scope would be broader. same here. i’m more horizon than the
niche into which others constantly attempt to cram me. yet, after
years of talks, letters and bark-at-the-moon confidences you don’t
grasp? i’m surprised. i’ve worked wretchedly hard on those beastly
jobs and loony marriages—to save my children with sad sorry
results moon moon right now i’m feeling the hurt and profound
failure of having never been able to give them all-American things
like graduation presents or college tuition. driven. those moonlight
imaginings my bedevilments/bitchin’ moon count me among the
unlucky gropers who rise at the edge of day after the stories’ve
been spun, the wine guzzled, the lover satisfied, who must don a
cold night’s slave by a rude and noxious light to pay off the bloody
moony relentless dunner, who must keep themselves whole sane
and healthy—and i’m neither at this intersection—in the process of
paying—the greatest of magics. that i’ve shared my tragedies with
you was, i thot, statement of friendship transcending the fatwahs
usually limiting our kind of intimacy. excuse me, if i’ve trampled
over your feelings in my elephantine panic. but dear cousin, i’m
fighting, if badly, having saved not one sorry cent and not one life.
begging your gracious pardon. blame it on the falling moon
nervous splash down
(in retrospect her view from
lockup is particularly
poignant. she should never’ve
hurt him his flesh wearing her rage
colors and his skin
nearly broken. but inside she
weighs it as prevention by
the ounce, would rather kill
him herself than let them
do it. they of course wouldn’t
leave a mark on him just
slay his spirit with their smirks
and obfuscations and justice)
what stinkhole is this and how did i fall in?
terra infirma
cityrise. o concrete moonblast of desires spires and
electric wires. there’s nothing new to transmit
when so much of the tiresome old’s ever unresolved
creative writhings. fistprints on blue flesh. spread-eagled
bardache caressed by ebony, lemon and alabaster men with
star-faceted eyes blazing a thousand round midnights
father, stretching his arms to thee
god bless the fire
it cooks the food we eat
the poplar tree, bared of its
strange fruit, stripped, processed
and refinished has many uses. the
fruit, buried in deep rich California
soil sprouts forth unusual offshoots
with remarkable staying power and smoky cast
§
tale of the white monkey
for years it kept in the old wig box in the closet quiet as the
breath between kisses so precious—a remnant of his power to
please me with cheap little things and rich silences. i kept it hidden
though i knew it was there. sometimes i took it out, studied it and
hugged the knowing in it, tearless brown button eyes like his. when
it lived on the dresser, those moist simian voids kept drawing me
into an abyss of accusations, so i put it where i couldn’t see it unless
i wanted to.
one day, i noticed the imitation fur was dirty. i decided to
experiment. i put it in with the soiled sheets, pillow cases and
towels. i added a bleach to the detergent and hot water. later, when
i unraveled things for the dryer, i found it in parts, the body a
shredded headless mass. the stuffing was entrapped in the filter and
inseparable from the lint. the eyes had come out, brown plastic
screw-shaped tacks, semi-melted by the heat, clung by thin white
nylon fibers to what was left of the head. the only part intact was
the tail. i saved it. i keep it in a small box at the back of a shallow
drawer—should i need it.
§
a)
in the midst of talk show blather the faith
is revealed in the snores of the sleeper. an
accident resulting in acute social awareness. it
would happen on a day after hours without a break,
a bad day salted with mean, peppered with slights.
barely time to scratch an armpit. barely ten
minutes to scarf down a leftover meal. barely time
to urinate and no time at all to take a squat.
heaven is the pull of leather, boots removed from
weary strugglers, that first rush of air and ease
as sweet as a lover’s French. and no tickle
b)
the wife wilts in the sterile pink-walled waiting
room with vending machines, drops a few nickels for
a few drops of java. he’s somewhere deep in examination.
dully, the wife fills out the insurance claim forms.
