all selections read neruda
while standing at the supermarket checkout stand
i read tabloid headlines. one screams
“man force-feeds wife neruda”
(he tells me he is worried neruda is coming between us)
note found in cantonese fortune cookie:
neruda slept here
Life as a Cartoon
(you can’t use that phrase
someone’s already made it fa-fa-fa-famous)
ink peepo
in the mean mean the hip white dress glove
pens the life and times of a modern day female ink spot
(communication via balloon is severely limiting)
inky stinky kinky dinky
panel 1: stick figure orating
before throng of enthused listeners
panel 2: stick figure pulled over to curb by
cop and ticketed
panel 3: 2 stick figures fucking
furiously at motel
panel 4: lone stick figure sprawled helplessly
pinned to earth by giant dollar sign
caption: the way to a stereotype’s soul is thru clichés
drippin’ off da page
panel 1: stick figure clinging desperately
to tree limb in hurricane force wind
panel 2: stick figure with huge heart with crack in it
alone on a beach. tears jumping out knot of head
panel 3: stick figure with bandage on heart
standing in front of mirror
panel 4: stick figure flattened in wake of
steamroller
caption: is there happiness after a nite of man wine & song?
(who goes there? the slink? it doesn’t matter how many times
i’m cut, i bleed ink)
For Me When I Am Myself
the enhanced storage of mother-fat
ancestors subjected to long periods of
deprivation
the body adapted/the generic coding of
racial survival—all dat buttah jigglin’ rhythmically
breasts/earthen cups ends up, out towards
(the mirror) aureolae the wet slick sea-brown of kelp
nipple raised to tongue
an essentially hairless desert plain
passion’s eyes follow the horizon
at the mouth of my Y one hundred tiny men stand
in militant salute, fists high in the air
skink os opens/patiently takes in satisfaction
nearly the same size as the thang
devouring it
the intense red subject of censorship & social myths
making revelations subversive acts (mingusing)
anatomically other than. yielding looseness
to hot hands. seldom subdued by clothing
who needs the safety of night who finds comfort in the
suggestion of the unexplored
only love could want this body
wanting guarantees love
nasty words
visitations/
interaction with
others
leading to an
essentially
negative
catharsis or
exo-cannibalism
(i married my first taste—a mistake coming from hunger, a
discussion centering on the negative images of black females as
prospective mates and the related issue of the availability of men-of-color beyond age twenty-five, balls intact)
der die das die
the car. the driver. sirens. done did do wrong
juvi baby
they will strap you down and take the idea by force
handcuffed, you will not be allowed to nurse or nurture
(what think tanks are for)
whispers outside windows down alleys suggesting (i repeat)
danger even in broad daylight
gangs of shadow, some with toothpicks, a swagger
and ear-splitting funk
watts dreams of dim-lit dingy walkways (i repeat)
dirt-laden drama, linoleum worn thru to floorboards
and across the way the old honky whore gives it up
to the local boy virgins (a first taste of white meat)
all you have to do is be there
be in trouble
the wrong place
quarter slots & computerized victims
revenge and/or initiation killing aka “wasting”
as in “i wasted a couple of mushrooms”
as in video game parlance
the granite white sleepwalk of urban boredom
long blocks of squat stucco housing
liquor lockers, pawnshops, the promise of early closings
(fear sets curfew)
skin scraped raw by the hasty removal of diamonds
set in gold
brown kinks matted and wet—a crown of thorns
exactly (pete & repeat)
not feeling
but the complete lack of it
sinew drawn break-tight at the jaw, neck, forearms
legs set for running at
a whiff of the law
of course you’re guilty, you were born
weren’t you?
—when ah get to hebben gonna kick off mah shoes—
the accent of broad proper bourgeois vs the broken lingo
of defiant ones/ideological idiots (godfathaless)
rampant romantic notions of nobly dying in the cause
of leaving one’s mark (mere graffito to be
whited over)
resulting from industrial detumescence and subsequent withdrawal
cool = the ability to maintain absolute equilibrium
under extreme adversity
hip = recognition of one’s disadvantage
and intellectually compensating to the
point of reversal or neutralization (at least)
today i am uncool and unhip
beneath the underdog
i hate this space. i am sick of dust. i want clean beige
walls. i
want solid oak bookshelves. i want cush chairs. i want
the cats
running free in the garden. i want the rent paid months in
advance. better yet, my own home. i want the old car
cherried out.
i want a real credit card
who do i rob? (rerun rerun)
my friend the suicide sends her key
that i may drop by anytime
night visits to the rich instead (hebben hebben)
they want to know what neighborhood i live in
who i am
in their assertion of the digestibly universal
they offer up a wrinkled sex, my
power is in knowing i possess it
with or without display
those haints who cling to youth
are their own hell
sing the gospel of mobs and money barons
can’t say it enuff loud enuff
bellicose witness to crises on-going
plunder & assassination
spew forth testimony—preach
how they scare. how they enslave
yet negate even that minimal work-animal value
a personal history:
papa left Little Rock when buck hunting
season started. one was guilty just being there
just being black being male
he knew his temperament
and saw himself hung in the sad young
man strung up in front of the church
as warning to the uppity
promise to the niggerish
his aunt had sent fifteen dollars
for train fare to Chicago, maybe, but
that afternoon he saw a car with
California license plates
and made Los Angeles in time to catch
the earthquake of ’33
mama took the train out of Hennes
sey
domestic jobs opened out west
during the war. white men were
answering the call. their women took
their places in factories and
boardrooms. black hands were needed to
cook clean clothe and feed the young
she worked for the movie star
Ronald Reagan and his wife Jane
but quit after a year because they
refused her a raise
and she didn’t like it the time
Lou Costello got drunk and
chased her around the kitchen table
they met in me and another three
•
dear one,
expect this letter to go unmailed as have all the others. i
can’t bring myself to send them. i should never write when
angry or depressed. my words seem to overwhelm whomever
i write to at the time. i need to write it, so i do, and
tear it up afterwards and go on about my usual struggle
as best i can. writing an exorcism blah blah blah. i imagine
my letter read. and even though it isn’t, i feel better
having written, as though it were read and
understood. going thru the process
i’m not good at explaining how i
feel. i have
run out of synonyms for rage
there are preconceived notions in which i feel trapped
i keep thinking my work will liberate me from them
it hasn’t
as though life’s language is its own snare
so by not sending
these letters i escape entrapment
you dig?
