We are also mercenaries

What kind of knowledge will be possible ?

When the impostors woke up  nodding with authenticity

we did not   blame them   for listening  to our music   at the crucifixion      oblivious to irony   we can

                                                                                                            all hang out  

in a disco

quote the rack of lamb    with sluggish     gluttony      I see  you      resent  the women  you admire  — the black entertainer's admirable  blues — what  kind of knowledge   will be possible       when    you   can no longer    horde a rhythm  against the will of  its   substance          and  desire is no longer a minefield  occupied by nihilists    and    there is   no  longer any dilemma   in  the shy    watermelon    which shows  up  as an analog for contrived  shame   every time I'm   saying  I  love   you      sugar loose   as    spooks on     ballots             How evangelical!    

The democratization of intimacy

The house of the damsel

Well as I watched and listened to where sound went     I didn't get closer to god

                                                                                                                                     I became God





You have to be  a hero      my mother warned       and then    how do blacks   show fear   with love      she asked                       I just laughed        by example      all the revolutionaries  are perverts      an excess of skill    spent   on imagination  and sex            is   a million different  demons  clutching their shadows   on the folk  invisible      a prolapsed  dream  


In the script  they have me waiting  at the top of the staircase  in a red dress   that is some days,   green    


for some punk who expects to impress me         with diamonds        when I love him for     his demons  

                                                                        finally                                                      the way they                                    

                                                                                                                                                                                   

                                                                                                                                                          shine    

Media Resurrection

The Inside Songs

Willingly

 For efficiency     I'll address my lover and leader  as if they are  one  and both  me    and   a Sunday  kind of /  I  mean/  like  a preacher   the only people who know how to say nothing  and everything    break  into me   as myself    and wait with for her with   objective  eyes   how I  prove   I love  you    as much when I'm  high  as when   I'm  riding   a loose wheel alongside  the   fire     daring it forward       have  I already   used   that   thought   before     maybe    in a different   or lazier  radiance    maybe  but  who cares   

The point is   what about the Invisible Woman    his perfect compliment    where is Ellison's     finally treatise  in honor   of her.   What  is  she like.  The fierce  one   fiercer  still with  every triumph  with every   defeat    even  her defeats   make you feel triumphant   or effete    look that up   again to make sure  too refined   by  your  morals   to rage   and bless  and be under siege  and running free like her       who is  she    what is the thing that is most important   to her      and how does  she rile it into  joy and grievances   alternately   how does she use self-awareness to avoid  herself.  

And will it all get easier   when niggas are obsolete   willingly    and her invisible wings show up on the craps table   double seven   gold fronts   a knack for laughing with old men  and turning their sick jokes into parables      

Miles began taking a little bit of cocaine occasionally      recreationally addicted is the latest clean  

I'm dealing with the myth that I'm an angel

    

The disorientation of sweet violence (again)

Kill    /  For the Echo      

Our silver lining word  immortal   with the thrill  of it           the settlement   millions 

           the right to say beginner   and mean    we  recur     and  find comfort in 

recurrence   otherwise I'd   watch him  burn   jive  the oracular  rains  back to shore   and   treat  the brief epic  like a  glaring alternative  you wish you didn't require    you cannot  live   without.   

I'm saying what is the sweet thing aching in the eyes   of the lifeless    that we risk their   envy     their fit   of  ghosts    to  invent    the hero   who disappears     them      Who is the hero  now?   

Your power's all dirty  and  a rapper out of Miami, calls himself   Clams Casino     he reached   out to Osiris   got him     off  that Al Jolson  Jazz Singer   horror      was you hero  then  fisted chorus of a negro  entropy empathy   trophy   immediate  and sober    who is  your    hero    now?      