the triage nurse stumbles over English. at midnight
it’s a big awkward tongue even when neatly typed. she
must do it the adult school way, by rote, to avoid losing
pertinent details like blood pressure, temperature,
soft action verbs and googoogaga
c)
rented, never sold. a choke-trauma at medical
services. anger extinguished with a clothesline
across the back and waist which hampers the chore
of laundry. she has been folded neatly at her
knees, head in arms. a cold blank judgment, she
was once a professional knob polisher—this modern
remedy for scuffed knees and congestive throat—it
makes you stiff but no longer thirsty. an end arrives
to hours of bickering over inconsequentials and
bad weather. call it aversion therapy. feet slapping
cold linoleum. badges appear doing the copper’s
walk. hands and guts dangling loosely within
draw-and-fire proximity. skull-ravished batons
eager to crack open matters. authoritative knuckles
slightly relaxed to foster the illusion of
donut hole liberalism. but every fool knows
smmmmsk
Liston’s rule: even if you’re acknowledged The Champ, the
belt will be given grudgingly when they do not like or
deeply misunderstand you and you will prance naked into
oblivion minus critical acclaim and commercial endorsements
she recognized me but not in sistuhhood
she caught sight of me on the western horizon
twixt dark and light, as mother nugget in the muthalode,
as black hole monstrously altering time and
firmament. she saw me and fell into a rage and said
if there be such a woman as she, what am i?
she rose up and made war upon me for possessing
what goddess gave. she fixed me with graciousness to
the crueflix of ridicule, each laugh a nail
god bless the fire
that draws hurt from painful feet
indocilis pauperiem pati
imagining home and reinventing family, i search
the cuttings of plantation life where they
speak the dialect of brains and scrambled eggs
there in jadu’s sunless realm of echo shadow and
glint wherever’s the November after heapin’ good
harvest of wheat, pumpkin and twin births—
where peach brandy settles the restless and
sn
aketongued mamas wise beyond reasonableness
mount stoops ’round sundown waiting for
joy to warm their beds—my swampwater rootings
what it looks like is ass on top of ass
out time
“someone called, used your name and hung up.”
bad weather friend has become a counter of days. misses
virgin-ripe gossip. low-brow bickerings and snipes. builds shrines of
calendars. horoscopes and hormones. every nick feels like a gash,
instantly gashes become canyons—every splinter, a redwood. once
there was the promise of vitamin BCE—microbiotics and
mudbaths. ism-ing was big-ticket to game, and she deserved only
what she deserved.
“someone called, used your name and hung up.”
men are so diff-rent and frequently cause cancer. when the
body sags the head follows 17-year-olds as does the silver fox fur, the
ice and othersuchlovelies like jealous rivals. she fancies herself in my
skin, as opposed to shadow (loves it when i weep), but only as long
as it takes to compose the shot and develop the negatives.
“someone called and hung up. dahhhlin’ was that po’ little ol’
angryrangry you?”
§
startled out of a catnap, i discover the
whole of upstairs is tilted at a 20° angle
a symmetrical box-shaped hole appears in the
corner where the filing cabinet stood minutes
ago. my first concern is to get Mama
and the baby out of here but they fall
the sky fills with their screams as the building
collapses and i slide after them to awake
at 11:55 on the last day of the millennium as
countdown begins in Times Square
§
smmmmsk
no flowers no jokes no dandy
feeding me a grits-and-yams philosophy
(caught between the rock of chaos
and the hard place of calamity
this is the rugged brass rune where the years collect like dust)
i buy American. why this pernicious hunger?
god bless the fire
which scours the filthy pot
tyranny his swollen tongue o moonraker
has the mack down. he reeks of soul-sound draped in gold
and black dead-eye yellow carrier no red roses but plenty blue an
ice-water smile douses in multi-sinful satisfactions, dexter hand
extended in gentleman’s grip, lifts victim into joyride interior, a
sleekness so ebony it mirrors the stars and renders want superfluous
the absolutist posture of a pistol-packing conk-haired papa, sherm
snaking from those thick thick velvet kissables which speak
voluminous if raspy rhythms and whose cultured croons can tempt
a snake out of its venom—rides phantom foot glued to the
accelerator—sheds weight, years and pain. has the mack down,
will travel
legend
cathode and neon and mink
(method acting sexxxy)
betty boopboop bus stop
made of pin-up ink blotto
the A-bombshell blonde.
JFK did the goddess so
say they. all the king’s
men and all the king’s
lovers could not stop
her tailspin. diamonds
are a girl’s best vavoom
misfits skirt billowy
blowing upward glam gams
like seven years of long
itch or Sugar in love
with bourbon going down
on Mr. President gain-
fully exploited by some
who liked her hot diary
in which she wrote off
loneliness and overdosed
sleepytime pills that made
it all so Norma Jean the
immortal mole, size 12,
the All About Eve padded
C-cup eye-popper no Abbey
Lincoln oola prints of her
gone Warhol used to sell a
nation its decline into pop
nailed to her own image
the girl next door gone
Hollywood long gone Ms.
