Bundles of the Promise

 

http://afrosonics.tumblr.com/post/168993594619/you-oughta-see-me-minding-my-business

 

Ritual ( after quarrel)

Drain the bathwater which is lavender scented, salted,  milk white (imagine mother’s milk not the milk of cows, what you imagine matters),  and full of pale pink rose petals, make a drawbridge  by how   you  lift your knees  toward  your  chest    a golden wing in the wet  white     while  reading  a few lines of Beale Street   the  section  about  Ruth’s confession   ridiculous/majestic   the petals  will gather  at  your   feet as the drain  growls  and the sea level  lowers   leaving your naked body and the damp paperback open   in direct ratio to  one another, petals  in  a heart shape from your  ass to   your  heels        squeeze   them   out  like   sponges    and   throw   them  onto  the  bathroom   tile      if   he   slips   crossing  over    these    are  coffin   flowers   if    he   makes   it    through  your  torrent  of   beauty     he   can   stay   the  night   

How do you like it?

Really Food

 

http://afrosonics.tumblr.com/post/168806951484/and-i-am-sometimes-really-disappointed-that-many

 

Mona Harrison, Run

What is this languid self-assurance? And how did I earn it?  What happened between her and the angel that made her change her name. When she disappeared   killed by the Federals for knowing so much     our   dreams  of vengeance  vanished      with   her.    Heavy Hydrogen    and  gin    in    the dinner    so that    we   wobble   home  on the  ice    like  chimes  talking  shit   and gulping   plastic liters   of   purified  sewage.    Mona  said  it  would  start the  way  it has.  A major  eclipse on the edge  of   August   and  then   several  hurricanes. A whole island of ex-slaves turned  into a swamp,  their  bodies  left  to  sink  in  the  mud  of  greed and denial.   And  then  one  by  one    the big men will become  villains     out  in   the   open,  the  way   the    water  intends  to cough them  up   like   nets  or choke them  out  like   a  virus  inevitably  purged.    Mona  said   it  would  not   be   lonely     to  lose   all   your   fathers   but  it would   teach  you   of   the  unexamined suffering  you’ve  endured    worshiping   the   sick   all   these   years.  You’d recognize  how  you’ve    become  sick  too    with   complicity     with empty    retaliation  with    love of   an  unnamed  enemy  of   the   spirit  of    love         and  so   the   troubled     clang    of   the   searchlight    stops    in   another  graveyard    

and    a    gang    of    us   learning   to     crip walk    there       stalking      the   ocean   when   they   make   us   ship   dance          planning    a   new  year     in   the   sun’s   cannibalism     talking   right     to    only    body      that’s    true  :  You see the  new episode  of Atlanta,   did   they  really shoot him in the parking lot ?  I had  to  rewind    I’m tired  of   watching   free men   eat  drugs   and  cereal   

This is what it means to be a child of the sun

The bat  can carry   all the   viruses in the world and shows no symptoms   Its  black  wings   are  skins   its   happenings    affinities       in imitation      we     have     N A F T A      we have  never    left      the   maquiladora     crouched  over piles  of   chili  powder   in  a  modern   spice  war     proud  to  reach   Culver City   in  the  back  of an ice cream   truck    five    for     a   dollar     the powdered chili   having    been   made into   a   paste   that you  can  push with pump through   the perforated top of a spherical dispenser and   like   a   baby     baiting    the    areola     to churn      except   unnamed slaves    made     you    this    spicy     candy      and  Chiapas   is  a  far   away   place      you’ve never   heard   of    till it’s   too late    and how  do  you    tell   the   fat    man    he  is  starving   himself    do  you   say:   fat  man     you’re  living   in   a suicide    machine  of your  own making     do   you   say   batman   is   black    and   I   whooped    his    ass       for      some  cayenne   pepper   and    a  rhythm    I   can’t     quite   speak  

