What if I Rip your Heart Out

Over  a code  of echoes         dead Malcolm X  is smiling on his stretcher          someone mumbles no disrespect   in the  junkyard                 and his servants and  killers carry  him apart from bleeding  he is smiling Harlem         crimes are meekness in  the evening walking too far  without a chip or ripping your  heart out while grinning so    what if  I did  

And throw your music  in the street with some hypodermic needles  

Mingus   and the Italian    sheets of leverage     as we re-litigate bow-legged    speech some wires in a war           hat that aim what a bastard         I mean they were married but not to one another

I hope the communists blow you people up   He   quips        I learn it’s  cuddle with rebels   and their rifles or    be

 Sold with  cowards as     their water    

He collapses

Wiltern dash   spurned shake a       love ballad leg smallhead   perfect edges up/up both    reggies stuff the ballot    talbot’s is canceled be serious          ll bean too I turn to you for the    fleece he sheets as skin has too many nieces and no believable  brothers nor cousins no crease in the collapse a pickup        appetite up up Capulet yesterday’s star-crossed yesterday’s blood on the   cross yesterday is dead, boss lead leg and the limping elder is doorway  a curtain a naynay a no whip beating

You are encouraging ghosts to haunt you forever

Hess, Run

By proxy  is an ugly    abiding stride        seems poison green       and the footing noise on broken   land is  bleed   me bleed   me bleed me.          I’ve never   loved a man     more than I love   this dusty fugitive        the way he says nothing    and means it the way    he beams like a mantle and shuttle inside   me and means it the way he says   he longs to die and means it the     way he rides his affect like he dreams     it the way he is dead and means it the way  he is dad and means it

Duat

 and so we are dreams darkening the   skin of walls. The underworld in Ancient Egypt     got me pregnant and unwed what a petty way to   get my attention. What a lie and then. They call it   the boat the carries the sun I’m staring at a photo   of their version of hell or daybreak and at another photo   of the hold of a slaveship when it occurs to me that they are the same place that maybe    we’re the glorying pawns in a thousands of years long ritual to  get off that one boat sun slaves worshipers there is  no other ruler or under to adore the spun up noose knot didn’t wanna use    the n word but in looting the underworld for diagrams of tomorrow if you   don’t go crazy you might no go

To this day

Maafa's Provocative

Your guru sees you    a black neurotic dancing    with mickey mouse and the drum  thick tickle of cowardice is     neat in a crowd innit neat in    crowd coward

And how they had  loved her

And   how had  they loved her?

A  merciless  indigo corner  store social kind  of hovering kind  of genocidal love     yes that’s what it was     genocidal love so much the  calliope kept crying behind the  fine spilling d n a heimlich the   music kept up like crime scene   knuckles and the premeditated obsessions    of people who call themselves adults sick people      and how they had loved her how had they love   her

Guru     good rug      a scuffle a   scaffold

When   I told   him I was   leaving he said      well you better think  about it because there’s  no way back

Maafa’s Ideation

That woman was three women    three different diversely crazy  people so beautiful does  your hotel have a strategy in place     for staggerlee for discouraging people from jumping  out the windows No no no no no no no no

I said no      

If a moon   can be demure      as murder when doubled       can be as sourceless as war        I’d adopt a doberman and Paris   Jackson I’d put a strategy in place    for when people reach me and can’t see          the ocean floor I’d get out of the way      and watch agape as the bodies fell I’d say they    aren’t killers just searching for new ways to be   born

I’d   say no one   made you go  Las Vegas

That’s   not true       there’s evidence    that that’s a lie    

Supine     

Crumbs  of neon          millions of cameras  tucked in the ceiling  

This Fantasy is Ambition

Following   the gaunt   pose of a solo   voice ever    voided in the drift   toward Vesey

Suddenly       she lost his    name and more   than that his avenue      his usual coming forth   his

Mutilated   revolution’s bruise of      river in a vase of slipped    petals and pills she lost  his way of talking of erasing   her

And  taking  off the     gaze for the   other gaze his    voice his vessel his avarice        pink lips on