I'm a peaceful  girl   in   spite  of it   all     but   I'm   considering    spreading these  limber   things   into a fine  and mellow dynasty  while  it's  still  supple   will and wine     I mean    on a couple   covers     I mean   that seductive innocence  that makes the men touch  themselves    until   the clouds  swell    while I whisper   a faux submissive who's  your hero now ?      Going the healer   route       is power  beautiful   as it ebbs into  duty   how is your beauty  now     automatic     I'm  howling      against the urge   to  be proud   of   war     when  it  coordinates   my  people      and the lure  of the solo  is    who are  my people   now?       Patient  for crime.   The disorientation of sweet violence awake   in   us   again      

and we are expensive  

we are so expansive  

and freedom  isn't even  romantic   unless it's by accident     we wondered              

and the will only  fails  when it opposes   the imagination         so  much           the lucky trickster  tricks  himself  also          He wears  false diamonds  as willingly   as real  ones

My Casual Soul

I work best as a fetish

And other things nobody ever says  (aloud)    are  audible    and heckle  the soul    bait the madness of great ones     into  the tame Monday   blues   I say blues   too   much   I mean it    usually    as  a fetish  working   its  crease   into   my     awakened spine    I   mean    I'm one of those    stageless in fancy polyester   man  says     queen   and means       breakfast together   once  in a while   in morning after lobby purple    when  his wife is out of town

He was sharp enough to take things off records

Alchemy at Daybreak

Wake up craving terror and Buckminster Fuller  is there on a trapeze and rapture as majestic as torture was  yesterday,  as   yearning   as    one   love    one  lo  ove    Marley  singing  while his skin   betrays him   his sun betrays,  his many women stay, which is betrayal  for what he is capable  of  is too obscenely  just   to be human or imminent      two  pieces of one :     what of it   he mutters like an apparition     disappears walking and clapping  into the spotlight's past black gimmick glowing with absence and merchandise.   He was practically sauntering   whisking the spell into song  and some sublime  apathy        as the searing  fix of babble  becomes the one  valve  of clarity  do   we  fear  ourselves becoming  whole.   If only we  were all a little crazier  more soul    just to enough to say what we aren't thinking    how lonely it is to overcome  ourselves   and the choreographed oppression    mellower   and more comfortable  some days    I'm tired  of the resin   in every great black preacher's voice,  the perfect  sanctimony  of manhood is better    pimps   are better   than holy men     at convincing    me  of anything   worth risking the illusion of duality  against     but you'd be surprised  how many of them  pump  the resin   at  daybreak

Leadership

Wanted :    high yellow black  man  who   hangs like a red bone  , not as in nooses  as  in pleasure  dome blues fetish/ muse / whatever  / well spoken in both protestant ethic English and  vernacular    knows when to use nigga when to use blood and when it's appropriate call his enemy  brother in the most sincere masochism this is a stick up back up must black up like cousins on rubber bullet crutches after strutting down the tuck-me-in blvd of fatherlessness    which is no longer an excuse and also impossible (repeat)          Must baffle with poise and know only how to feign dejection, never truly experience it     turn it into delirium  and ecstatic austerity.  Please, we are orphans, stand on the turnpike with your bullhorn and tell us we're born again, of kings  and queens and how can it be that we've allowed ourselves to be ruled by the barbaric cruelty of these cowards,  how can it be  that our would be leader strides a borrowed bridge looking for his soul in an eclipse of token disciples who don't know how or what to call themselves.  How can it  be  that we swell with fury  until our hearts are mythic  and elsewhere     I woke up from the comfort of my nightmare  to find a parody of wobbly gates   we could swing from  like a phase out of Atlantis   under  the demands  of our near extinction   I found  a banner of gates  that we can swing from  like flags    and brag and reminisce about when we had it like that    those virile high yellows  and the good luck microphones   and the crowds  and the  titles for groups who would stay a while   SNCC, Black Muslim, Panther,  someone  to name  the spectacle, a man,  a proud danger.  And America resents our new imagination, it is all wrong, too specific.  The freedom to love gets too close to the freedom to kill and they call the products of this: niggas / still / and we reproduce and cuddle with our mirrors looking for pointy things, and we become a city of gold crowns bobbing on the ocean surface hoping, just wishing you would come after us and trouble the mask/ 

what trauma, what glorious trauma, an act of perfect war, to love that man, that shallow leader, to love my country, to love myself again       invisible   like a proper soldier / property  / slave  -   low   in the cotton  playing a rotten   cello / pose /  for me /   baby, look at my shadow    papa  is no hardworking  martyr    in their grove          