Walk for Me

Put  your   hands   up       and     walk    slowly     toward     the     gun        You   can’t    join   our  march   but    we    can      walk     in      the     same       direction.      The    four    girls      were    walking     upstairs   from   bible    study    in    that   ‘bama   basement.  Walk for me.  Emmett  Till     was   walking    home    to   the   wall      of   the  MET.  Walk   for    me.   Bill   Gunn      was    walking     backwards     in    a   murder    scene   with the    tenant  farmers   which   is   black   suicide—    Walk for me.   Justice    smells    barbeque   and    Tupac    walks    to      the   reunion     with     her.   Walk for   me.   Medgar Evers   was  walking    out onto    his   front   porch     to   pick  up the   newspaper  with   his   empty   coffin  on the   cover.    Walk  for  me.    If   you   take   it    that   slow    it gets  blurry   like   a   hot   black     day     in  a      body    in     the     street.     George  Jackson    was   cooking  Al  Green   some  grits.     Walk  for   me.     If   you   go   too     fast    they’ll    assume   you’re  running   from   something   and  unload   the    gun while you’re on your knees.  Walk for me       If    you’re     running     from   something       walk      for   me.      If   you’re    loaded   on  something    walk       for     me.        If you’re   holding the gun   but   didn’t   buy  the    bullet    walk   for  me.       Nina     was   walking   up   to    Weldon     in      a trip   of      help him  I think he’s  dying.   Walkforme.     Brother    was   walking    off    a   bridge    through  the  melt of    a     scream.   Walk off  me.    There’s   so  many   screams  in   this   epic.  Walk   slowly    toward      he    with  your   hands   up.      When  you get   to  the  open   car door   duck   in    with  your     hands    up.  We look so good ducking.  Walk for me.    When    the   officer     shoots    you     in     the   good mannered hand    and    then    in     the   gut     walk   for   me.     You’ve    seen   the     walk :    the      wilting   strut   of     a     crossed    over   body         walk    for   me.       Get     a    real      good   look    at   Jesus   so   you    can   identify  him   a  lineup     walk  for  me.     Look   at    god.    Walk  for    me.   Lock    up   God.    Walk      for   me.    Be   me    God.    Walk   for    me.     Long   as       you’re     walking     for   me       run    for   me    

Walk for me

Walk for me

Kipling-esque

You can’t do anything  right.   Your curiosity is violent.  Your empathy is false. Your sympathy is offensive. Your apology is primitive. Your music is sick with envy.  Your muses are sick with lust.  Your limp doesn’t  lean. Your straight line is a wink.  Your whimper catches December ditching  homeroom and only then realizes you stole somebody’s name. Your sister brags about anal on the first date. Your reprimand is an amp pumping meth into the trunk. Your clamour is at Wal-Mart. Your brothers hustle codeine.   Your table  is  covered in mugshots and cocaine.  You love  the way we taste. You  ate my  daddy. Grind is his bones into free rides  daily.  Then  he was on your sweatshirt on the first day of school.  You are a pig. You are the slave.  You are why I’m yellow. You ate at Waffle House on purpose. Your arrogance is how I’m turning gold.  Maybe I can rescue you from your myths about yourself.  Maybe I can hide your cadence and break your name into mine. Maybe I can convince you to hand over your children on Sundays and I’ll teach them to worship Orishas who each one looks like me. Maybe I can teach you to fear your dreams.  Unless they are about everything coming true after death. If you are decent, if you obey me,  if you say sorry or please every time  I see you smiling,  if you let me show you what civilized people do when they are being conquered,  raped, ruined, if you let me borrow your heart, if you rip out your own heart and plant it inside me and then eat your bloody hand,  if you let me beat you from that central territory   and walk through the actual  broken  glass of my area code to watch me take  my father to   the grave.  The  one  you ate.   The one whose blood  you tasted. The one who holds your   hand.   The one who made you  into your brutal savage self again       