A   sunless    neck lavender with  bruises heckle this   event say sun drenched    say one templed yell       so long boy toyota voice     roadless until bill moyers says what a dragon   is what this ego is what listless letters   we had before the machine made us sellers of   it one through five best sissies bribed by nothing   bitches

God, I could  use someone to   yell expletives   at once a month     

Thank god  I found you    in the blue   tunnel under Malibu    driving though like it wasn’t on  fire and you too my   effigy my legion of heat  bent bones on leather drum nest you          ready as the new sound

The  time of    matriarchy   followed

Seven Glyphs for a Kelp Forest

It's supposed to be love

Ardently

What  strangled    me the   farce in    the nightsnake   or the narcissism     of all survival instincts              didn’t make it to morning

         What bleeds     bleeds ardently           or trips over suffocation      to g e t to lemon clenched as   many yellow entryway henchmen    huddle in their citrus grins

    And by   then divine     intervention is as    good a s the last    song and as long false    

You’ll     find yourself      humming middle notes    to the Boy if  you don’t   get Vine   compilation      winding your hips    possessed by the    rhythm of eight seconds    of hearsay It was     expiation

          such expensive    fun for eight   seconds one Sunday    they all danced in blackface     

Toward     the same   dazed revenge           I’d been trapped in eternal    with some oxytocin so long    I felt imperialism giving my    body an offer it couldn’t refuse      and I jumped too grabbed you by the   hand and the chasm it was Sunday                 they spent their lotto money on tarot and braids     we made drugs in the basement jumped our simulations   and fucked for free

Promises of Blue Movies

The  corridor was  winged in a   skin of headlights     the r lingering eerie   I stood on the back   of his horse and had  no daddy lethal pattern     and overcoming the black that   dies of a broken heart to be the   girl who departs gleeful full hearted       coded in her own leverage not watching Sharp  Objects not carrying them after midnight through remembered    air spectrum is not a cable company someday and   I caught Ray Charles shaving in a brutal dark on Christmas and asked     him about his wrist clasping habit did it remind him of shackles pulses    pussy didn’t mean it when I said it aloud but I mean it now this  is love this is what love looks like to Maafa this is the soft blot of yellow   doctored out of public satisfaction this is exactly

How   she needs  to be loved          by a blind black man   shaving in total darkness    and also flying over a  streetlamp a lark dandy mandingo      heathen who can sing I mean really   sing

And keeps naming me after   my most delicate bones    can feel my name in my form        

Absolving   all that   killer guilt       

Rescinding   all that   hilltop hilltop   hilltop where the   air skims the skin  like razors and she can   feel him limping in the    damp of field or palming a    rancid sunrise as if there was no   machine touching no debut kissing its blood in a rubber Las Vegas

Maafa and the Moneychangers

Any   city might     fall of some   lumber keel wallow   wheel in a low low altar     made of now that the revolution   has—

   

    Castrated   its last    rape victim               I feel safe do you     feel safe? In any city I might      pick the night’s last trapdoor hour    to run half naked to a lover’s  house negro trench coat and lace now   that the saddle is drilled in revival              

                                                                                                                                   Meeting tomorrow I know I keep asking but is this tomorrow? That scratch off lotto gunk       in the conductor’s thumbnail makes him tin man christ hollow in the joke of bloodlines   as if anatomy is out of time rhythmless heartless if this is the last gimmick before    the end of law I’d give him the softest most final manicure in the trigger finger          a mannequin of an apple prying the mouth open to tell how even the inanimate objects have their insistent    violence feel idle and virgin without their gun or nagging wonder when I arrive at his door safe    and half naked he looks like he’s been fucking white women I grimace and back away defiant in a      daze of safety they reinvent satan give him a spraytan give him a woman to love and one to    damage make them the same woman now that the revolution has ruined indifference we’re all so candid and  empty it’s like there’s no more alphabet it’s like the whole s e t is mute the whole brutalized radiance I was so used  to

Cardinal Beauty

Affable        father

Windswept     father

Halogen   father

I killed  him father    

How’s  that feather  on the wind    

Monoton   ous feather      feather father

The time of matriarchy followed trickled  down like the last blow   from a black nose father   

What   about    home though       what about all my     hoes Big Stuff and O       father