As if we are the runners again

Her comments   on the universal   are naive  and Reconciliation  is   leaping     toward me like a violent violet hue          The   tainted  hue     of media   lucky ruthless bluette / it's  supposed   to be     the    20s ,   dread   is prohibited ,  my soldier,  the   legend overindulges   in rare souls and         there's   never one woman     ever        it's   incredible / video goals  /  and         she's   no   hoe   when  she's     in   hell  denouncing   sex without   love elbows to the cellophane  in the enigma melody,   Miles , 58-63 /  the noble , years   the   wife  fell to the floor   and found a well there -   years     liberated  -   elegant     But  the idea of universality doesn't  trouble   you    at all?       That we've all been       drinking  from that one careless stream of each other  and tripping down    the hearts of lenient  gods who pretend to be severe and so singular   like I'm your dearest    lore  or    like  the father   our father       had finally  reconciled  one calling with the other   just in time   to ball them all 

How a genius exploits  silence    for trembling   in that   late night diner   coke down the wrong  pipe  / gonner  / gonna  come back   to  light  the numb  in us  with terror    we trust  well as tenderness      

You can skip this ad in 15 seconds 

I begged him to stay away from jazz    and women  like that    who make   of it    

baffled excuses for the  duty free  future     and truisms  like 

I don't want to see another black man die  

fly down the isle   in   poker  white            

The Advanced Workers

Three Essays on a Theory of Bill Cosby

You've done everything you said you wouldn't, everything you said you despise 


Hide the beasts where I can find them   And fatherlessness   is no excuse    and          doctors make the best killers        observe  like an essay and    confess like   a poem  or       Antigone       because we  needed another paranoid nigga   to prove             pimps ain't shit     and another heroine chic to lure him into    it              

It's just that   what's not to love about the   way   righteousness buckles    as self-deception and the  tender  wet     mumbling   machines     of          smack  my bitch up    comes on the radio  right after Bach and Miles         fell to the knees of his still bloody wife  and begged her to stay   while she dialed  for help

Everyone is afraid   of being rejected   but everyone is more afraid   of being black     and abandoned by yourself, your own self  sold  to  Robert Johnson as        Heathen    Jackal   Hero    circus  code   fear of the telegram   fear of the telegram that reads   : yes    slowly,     act like you know me             jazz aficionado  pervert   early riser       my  cheeks   hurt    from smiling   at your   jokes     and   these   tears      are mostly     descending  the isle   of another   hungry   lie  

--

I had it all figured out, how in a country where the black man feels like he has no power, landless, oppressed in every direction, what better way to alleviate the strain of it than by oppressing women. And  then I thought, like Sterling Brown said, the strong men keep coming on. And I thought, love and respect are signs of that strength, no strong  man   would buckle   under   the pressure of his righteousness   let his mind slip  into the scarce  place   and a tight noose around     the eyes of idols   reads   loyal  in cursive   in   roots       And then I realized     could all evil  be some trite  form of helplessness   probably  not        but a hero    could  be evil and heroic   at the same  time     probably  not      but a   woman   can  be quiet   for almost a whole lifetime   but speak once      and crush your world  

---

I had this dream  that   me and O  were in a pick up truck after a dinner in Malibu  and I decided  to give him road  head on the way home.  But while I was distracted     he turned the car  on   in reverse   and drove  us   of a cliff   on purpose.  A paradise of innuendoes as we sloped  into  wings.  It's not that we survived it's that there  is  no victim     and     there is no one   to blame  for what we've overcome