ever so sincerely—
•
regionality = living room
i am, at last, content to leave
the place i’ve never been
knowing i will never get there
gonna kick off my blues
hostile love
he shuffles the deck expertly. he offers a cut
as if i had a choice. i pass. what difference
can i make? the sonofabitch has memorized the position
of every bloody card. i play the game, my heart jittering,
fiercely stubborn against my calculated loss (karma? please)
he smiles as he goes down “the winner”
then coos, “congratulate me”
then tempts me to murder, his mouth twisted in
you act so niggerish. there i go there i go there
i go smashing things glasses shattered wine spilled plates
dashed to the restaurant floor. i rush out into the tony
night to walk it off. waves of crises (for the worse) as his
eyes follow with U-boat acuity
how can he disrespect the millions
whose dying gave us ourselves
no forgetting no forgiving
(cooling out my crazed and exploded flesh)
i go for a reading. the gypsy is tipsy
tells me she needn’t fear work. she got enuff moolah
to coast five years and there’s always her mama’s mansion
in the right white part of town. as for my future? i
shouldn’t bank on it
not forgotten not forgiven
the dark heart slum effluent
emetic for the bile of spirit
the dark heart broken, spreading
plague. a need-fever (springing from the cavity
of greed. the seat of the great gold-toothed mouth
yawning—its own void/emptiness)
the gotten the given
an eeling pain sharp then diffuse
thru gristle then meat
corkscrewing
the dark heart/earth casts up its dead
breathes
the exalted spasm
[my pearl to his tongue
he imprisons/keeps me in its pleasure
throbs moving thru me
his eyes tasting for my sweetening signaling
tabes dorsalis/meltdown]
memory: paper warped by the humidity of
pressed flesh
forgiven not forgotten
we rain in each other/darkness parts
sighing smiling he withdraws from me night after
year after
grabbing tissues to catch our excessive moistures
then
he sits at my side, at the edge of our
storm-wrecked bed
i watch him watch me
(the better) in hazy after-sex
one maverick wisp of hair dangles free at his
sweaty brow, his head tilted slightly
eyes stroking mine in luminous night
as i
grope thru my surrender
for some bit of juju
to hold us here, now
just like this
American Sonnet 9
love people use things
later a possible emergence as
effortless forms of illumination drift
across the screen of the set/swaying bodies
converging/ghosts of divisions
city after city. oh ruthless decay
— these skin disruptions —
the sport of confession for pay
(loose shoes, tight pussy, warm place to shit)
splendid moments when all visions of ghosts/
convergences/bodies swaying adrift
illuminating new behavioral norms
effortless emergence? possibly. later
use people love things
Gone But Not Forgotten
gone real gone the good die gone
strange and distant banging wakes me from reverie
my bed is cold. i am cold but deep long sleep
is good for me
it’s time for song when going gets gone
i hear voices sing and shout, hear bodies
move anxiously about. i hear the
diggings of an eager race for whom i’ve
disappeared without a trace
grieving of the gone goes on and on
and now they’ve rediscovered me. want to make use
of me. overturn all my stones. make a science
of my bones. my past once ignored in ignominy, they
now wish a future built on me
there is no such thing as coming back
such a strange sensation—the living
at my grave dying to get in
Dream 1319
i am in my father’s house
it is made entirely of fine cedar, unfurnished
the floors fairly clean but in corners
dust and bits of stuff indicate
premises vacated mere hours before
i go upstairs to the second floor and stand
mid-room. it is large with high ceiling
suddenly i see a movement
something rolls or crawls across the floor
set in a golden glow
at first look it is a scarab. no. a gold coin
i go down on hands and knees. closer it is one of
Pop’s old roller erasers the kind mounted on a miniature
whisk to brush away the tiny pilings. it’s gold instead of
the gray i remember as a child. even the dried
rubber cement which cakes it is gold
but as it rolls
the pilings form a giant cursive “G” then
it rolls towards me. and with it comes a cold
i let the cold come over me expecting it to pass
but it lingers and the eraser spins mid-floor as
i feel myself taken into extreme cold bone cold then
deeper. and i know
and i tell myself smartly
“you’d better wake up”
i do so at once
Soul Eyes
—after Coltrane
like twin hearts beating in amber
(flesh) the smoke of a caress rising and
risings/like soaring his entering my secret
solitude where night fighters prowl the terrain
like oboes tickling my ears drawing me into
reverie the lingering tingle of his stubble to
my cheek loving the mist reminiscent of his
recent evaporation like cool desert sand sifting
thru my toes his skin again taunting/begs
me for enfoldment/seducing me into amnesia
like hands softly rhythming on gone congas
summoning groin pulsations/lifting me
by invisible tongues beyond fear latitudes
like sent like received
Nocturne
running in place
my tongue has grown strong and hard
my pace is steadier my step surer
measured as circles move around me and define
this frayed self the center of at least one stubborn
cosmos
here i sweat the days
humming because rhythm makes persistence possible
occasionally breaking into song-and-dance
Wicked Enchantment Page 8