What     about the   fable have        you ever killed  your father

Meadows:  Father          

Say   so

Fa    so la   te deaux    

Denial     father

Is  so  rebel    after    say  I     feel  seen      dangled        dreamed father    

 

Astor   place

Stroller   tracks in   the dirt

Mason     Dixon was    he a mason

Save  me a line   

Say  her name         33 times

Where did   they take   the baby they’d been  pushing up the hill

Where   is she    

Is   she a   spy

Or me 

Is   he

Hegemony  

Patricide    

Genocide   

Genocide  

Bye  bye    father   

Higher  ground    forever 

The time of matriarchy  followed  

The Optics

This former giant  in his crime orange      

                                           Jumpsuit

                                          Blind

                                       

                                             Black

                                         Ruins

He  could   be my   dad

He  was  my dad    too    who also died in  jail after almost destroying

His  misery     He really  got to leave    like leaving do         baby on the way

Muse      shaking  in the maze        I’ll meet   you in the  maze playing  lazy promises  

Will there  be a laugh   track and my favorite  strands of bus stop weave   waiting

To  declare    his mistakes    a suicide or do    we have to name that too  

Maafa's not distraught

My negroes,  I say they are mine because my father gave them to me     the story  begins    

Are you still waiting around for the happy ending?

Vivika, Run

Suffocating     supplicating    once I hung  a layer cake from the   ceiling like it was the   queen’s chandelier and I’m the     queen and I tested anapest   with a bat hinged at my shoulder  jabbed the new sugar loose so a mess   of white would splatter on my face jupiter jupiter   the matrix has you cake on the floor no more

                                        

        Pretending

 all  temptation     escalates for   the fall I  may not be safe     in my rage I may not    save you a plate later I  covered my face in that battered   frost pressed it against the window   

She  knows    church   she knows    all about it              I   heard  the neighbors    yelping at a ring      one man was on his back  in satin shorts arranging  their feelings have you seen  the fashion we wear polaroids     on our stomachs now the ones      taken from the slopes of roller coasters   because you’ll need to identify one another screaming       with nothing coming out of your mouths but cake and     a loud red maiden pressed against the window is that   snow is that motive is she where we meet under lemons   to watch those glaciers disappear into the sea and be glad      and be ruthless with me

Earth Rot

As  if  it’s  habitual  ^ that   terrible she    folds the camels  into jesuit adults     and all the hoes are barren     andthen Maafa buys a    fast Mazda she forgot there’s   no more crude oil to guzzle so she   stands on top of that bloody lobster playing   the flute a lot of bamboo a jot of   Bambi surrendering to her inventor’s reputation     heal yourself from all knowing heal yourself from all knowing     heal yourself from all knowing

This is the clearing he once spoke of

It’s wartime   there’s no gasoline       everybody’s on bicycles              and he walks out into this garden   this is toward the end and he  feels like Adam on the first day       And he’s waiting inside of her to  take shape shoes under water a   dozen representations of harps in stones If you feel  like you’re going crazy or dying or your ego is dissolving   go with it don’t fight it if you fight it you’ll make   it worse this is what spin is when all the gospels surrender

For Maafa for whom grieving isn’t a fantasy everything is

Where e is  called   the spherical   excess a    pall of media is     always not even enough    to say something justice  like    they  love pickled   cabbage on a bagel  or     something    taller THEY  LOVE THAT GOD IS BLACK              we love playing west coast shit   in the backs of school buses on the way to Magic Mountain   one white kid named Jared is with it too one laughter    is too many chickens in Dave’s last day on set too many       dead birds on set too many onslaughts of secular mercy too many Marcy Projects    reciting but not Jay Z types I’ll fight a clone but then what? There’s genetics   in every tension a fantasy in every release revenge is just panic panic just     that this isn’t mount Fuji yet
make the next mountain a sinner with no rails  

I   suspect  we’re being     quarantined and    beamed up on double   crosses I suspect we  love Jesus and don’t    even claim him or have the   sense to clone him suspicion   makes me laugh and dip the   thigh in batter

Where the growl  of oil in mouths    captivates empowers

the earth  spills    some more  into a quarry   

Quarantine     Josephine     Persephone whatever the mania of clarity can occupy without killing

Seven Figures

A haggle  of camels     and no red  lake no 1 to clean   the undulations or braid the still  water in their freight of skulls       

This Reddit forum on  vivid dreams is turning into blackness lessons   live coaching  bitch that’s what money do   

Thought the drone was a hawk   again now we’re talking about   clones and fancy lemons a sophisticated  brand of stretch pants saved my life     Night and Day weaponized the sun

Ficus       Ficus Ficus  Ficus if it  itches if it fights       if it eats at Sizzler Happily   ever?