Monroe he sweetly called
me “Marilyn, dahhhling”
he meant no offense that
mine was short kinky black
afro and broad shoulders
my wide wide hips my dark
cinnamon skin how i hung
together whole aroused
him as if as much as if oh
’twas simply the highest
of high compliments he
could possibly pay a woman
black, white or otherwise
caught between the rock of image and
the hard place of assumption
into some serious rag, the grayboy scrubs down the sheen
on his black-on-black caddy at 6 a.m. and as i trip
past i wonder who’s paying the note on his firesnorter
vid-head. inability to break out of
predictable TV dead-butt sitcom formalism/canned
culture in which integrity is synonymous
with low ratings
you
my sentence the indeterminate sum of
mechanized days and simply long nights during which
i’m immobilized, strapped (numbcum 101)
where be i?
driven by guessings, grapplings with suspicion,
too restless for sleep too uptight for talk,
i slip on a cassette and cruise, the towncar’s
electronic windows tightly up to maintain
sound quality. this is not Mars, it’s outer D.C.
and lookahere all the young buffs straddle corners
in droves/suppressed overthrows hunkering
down to spill dreams like dice between swigs
of elephant malt, drags Thai-style or toots of
white magic in lieu of black power, (liquor, liquor
everywhere and not a drop too soon), later to
empty gonads emptily trumpeting manhood bullets
a little sweetbackside in swagger acts of drive-by
lust like Miles expectorating earshit into imperial
marshmallow minds for profit and payback or Ice
Berg, himself pimped, offering up a “hit this a lick”
and on certain corners, my eyes are assaulted by
pity-crippled Brillo-headed midnight squeegee
wielders who beg forgiveness and cigarettes palms up
smmmmsk—kisses to all and cruise on. westward home tomorrow
delphi’s tale
driven by her distant romantic guessings
about the fine young cannibal she once enjoyed
on an airbus to Seattle, delphi grapples with
her suspicions, her pinings, and grasps onto
blind baptist faith. her creed nails its savior
on the medium-built cross of the suave honey-toned
johnson, motive for her spin. she makes her must
a sexual jihad to the land of the palm. and arriving
too uptight for sleep she talky-talks, begs her
sistuhs, “please understand.” but her aunt, my mother,
is too old to be running these streets. and i’m too
busy, but sympathy and her pain bests me and so i
find myself slipping a blues cassette into the tape
deck, cruising to like longings reheated, the towncar’s
electronic windows tightly up to contain delphi’s
fear-drenched anxiousness mall-hopping under pretext
of shopping for-clothes-you-can’t-find-elsewhere,
we smoke and ride the high road in search of her
dreamdog. he’
s provided his stats, confident she
hasn’t means to put in an appearance. “he owns his
own house,” she articulates her deathcamp hope,
“has started up his own computer business.” we know
what planet this is, our splatt on it, and what
fantasies we can’t afford to entertain. nevertheless
we locate her joe, to his evercursing shock, still
living with his parents. they can’t make-out there,
so they climb into his bumblebee bug with the swapmeet
carburetor and i trail them to the crash hang he shares
with his flyweight homies. as delphi crudely pressures
joe for explanations and marital commitment between
smooches and suction, i pretend interest in the walls
The Game the retread of soulsounds the cheap beer the
cheap glass ashtray the cheap pornography and the
creepings about of strangers so adolescent i might’ve
given them stillbirth. a three-hour chaperone’s my limit,
so i punch my own ticket, deciding to leave them to
love it over. i offer to take custody of the clothes
delphi’s bought and to pick her up from joe’s the next
morning. but she skips after me, reeking of radiance,
and plucks the goods from the trunk, blissed-out by joe’s
mojohand, convinced she’s succeeded in forcing him to
act The Man. i swallow my lecture and pick up my own
troubles where i dropped them. later, delphi and joe will
argue typical she-wants-him-but-he-has-other-options
bullcorn and she’ll demand he take her back to Mama’s.
the bumblebee bug’s faulty carburetor will explode
under the strain. stranded, they’ll watch his car burn,
the brand-new clothes locked in its trunk, as they pray
helplessly from the concrete apron of the harbor freeway
he will bust his billfold for cab fare, escort her to
Mama’s door, where they will part without a kiss forever
god bless the fire
Wicked Enchantment Page 11