hooks in skins
blessed with delicacy
and nothing to feel, as
against a warmth
next to cold cravings.
so what
if it was a good time,
the sky
a falling blanket,
neat hair bundles hovering
over this eternal thirst, and
i thirst. still
there is always the walk back.
the drive home.

there is never a home.

there is never my shadow,
its broken light. when i am
only, and if, and
only if. and that
is all.

language of the dead

as in what constitutes the fleshen
bone and intimacy of our dead
language we are given unto these
meanings
traced back to our lives, each
lie, a suspicious truth
we invent after the last
spent skin slithers past.
are we capable? as
silhouettes like myths
cast onto these walls
caving in,
seeping into
neutral limbo.

who are you?
or are we beyond
questioning,
as realistic representatives
of what we can never really have,
holding onto things
we never really had. clutching
at silence. not speaking
words, these symbols
of the new warfare.
weapons we turn on each other
trying to undress our pretenses.
as overtures to the great lie.

love, they say, as virtue,
but is vice.
love, they say, as words,
betraying reasons for evol intent.
here we see our naked folly,
the beloved, the enemy. within.
here is where you slide the knife in,
this is when i pull the trigger.
let us say the words together.

i am alone.

flunkie junkie

such is insanity, these
modes of culture and history,
a junkie nation
getting high on itself, strung
out on stupid. addicted
to drivel, straight shit
to the brain, a gutter siphoning.
all things news
worthy of debate. as if.
a debasing.

when the past comes alive, zombie
fascism, and old Henry,
the Big K, chuckling to himself.
Puppet peep show,
down and dirty, this
mass onanism
a grand old parrrrtay!
Pretenders
to the new McCarthyism,
these no-dirt-under-their-nails
artifices of intelligence.

such dead weight, counter
ballast of leaden feet wooden minds
listing this sinking citizen
ship. we sail
through fog and spittle seas,
the blow hard blowing hard, and
fuck them fuck
them. how easy to forget
history, we junkie flunkies
of today.

time zup

what time i
have is found
in the wastes
countless and ticking
up to never never

those moments
with moments
of another person's life
and another person's life
until someone says
enough
i've had enough
and somewhere else
someone is waiting
with their moments
hoping
to fill a hole with
time we borrow
from each other

and the world fills up
with time with
wasted time sometimes
fun or worth it
or worthless
spending all this time
trying to forget it

and how can we be better
how can we ever hope
to be good people
if all we ever are
is selfish
is a plea for pity
is time falling down
a deep dark hole
waiting to be forgotten
the way it always is
always
time
always closing
ending always

me bridge them

something, then, if
sensation, certainly
beyond a feeling, where
words have yet to be formed,
to be
thoughtspoken, but
they're water so
they're within us
and all over the place,
this place, this
planet like a spinning tear
dropping
out of some galactic eye
in a candy shop
full of children.

some
thing, then, in
the realm of sense, as
internal cognition, familiar
like family. i am
a time bridge, spanning
a river, mysterious
bloody ancient
present and futuring,
connecting the shores
of some distant then
to this here now, this
here now, this here and now
these two better halves
of myself becoming
themselves.

is this what love
is? but be
yond words?...