Hard candy   in a bush like   a poisonous mushroom   or permission to run   but she sits still in silhouette  and smiles and the children inherit    the bomb shelter the butterscotch Bell Hook’s  car collection there’s a lot of them

                      See an ancient baby bird beautifully encased  in Amber I don’t see her I see   a man’s inertia

Nature is anti-capitalist  propaganda a burden  of knowledge actually     jade tree jade tree ace of spades     in a jungle of loosies and you  berrating a dome of lungs in these longest   broken tongues

Maafa’s Industrial Attraction

Hawks  on trucks  on crop on   klux he left the x out he wanted it   luck      the   uncultivated  land gives  me a rush    of communion            and freedom is for the   wild ones who can still    see a hanged man in every    fancy silk tie and adobe pile         The scavengers in there groping their own necks    to brace the rash of assimilation checking for  chains and magenta teeth I want to say here nothing    other than they are very corny and the bird dung   on their windows called eyes came to clean in swarms  torment them with a ritual joke when they wanted luxury socialism and then    there are no  more naked men    in the boat Dada       there are no more men in boats          there are no sun bottles filled with ice    and cod what is desire after luxury will he   get hungry will she feed him the tufts of milk    he remembers like bites and loaves nobody knows nobody   knows

What picturesque fugitives

Sometimes drummers   are taxi drivers   hunched clean in the banana   yellow ones the unanimous ones     

Don’t lie to me.

Sometimes I wanna ride in his taxi  and talk about the meat-packing factory his parents own in San Juan,  how it flooded of Maria how it gets to Camelot or Washington  Heights where the family owns a grocery store, haven for the locals.

Let’s go crazy.

The rotten meat can be salvaged   with the vials of soft blood and dye   in the backroom freezer. Just inject it like a sleeve of vaccines        look away play something drastic sell it downtown    we’re headed to Wall Street with the reddest lamb these executives  have ever seen.

Don’t  try me.  

Sometimes  I’m the one    on the tambors  beating them like   I’d whack a slaver   with my naked hands until  they bleed and I bleed   making the dandies hungry for   something lethal

On either side of the emancipatory project

Mine

He will become a kind of revolutionary        a superior and dedicated gangster I dangle   it in crayon the skin of  my imagined

Petty shrines on the spines of wands  that say I’m finally tending to  my true cravings

I crave   a heated    blue a chemiluminescent  human naked in his own   dayglow

The  taste  of sea   and peaches   

The taste  of seeing peaches    

The  dried  blood after   he punches and   we fuck I burn    on the alter and it   becomes such candy

Coated     rainbows like   the one over the    swamp the day we   met the jokes about   dirt and heavy petting

The taste  of swamp   and palpitations       and peaches so fuzzy     so fussy so neat

The Primordial Ingenue

I have these epiphanies   they’re strangling the world    jejune and the lion’s mane mushroom   invents the shame of hanging ice in the sun        an impersonation of the nerve of a lion    an animal that sleeps off its kill like   earth will sleep us off I had this very weird    experience in my garden then, the   sweet obsolete mercenaries we call bees had congregated in the space where a black bear had scratched a tree and they were sucking the rotting  log the soft wood now a fungus gave them enough honey to drip from the neck of this broken birch bloody yet tickled  with the low rain of its own temptation to mend when the rot is our immune system new to ancient beauty trying to   grow a blond and abolition foolish I lash out sometimes and touch madonna’s stolen children with an unplugged hot comb   to make sure we’re breathing like virgins

The bees     when finished  feeding flap   their wings until  their wings are shredded     and collapse into scarabs

I have  this bouquet of their last  hallucinogens it’s chewing    on my cousins kneeling   while they moan