Peyote, Run

Yo mama’s   so  funny  she  sued Red Bull   because  it  didn’t   give   her wings.     The cactus  flower  that  guards the  bull made  a chaos  of  stillness     until  the  horns   wilted   into capitol hill   riddles,   Dakota,  Lakota, one armed crow pose  with a   tucked  in  squeal    all   the   oil  spills.   It  spills  because   it’s  blood.   Its inclination  is  to  tell a story    to  take   shape   to   uproot    to   close   the    drapes   on   lazy  detectives    to   open  the   sun   with   toxic   radiation  if   nothing   else  will  claim   the  wound.   Will you claim  your  wounds?   Will   you   blame   the tombs  when  what    escapes  them    is  cannabis  pollen   and     all  the  rape  we called   misconduct.   All    the  euphemism     I    was    always    high  on        I   always   liked    to    eat    a   cactus   whole  and    let  it   limp  down my  throat  and   hold     me    accountable      for     my   crackling     sound     its   nearness   to    the   ground     in  flight       the    way    I      like   to   graze     when   I’m    hungry    to    feed   everything    around   me  but  myself      and    feel    as    empty    as   blackness       in    the    corpse  of   the  bulls     which     we  left    to   rot      in    a   trojan    style  for   the   hungry  ghosts              I    couldn’t     feel    it    inside   me      when  you   wore    that   thin    eye    of      skin     so    that   the  blood     in      the     ground      was       evidence        that      anywhere     hate     was   coded  in    prayer     was    American   soil        yo   mama’s    so     American    she   still   has     hope       she   still     goes    high       she     still       gitlow       she   still     doesn’t   know    why     we’re    in  Detroit      in    puff coats   but   we   hold    hands     and   run    the    border    swim     through   Tarsands      feel   like   the   beginning   of    beeswax   candles    when   you   can   still   smell     the    queen  begging    to    feed  her  young    with   the  blood    you’ve   come   to    burn    

No men will break our bones

 

http://afrosonics.tumblr.com/post/168006957234/those-men-will-break-your-bones-dont-know-how-to

 

Superfund

If    that  man    was   my   father       then   maybe    you’ll   understand    me       when  I   give    these    neat   instructions        :   Tuck    in    your    floating    ribs  and  stand   inside   of     a  mountain   Sinai    or any  rounded sufi Denver    or Vail  or     Turkey,   Blue Ledge River     peru    or          Egypt   receives  the second  most   aid    after   Israel    from the    United   States       Mohammad   the   prophet   of   mercy   will   kick    your    fidget   spinner     out   from  beneath   your   palm        hands    to   heart center      in  prayer       heart   to  your   knees   in    surrender       knees    to   the   dirt   in   supplication         eyes       closed      and    blindfolded        and   as    if    there     is     a  rigid     rope       dragging      you      into       the      distance       resist    to   urge       to    survive  it   and    which     disappears    first       you      or    the  mesh   loop   and benched messiah   trying    to  guide  your   will      How  deeply    do   you  identify    with    and    depend   on     and    feed    on     and    demand     your    own   destruction,       deception     Marshawn  Lynch    hung   like   a   hamhock       to  answer   every  question   yes  suh   sweet  daddy sungod  suh      if    you    ate  us     alive          whose     was     the   invasion     and    what     band     of  bones    counts   the escaped  graves    while    you     stand     inside   the   mountain  humming  Hendrix and      collecting   orange    berries         calling  the  reasonable  ones    superfoods,  hunting  the honey  away  from  its sting like  true  cowards          would   you   go   hungry   if  we    changed   your   name ?

First Supper

The way a white  gizzard like  neck  hinges back in  shameless    awe   and      erotic   hatred is    the  exact  inverse   of   the bow  in  the  lynched  man’s  head   slinging toward  the crowd   or   one  side    like   a nod      or   endlessly revolving  paddle.  Better  to  leave  here    alive   than   to  leave  here    dead    the  bled  out   body  knows     becoming  the molasses of   the  sycamore     and     the   history   of   your   festive   sickness.     Next   is    the   castration.  The  part they’ve   all been waiting   for.   The  preacher   does    the   honors,  the  hanged   was   a  sinner    the    score   was    his    color     low   in     the   dim      with    a  whisper   of   ocean   bottom.   He   uses   a   simple  pocket  knife   to  cut  the  ripe   sex   down    as  if    he   himself   has  birthed   it    from   an    emptied   scripture.     Then   someone   starts   a  fire with some fallen limbs     the    crowd    gathers     eager    and    waits    for   the   dark member   to  char  and   everyone     gets   a  taste     of  his   own     desire     to    be    part   of    the    body   under   the  sycamore     tree—     Nothing   animates   these   people    like    the   flowers     of    their    own     evil,    only   the   veil  of   death   makes  them   dance.    Backing     away     from   the   scene  to   get   a  closer  walk:    a    crowd   of   white      men   and   women    surround   one   black   man         hang   him in an arbor   until he’s    presumed    dead         castrate  him     and   eat    his     seed      never    looking     away    from   his   naked   body                for long enough         to   appreciate  this    sacred   birth   of  their     nation    

