The Complete Works of Pat Parker

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The Complete Works of Pat Parker Page 11

by Pat Parker


  two hours

  and maybe he’ll live.

  Pick up the kid

  teacher says

  ‘she’s been quiet today’

  my kid is many things

  at different times

  what she’s not

  is quiet

  take the kid home

  temperature 100 degrees

  call Alicia

  ‘What do you do

  for fever?’

  aspirins, liquids,

  no drafts.

  So the routine begins.

  Give the dog

  his medicine

  give the kid

  her medicine

  try and get

  his stool for the vet

  try and get

  her to stay in bed

  three days later

  the dog is fine

  the kid is fine

  I’m exhausted

  and it’s time to

  go back to work.

  At work

  start work on

  the new protocols*

  go to director’s meeting

  write a speech for a rally

  on the weekend

  lab work returns

  no products of conception

  call the woman

  get a sonogram

  she’s pregnant – but

  in her stomach

  somebody forgot

  to turn on the alarm

  the we got

  after being ripped

  off four times

  letter comes from

  the IRS

  I’m being audited

  for 1978

  they want more money

  a friend calls

  she’s broken up

  with her lover

  and is afraid to get

  her clothes

  could I please

  go with her?

  she doesn’t want

  to call the police

  I decide to go

  to the bar and drink

  woman decides

  I’m flirting with

  the bartender

  who she’s been

  flirting with

  all night

  now I’m in a fight

  now I’m in another fight

  outside the bar

  and cop cars are

  coming from everywhere

  and I remember

  my mother telling me

  I should be a teacher

  and me saying

  but I want to write

  paint pictures

  with words

  read poems for people

  and I get a call

  from a sister

  who wants me

  to come read

  for her college

  they only have

  money for advertising

  and I see me

  giving Ma Bell

  a poster

  for my January phone bill

  which is huge

  since I called

  my friend in New York

  to say I think

  I’m going mad here

  cause my lover

  who isn’t my lover

  because we haven’t

  defined the relationship

  as such

  thinks we’re getting

  too close

  seen each other

  five days in a row

  after the fight

  we had two weeks ago

  because

  I had not shown

  enough caring

  or commitment

  decides maybe

  we should be

  good friends

  who fuck

  at least

  we do

  that very well

  and why deprive

  our bodies

  even if we can’t

  get our heads

  in synch

  and I think

  maybe

  the next person

  who asks

  ‘Have you

  written anything

  new?’

  Just might get hit.

  *guidelines used by health care practitioners for patient exams.

  child’s play

  Have you ever

  tried to explain

  human behavior

  to a four-year old?

  Spend the first years

  saying learn to share

  daughter

  being selfish

  self-centered

  is not worthwhile

  let Jamie play

  with your toys

  and Susie and Leotis as well.

  Then Leotis decides

  he should have

  the pinball machine

  not you

  takes it away

  to wherever he lives

  and four-year-old tears

  are asking

  why

  isn’t Leotis sharing

  my toy with me?

  I want to scream

  at Leotis for making

  my task harder

  and it doesn’t matter

  then

  that Leotis is poor

  so are we

  and it doesn’t matter

  that

  Leotis has four

  brothers and sisters

  I want to kill

  Leotis’ mother

  don’t understand

  her

  accepting toys

  she didn’t buy

  but I can’t tell

  this four-year old

  with tears wanting

  to know why

  her toy is gone

  any of my anger

  I calculate

  the pinball machine

  cost eight dollars

  and pay day

  is ten days away

  and if I write a check

  and it takes two days

  to get to their bank

  and then two days

  to get to mine

  it still has

  six days to bounce.

  But should I

  just replace it?

  there’s a lesson here –

  be careful of your toys

  but the earlier lesson

  of sharing

  didn’t

  say with caution

  and so I offer

  a trip to the park

  it’s free and a diversion

  and we can swing

  and play on slides

  and she says yes

  let’s go to the park.

  I am angered

  even more because

  I know Leotis

  didn’t take

  just a toy

  he took away

  some of my child’s

  childness.

  jonestown

  As a child in Texas

  race education

  was simple

  was subtle

  was sharp

  The great lone star

  state sharply

  placed me

  in colored schools

  with colored teachers

  and colored books

  and colored knowledge

  I shopped in white stores

  and bought colored clothes

  ‘Keep the colors loud and bright

  so they dazzle in the night

  No matter where a nigger’s bred

  they love yellow, orange and red’

  I used colored toilets

  and rode colored buses home

  I went to colored churches

  with colored preachers

  and prayed to a white God

  begged forgiveness for Cain

  and his sins

  and his descendants

  us lowly colored sinners

  and the message

  was simple

  was sharp


  there is a place for niggers

  but not among good white folk

  At home

  race education

  was simple

  was subtle

  fact gleaned

  by differences

  The white man

  who jumped

  free-fall

  in the sky

  was quietly dismissed

  ‘white folks are crazy’

  the white man

  who turned

  somersaults

  on Sports Spectacular skis

  was quietly dismissed

  ‘white folks will do anything

  for money’

  the white man who

  shot and killed his wife

  and children

  and then himself

  received a headshake

  and a sigh

  and the simple statement

  ‘white folks are crazy’

