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