A little girl casts her being up through the menace of being that

The    aptitude       for    holding   back         the    erratic    limbs      of   the   defenseless       by  bending     their    frequency  toward   reckoning            makes     her      a       dream.            A     dream     is   a   death wish  inverted. She  makes  you     want     to   live.  #metoo.   A    dream    is   a rambling    valley    full   of   the    horrors   and  obscenities  lurking within  your  personal   utopia,  bitter  and rogue and forgiven.   If   it’s     so     perfect   there   why  are   you    wrecking it  with the   diversion        that  you     are.        If    the   clues    are    unsettled  agonies   and   euphoric     grooves   against   the daggers    of    looking      whose    sight   are  you   testing    with   the    blind   man   you  said you    love.  Why   is there a towel  in     the   flowers.   My  hands   don’t fit    around   his  neck   but  they   fit   around   his    reckless  cock like cloaks and lords,  so there.   And   there.   He  won’t     even   give   up   dairy    when   I    tell him  it’s    why   he    can’t    breathe.    Not  just   the  police,    though   they    have    an  ivory green    hand     in    it        not    just     the   open    fist   I   render    round    his   adam   in    a     dream,       his    means     of     telling     his   subconscious    he  wants    to    survive      he  wants     to   be    punished     he    wants     an    assassin       as   if   he’s    earned   anything     so    generous.  He   wants   an   accomplice.   Maafa      :   as       dreamed   up   as    the  god   in   machine.     She’s   a   dream  of   his   dream    of   her    dreaming       a promise  that   sleep  is long gone    as   the   stars   flaunt and  fawn    the   darkness  for admitting  to them.   We   are  not,    never    have  been     secrets.     Not even   when   we   see  killing    and    saving     as     the same     heathen   in them.   Not   even    when     we   break   a  man   into   a  god    just  to  prove   god   is    dead    again.   And the devil  he invented  is  so   emotional  about  himself  as   we  go    on   being  his   most honest   mirror.   A   man  who  can’t   really    be   evil  can’t    really   be   good.    A  woman   too.     Do   you   believe   that?     

Giovanni, Run

Are  we     even        bending   over   to   touch   our    feet   in   the  morning       just   out of  bed,    sleep crumbling in the     eye   crease      reticent         crescent   sun   flinching   from    kettles         releasing   the lumbar   spine   arms   hung   like   crimes   head   caressing  the  feet  with shadow        are we   even    over    ourselves      by    the      time     a    rich    man   pulls  out       his    lumpy   phallus        sneaks   in      from   behind   promising      we        like   it.          Retracing   my    steps.     Yes, I had doubled    over            yes   there      was    a  second      version   of     me     who     needed     to    see    the world     end     in   this     disheveled   matriarchy     yes     it      was  a    good   excuse      for    all   this   running     no  I  did   not   like   it        no   your   cum        wasn’t     sweet    and    right    where    it     landed          in a corpse   of moon.     I didn’t    confess   because    you   didn’t    confess.    It’s   better    waiting   for   the    secret  to   eat  you   the  way I taste it  everyday     as  our endless bluest    intimate.    Palming   the   velvet      then     clawing     it  then  laughing   like backwater  at   an impasse  about to blurt itself out and be everywhere,     Fuck   your   couch.   

Ai, Run.