  And the messages

  fell into place

  white folks went crazy

  and went to nut houses

  Black folks got mad

  and went to jail

  white folks owned America

  Black folks built it

  As I grew into adulthood

  many messages were discarded

  many were forgotten

  but one returns to haunt me

  Black folks do not commit suicide

  Black folks do not

  Black folks do not

  Black folks do not commit suicide

  November 18, 1978

  more than 900 people

  most of them Black

  died in a man-made town

  called Jonestown

  Newscaster’s words

  slap me in my face

  peoples’ tears and grief

  emanate from my set

  and I remember the lessons

  rehear a childhood message

  Black folks do not commit suicide

  I thought of my uncle Dave

  he died in prison

  suicide

  the authorities said

  ‘Boy just up and hung hisself’

  and I remember my mother

  her disbelief, her grief

  ‘Them white folks kilt my brother

  Dave didn’t commit no suicide’

  and the funeral

  a bitter quiet funeral

  his coffin sealed from sighters

  and we all knew

  Dave died not by his hands

  some guard decided

  that nigger should die

  And I stare at the newscaster

  he struggles to contain himself

  it’s a BIG BIG story

  and he must not

  seem too excited

  ‘American troops made a

  grizzly discovery today

  in Jonestown, Guyana’

  my innards scream as

  the facts unfold

  ‘a communist preacher’

  and I see old Black women

  my grandmothers

  communist NO

  little old Black ladies

  do not believe in communists

  they believe in God

  and Jesus yet,

  the newscasters’ words

  a commune

  a media storm of

  words and pictures

  interviews with ex-members

  survivors, city officials

  the San Francisco Chronicle

  had a problem with its presses

  erratic delivery

  of the morning paper

  and in two days the Chronicle

  publishes a book

  Eyewitness Account

  by a staff reporter

  who survived

  the airport attack

  and the story grows

  STEP RIGHT UP

  STEP RIGHT UP

  Ladies and Gentlemen

  have I got a tale

  for you

  we got these men

  two men

  a congressman & a preacher

  & a supporting cast of hundreds

  the congressman went

  to investigate the preacher

  and wound up dead

  the preacher wound up dead

  the supporting cast

  wound up dead

  and all the dead

  are singing to me

  Black folks do not

  Black folks do not

  Black folks do not commit suicide

  My phone rings

  newscaster mistakenly says

  Patricia Parker

  not Parks

  died on the airstrip

  a friend

  wants to know

  are you alive?

  Yes

  I am here

  not there

  festering

  in a jungle

  with bloated belly

  not a victim

  in a dream deferred

  not a piece

  in a media puzzle

  not a member

  in the supporting cast.

  Yet

  I am there

  walking with the souls

  of Black folks

  crying

  screaming

  WHY WHY

  Black folks

  why are you here

  and dead?

  tell me how you

  willingly died

  did the minister

  sing to you

  ‘Kool-aid Kool-aid

  taste great

  I like Kool-aid

  can’t wait’

  I see Black people

  beautiful Black people

  in lines in front of a tub

  of twentieth-century hemlock

  I see guards with guns

  guns guns

  why guns?

  and the pictures

  continue to flow

  images of a man

  a church man

  he cures disease

  NO

  he’s a fake

  hired people

  treated liver

  he loves God

  NO

  he’s a communist

  he talks many messages

  revolution to the young

  God to the old

  he believes in the family

  NO

  he destroys the family

  fucks the women

  fucks the men

  and the media continues

  to tell the tale

  An interview with a live one.

  ‘You were a member of the People’s Temple?’

  ‘Yes, I was.’

  ‘Why did you join?’

  ‘Well, I went there a few times

  and then I stopped going, but

  Rev. Jones came by my house

  and asked me why I quit coming.

  I was really surprised.

  No one had ever cared

  that much about me before.’

  No one had ever cared

  that much about me before

  and it came home

  the messages of my youth

  came clear

  the Black people

  in Jonestown

  did not commit suicide

  they were murdered

  they were murdered in

  small southern towns

  they were murdered in

  big northern cities

  they were murdered

  as school children

  by teachers

  who didn’t care

  there were murdered

  by policemen

  who didn’t care

  they were murdered

  by welfare workers

  who didn’t care

  by shopkeepers

  who didn’t care

  they were murdered

  by church people

  who didn’t ca
re

  they were murdered

  by politicians

  who didn’t care

  they didn’t die at Jonestown

  they went to Jonestown dead

  convinced that America

  and Americans

  didn’t care

  they died

  in the schoolrooms

  they died

  in the streets

  they died

  in the bars

  they died

  in the jails

  they died

  in the churches

  they died

  in the welfare lines

  Jim Jones was not the cause

  he was the result

  of 400 years

  of not caring

  Black folks do not

  Black folks do not

  Black do not commit suicide

  legacy

  for Anastasia Jean

  ‘Anything handed down

  from, or as from an

  ancestor to a descendant.’

  Prologue

  There are those who think

  or perhaps don’t think

  that children and lesbians

  together can’t make a family

  that we create an extension

  of perversion.

  They think

  or perhaps don’t think

  that we have different relationships

  with our children

  that instead of getting up

  in the middle of the night

  for a 2 AM and 6 AM feeding

  we rise up and chant

  ‘you’re gonna be a dyke

  you’re gonna be a dyke.’

  That we feed our children

  lavender Similac

  and by breathing our air

  the children’s genitals distort

  and they become hermaphrodites.

  They ask

  ‘What will you say to them

  what will you teach them?’

  Child

  that would be mine

  I bring you my world

  and bid it be yours.’

  I

  Addie and George

  He was a small man

  son of an African slave

  his father came chained

  in a boat

  long after the boats

  had ‘stopped’ coming

  his skin was ebony

  shone like new piano keys.

  He was a carpenter

  worked long in the trade

  of the christ he chose

  six days a week

  his hands plied the wood

  gave birth to houses

  and cabinets and tables

  on the seventh day

  he lay down his hammer

  and picked up his bible

  and preached the gospel

  to his brethren

  led his flock in prayer

  when he was seventy-nine years old

 

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