Cells grow like trees

Nat Turner, 1831

http://afrosonics.tumblr.com/post/117680435949/i-think-that-niggas-is-tired-of-grabbing-shit-out

The day our church grew a stage it caught on fire

MJ turned slow white selling coke   and carbon  broke free as melanin   is unreasonable   again  

st     what light      The ghosts    are right  to   poke fun at  our blindness   which  we love  the way we  love them    for sentimental   reasons     and   can    no   more see  the   shine    in   it   than  in   Sam Cooke on stage  combing his hair  and looking  in the mirror    to invent the black teenager in the image of   pleading       and mercy   is vain   like  we are  like   niggas     is   vain    and   mercy  too    /    too thankful      for the pain  to question it sometimes  /   Junkies    rhyming   punks   with     with   undeliverable     season  

wake  up, bossman    Your territory!    Is so far from your character   it's  coming  between     two  invisible   men          not to mention         what happened to all the worshipers

Whose water is where

Cole Porter was Gay

Sometimes facts sound  like accusations        His deranged felicity   both the   pulse and corpse of
 
                           American Blackness         Imagine   a  rich kid like Miles     begging for the great white all    minus the burden                           as if   in the midst of his martyrdom    he had lost his faith    

                We fall in love like enemies   because  it takes   forever  to grieve our sameness     and

those statues  can't be accurate    I mean the ones  who suddenly appear   on the highway  of my nightmare      where  the   clean  coon   blooming in some ecstatic meekness   that passes   for militant   is /  shot   back   to his will  by   the   fascists   he hired to document his ghosts—tell on them
                                                                                                                                                 free at last  
And too many   of these     tabloids   end    the same        all the safe  and jaunty  decadence   crammed  into   a  jazz man's   ass   and  out   his   trumpet or matte pastoral         I       think  
                                                                                                       if affection  didn't  have to be so violent   to get   true    
if genius   wasn't out of this   world  like jesus, zeus, and zarathursta   strung out on otherness
     that  crime    missing  a criminal  and     I wonder  also   if part of the task    of    uplifting the living black myth     isn't   to demolish      the sanctity  of Cole Porter                  pray  the ideas  slur

and some unlikely hero  emerges  telling everyone to go home at once   and love a  man      

Whitney singing from the Wiz

It's    a   little    brisk      fisted   metaphor  for  places    I've  never   been adoring   you more  than   my     race   is   for/  sore     my sore    race   is  made   is   making the headlines  running for president      White man chooses oppression    in order   to   crave  black   music        boring coveters that    they   are     we    are  too    I mean     glued to the magazine  holding it close to our eyes from both sides    a  wide   grin   would   be   the meanest   inheritance    Papa       when  I think   spinning I only picture  men like you   on   stages    her duty    last stage    was  to fake  like  when I think of home I  think of a place   where     her   duty   last stage   was   a page  in the baptism   dig   back   as   the fierce  wimpers of almost     U N I O N       crawl   toward  a chemist's word  and turn it wooden   in the     orange and blue  feelings

I'm finally making that tabloid magazine

Out of all our most tender     dream   rendered   true       like trueblood's blues drive the blues  away

I'm looking for all to be rendered

I'm looking for all to come about from  my soul


and if everything  is  a scandal   including   the guilt   including  the nobility       this is the only way                                                                                                                                    left to be natural

Reassurance (3)

What gives you the right to love black music?

These foolish things

remind me of you

http://smallblackchurch.tumblr.com/post/116369590500

Reassurance (2)

Two for the father

Reassurance (1)

And very shortly after I was discovered in Africa  where I was   the sometimes noble savage  I was,
in the twinkling of an eye, after the Middle Passage, found on the Metro Goldwyn Mayer backlot, singing and dancing, the noble savage transformed into the happy darkie, and no one quite knows how this happened








Freedom is a very dangerous myth™

The Bravado and the Cowardice

As for the archaic lovers trapped in an interminable rose garden     pardon  your fatalism   the weightless shards   of whim   the family  intends  its disenchantment  as a matter of   stolen   fathers   mine    was borrowed    apocalypse apocalypse  

I'm so happy,  I looked at the crowd   I looked at my fans  and     I realized      we are some partying motherfuckers  

But as for the archaic lovers  loose as butter on the hill       I will  have willed it as the rose frays  into  Porgy and Bess   I will have said    I'm less of an opera  goer   then  I bend my dresses  for  him too many black men in prison so sharecrop again   show me   a ghetto robot  that gives   directions to watts    and all those movies  about being and nothingness grow so ornate by the seventies   I am standing between him and darkness and my steady composure frightens us   like   ropes    gnarl into kisses   I think two people alone together  is the bravest  gift   having left it unsaid   do you even understand   it    I have loved you forever   I have never left your side   I am a coward  and isn't that the bravery of me    As for the archaic lovers    young white knuckles   make a whole system  run in step with itself  again     I don't trust the monogamous   I'm indifferent to the moralizing  wives stranded in duty   but the oneness is useful   like a hungry currency   Bill Withers come into me to watch  the father's benevolence    decide   when to matter    as violence

Even the faithful

Hold fast to disobedience .   He acts   so agreeable   as if he were  under the bed    it's   reasonable   to      float a thin white curtain  into  the notes   of some    prison    chant    God Bless the Child   and

those   who naively use the archetypes for their own personalistic ends   will be made subject to their  cruel    tyranny