She sits there like I didn’t slap her a few seconds ago        rapt in the smiling copper/mine    and sniffing   dust   for the  final bit  of   industry    could be bartered   for         a  night   in the    square    with   no  morning.    If   she    hadn’t   died young-like     all    the    ones       she   left   for   dead     in   the   field    or  cooked     into     the   confessions,   confections,   infected   suns,      aestheticized.   If   she   hadn’t     treated   the   brutalization    of   women    like   such     a   problem,    been   raped   on     prom   night     and     then     again      and   again      for   as  long  as   she could   count   to  zero.   And dissolve,      be  solved for hollow  peaches.  So if I seem   broken  and blue.   Angela Davis’   brother     is   the   CEO   of Xerox,     I heard.  Bitches  be  copying, niggas too,  everything,  desperately,   keep  this  record      you’re  disappearing  and    disappointing   me.     I heard  she’s  a narc    and the   narcs    are  heroes    and   don’t    get   killed  off by   the artificial   intelligence.   It’s   all lies    and   scorned  rumors   of course,   everything  important  is    by  now       so  numb     it    howls    in   silence with  Julien Priester and them  and me,     keep  this   record.     .   Ai    the  poet        not     the   pitted  plum   of   our trophy   hunting   and     unintelligence,      not the   dead    sardines    that   keep washing    up   in   cans   and side   by   side  on   Dr. Oz.   It is in her   lavish  violence  that   we   recognize  the   depth   of   our   need   to    be  loved      to   touch  devils    with   feathers   that   unnerve  them   and    sever    the   red   clay        of  gender   with  knives   as patient   as   mirrors                cracking  inside   the   flesh    like wasps  nests                  hatching     as   the  disease   you  catch   when    you  outrun     everything     and  can’t  forgive   yourself     this      delirious    and  lonely  beauty              

What is it about the negro?

http://afrosonics.tumblr.com/post/167552105394/what-is-it-about-the-negro

 

He keeps me

He keeps    me   sipping   pearls          fingers   in     the   socket            feeling     for    his     wet   corpse    and  crying      

 

       I     insincerely   can’t    remember            I    do   remember       wanting      him     dead     but       I   blank     at   the        going   through               and   then   I kept      wanting       him     back                       Never   remove      scars      

Card  game     suit    of  flowers       in  the     cleared   out     sugar     factory         when  you   fan   them   down    and     declare           defeat        I’ll       be      watching      like    a    lucky     scar         from    the     show     window     on   the         top    floor        with   Jim     rotting       invincibly         becoming      a   crime            He     keeps         me     criminal      minded       and      I    like     it       very   much                 to        capture    Patty  Hearst   in black      who   one      day        will      start      craving       babies  of  her   own            That’s     the  difficulty    with  being    a  woman     and   militant  tender        one    day      you’ll       want     to   breed        something     innocent         of     your        disordered     longing      and      a    world     that   doesn’t     need    remedy        and    you   might   have    to   settle     for    amnesia      for       taking       someone    out     to   make   this    a    safer   place           and    you    will    consider      yourself      innocent       and     reborn          

You don't resemeble nothin' (1)

You’re a poet he said, and you don’t believe in love?
And he put his head down on the table and began to cry.   

When I say vision I do not mean dream

How do we do that

 

http://afrosonics.tumblr.com/post/167229506044/to-be-irrepressible-finally-to-not-be-stopped

 

Blues for the good manners of vampires

And then here is somebody offering me a million dollars to become a whore.  I take it and become a  poet.  Find out there is no difference    between  words besides who and what wears them and the environment they intend when naked—seduction or truth, or seduction for the sake of truth,  or truth for the sake of seduction.  I take it and become a poem. Pathologically true and etheric residue of a body that’s been sold into this blue sound for profit and feeds it back to the capitalists as prophecy, blues blood for sale. Come out to show them. A whore is just a physical embodiment of all your deflected desire. You pay her to hide you there in wish-fulfillment,  to hold you hostage in her revelation. Poems are that. The opposite of whatever you let draw blood until you’re so anemic you run from what you need for fear of healing, for fear that real touch is more dangerous than all this pretend intimacy. And it is. Take the money. You can only become what you are.

Say Her Name

Baldwin, Run

That’s the best mountain.  Go inside some. Inside  the mountain.   Without the Bible.    Put out your cigarette.    Your whole  family  is hungry.   Don’t  feed them    yet.    Go inside some.   Inside   the mountain.    That’s   the  best     mountain.        Are witnesses      snitches   too.     If   you  snitch   in the   ghetto.     See   Amiri’s   front tooth.     Never   fixed it      so  inside.    Inside   the   mountain.   Bent  over     moanin  riot   slum  hyatt regency  come up.       What  kind  of   moaning?  Both kinds.    You’re   lying.   Snitch.     Liar.     Pleasure    hurts.      That’s  the best     mountain.    It’s   a     set     up.     Up  in the     inside        enclosed     and    no    way   down    but   deeper  in    and   higher.      Your   furnished   room     is    ready.     Your  burning    river    blood   red       ready.    Your      dead   hunger       your    other   Daddy      the   unknown    the     battle   stricken   inconnu     is    the  mountain        teller      troubadour      sweepstakes       at   the   door       with      a   fake      million   dollars      and    even     that      isn’t      what    you’re     hunting        inside    some   one      inside   the     best    mountain          stuck     on   the      peak    a    needle        or    oligarch     or      yourself        when    free  from   yourself        lured   there   by   need    kept     by  defiance         a  good   ugly    plan       a   beautiful    answer,    orphan,   ofeo   folds    the   rock     and     waits   inside          thumbs   on     the   tender   arrows   in   his    ears                pressing    legere  as  hoods and pale as the tide sipping cotton        

All you really have

 

http://afrosonics.tumblr.com/post/166878087059/if-you-cant-take-it-from-there-you-cant-take-it

 

Have enough self-respect to insinuate nothing / (everything)

Dizzy, run

Tombe   lentement vers  la    terre           Fall  slowly toward    the     earth  you’ve   been   sent   back   to   repair    yourself           Stravinsky’s   virgin     has      returned    to       dance    herself           into    eternity          We   all   outta    jump     back      and   kiss   ourselves     feel lucky in the swell and  shuck  of  deja vu         we  all    thought     about     leaving          just     to   seize    in   the grandeur of  return      to     notice   something     new    about   the   space     between     the   two    front     teeth      of     queens       on   the    altar     posing     as   wall.    Keep  hearing   flutes    and Lucca,   heard  your   very    own   daughter     had    to   sue      you     to     see    you      bought         before    the   US   Supreme      court        two    blue    bloods:           a  widow   and    a child     divvy    up    Tunisia    while    a      worm    erodes     that eager  dimple  of yours    beneath  the cold  wheel of  karma       makes      a    road       makes      a   stray      makes     a    traveler       makes       another    daughter    of    dust    pushing     an    empty    stroller     across    the   onramp         Why        are     there    so   many     men    in   the  sun    pushing    empty    strollers      from    the   Salvation   Army       so   many       ghosts     in      their   roll   up     on       and      supplies          ponderous  devastation   the   highest   highs are  for the fallen      your   indented cheek    tastes  like    the  shed     skin   of       gnats      your   trumpet         fat   with     maggots      your    widow    fat   with    greed     your   secret  baby    40    and   Ma  a fa   on    her    knees    helping       her     gather     the    last   of    you        and   make   it    say   her   name     

These are magic actions

What year was it

http://afrosonics.tumblr.com/post/166705301404/talk-about-your-performance-in-the-second-half-of

Apreggiated Octave

A yellow    rope     around     the    neck      of        a   confederate  soldier’s    statue       is      so       satisfying      like  they  had  dad   imagining   his  lynching  in amber and crow black    when    he   sang    or   begged   for   love,      strangled     everyone who lied         and when         the    stone            man      is     tucked        into          dirt   and    we      cheer                   promise   not   to   miss     the      anger       promise      love      is       rage            and              

murder        is        forgiveness            this    time    

Moses Sumney, Run

He’s practically bleating like     a   felled    killer    of    sheep.  I   listen  like  I’m    auditioning   to    join    and  I  am.        All my friends     high         on  ketamines    and I’m  starving   the grass    to    protect   it   from    them.   Nitrogen    slender   trojan      horse     hearse    and  hearsay.   Use  protection.  The skin  of   pigs     wet   with    obedience.  Said  no   so   many   times    it    was   like    begging.      Like   what  they    call  negative  capability   meaning,  I         didn’t   know    I   was   capable   of   begging     even   for   my   life     we cannot  be lovers      repeatedly  like   the  least  shy   accusation            begged      true to tribe      and   deregulated    ship   capsized    and   so   many     refugees     alighted   escaping     what   we  shape into likely   stories.    Frivol    and    revolvers          salt     in    the   sky     trying   to  blizzard      and         If    somebody    doesn’t    cry    soon           there      won’t    be    room     in    the      sea               for   Moses    and       me.      This   scream   is    functional.     In  that  way.     A   matter   of  populating   the   landscape          colonizing      it     with     evidence    of     Solomon        who     flies         at     the      end        to     render     beginning                 having   hidden       from    himself.  Having stopped looking, becoming what he needs to see, pitifully triumphant.    That’s   not    what    I  meant     by   use   protection.      No      no  no    no    no      no    no     no    no    no    no              I   demonstrate     or    turn    it    on         and he’s   hugging     the   horse’s    stomach      feeding     it        a      question      scraping    his    answer   across   a   Finnigan     situation     Finna  Finnagen   again     finna    wake   up    I   meant                 This     is     the   kind     of     music    you     can         taste            acrid        with   the  lucky   intensity         of    bulls         when     we   see      red          on     a    lover’s      brow          get    rowdy       retreat          He’s     practically      peeling    the   world      past      this      sleepy       crypto   fascist    what      does      that       mean       doom      grab          the      houses      have   been   leveled     or    unveiled       they     aren’t      houses       they’re    a   battlefield     begging   for sailors        Alert   as   clay      in      last subway     car       with     the     wax   apple     and   the    razor          and   the    babbling    white    girl     he  takes      as   reparations         penance        prey      a slender     indifference     when   she    stabs    him      in    the   stomach            as    if     that    was     the   plan      all    along      

Jimmy, run

He    stripped    and    strapped      his     semi-automatics            to   his  bare  black      chest           and    as if      that    wasn’t         beautiful        and     American        enough          some       homemade    dynamite.   Dinah  Washington’s   This Bitter Earth teetering  on the turntable      while    he     asked    who     could     be   like  Micah    but cousin,     who    couldn’t?      Fast  twitch   muscles    bulging     and     gleaming       as  he    marched     through   this   white    suburb     the   Nazi’s    are   coming     but I’m    here     to   protect     and    serve .      Later   in    the   interrogation    room      when   I   couldn’t     remember     who     took    the    first      shot     and      he    tapped     me     on    the     shoulder     grinning     and   sobbing    like   in There  Eyes are Watching  God  .     The   police  weren’t    gonna    kill    my    father        even    if   it      had     to     me              I    got     to   leave   with  Frank  Sinatra      and    all  these    magazines      and  clips       in  the    heat      of     withstanding      could make    me   be    glad     just   to   be    sad     thinking    of    you   

Joyous Surrender

Rupestral design    in the stuff of sound     and the psyche      of the   universe   in   a    disk      on    her   fingertip     she         lounges      like    it’s        a     life     or    death     mission     to    sit    still      and      watch    the          kid    kiss      his      reflection         hunt       and    kill       his     ghost            she     sits    still    while    the   harbor  hipped     serpent       crosses        limping               I  haven’t   given  up     on     the    serpent        yet   

                    I  haven’t   left      my    pancreas      alone        I      have    yet    to    surrender     thought     to     feeling       when    it    comes       to     being    touched       traced          suctioned     with   the     venom    of        behavior       I  haven’t       tasted        the     poison     yet      and        spit   it   back         at     the   dreading   sun      I   am   someone     unafraid     standing    at     the   nape    a      of    flame      and   wagging    deeper        reaching    Montana       numb     and         acting     heaved       by     some    practical    hunger      pretending      to    crave      what     he     craves       a   stray    mime       of      desire        cause    I     wanna     see        what    I’m       watching        I     want     a   seat   with     my   seed   at    the    table       I    wanna  topple     the   table      and    everything       it    upholds       

                            Make     sense      of   this  boyhood    unraveling        the   desperately     stooped    stance        the     antler     rancid      stench        of      copacetic           black      boy          you       can    get      it        he     can     get   it      I         less        than      whisper        tease        turn         to       catch          his      yearning       eye         cry      blood      to Kyle   Abrahams              Does     the    slave      inherit       a        need    to   be   watched           was   I   past    that     and       making   slaves       like factory       with my seeing             Did     I      slay     my     daddy            before     the    officer    could     or       just     after                 we       lost      the      13th    way             of   looking          close      your      eyes     baby          Ma     gon     be     a     wild     one                     Ma        don’t      confide       in        the      god    of     surrender              but     tempted      by        the     cliff      and       emptied       by     temptation              My   black   chosen      one             My      black     chosen         one