Go forward to meet the rain

Bratty Niggas

There’s this  trend   toward   oblivion      and bourgeois   establishment    condescension   paraded around like  a  new fangled  remedy  for   blackness         as     if      to  have  made   it you  have to back sideways into   a  stupor    of  access  and hide from yourself  there          There’s   this    excessively   well  adjusted    affect       to  match          it  questions    nothing     predicts   immunity  to all sorts  of   catastrophes  of which  it is    a   symptom     hunts  for dashikis    to  wear   in the  club    titles   to  rub   the   eyes   with   like poison   ivy      IV  truck outside  after  the  party    Tick  Tock    rubber    meets    Hitchcock  road      leap   from   so   what     to    egypt  strut      amnesia  so  cluttered  it’s   near   remembering       it’s   near  slapping   some   sense    into  the   feigned  contentment   of   derailed    exponents    of   that   dreaded    and  deadening   anointment  men   call   fame      No    name    in  the street     ass niggas      it    lasts     as  long   as  paychecks   in   casinos     it    lasts     as   long    as    the   end  of   the world        You’ll  hear  the  fatalism   twirling    like   spades   in   the    last   lung  of    capital      breathless  with  act     and    cold    as Michael       an  air   of   battered   ego    veiled    by     sailboat   in   the    NASA   greenscreen  moonlight       I  love  you    in spite   of yourself  you’ll      say      as  they   trade   that    in  spite     and  sway   off  the  platform  just   in   time   for   the     train    to mangle   all  their   self-flagellating  elephants    These  suicidal  men   looking    for    respectable   ways   to   die           Looking   like   lies     when  they   shatter            Don’t   let   it   happen  here     

Rehearsal for God Bless the Child (1)

There are no wealthy black people, I overheard.  We get  rich  though.  We show up in gold with delicious appetites  for luxury and leave in rags and discontinued yeezys. Find some more gold and pawn it for chapels. Capitalism lacks a redeeming fable. We are that fable. Blackness is that. Black people. We wave the bull into charge with nowhere to run but toward him. We break this constant danger into its lyric shame or shambles and roll out.        Roll out.   

When I fall in love it will be forever

Salute  the     screeching ladder        It grows  on   a     tree    it     falls     as             dead    cadavers       are    floating     in  the  streets    and       some      sardonic   needle  approaches  in   place    of   a   boat   braced   with   fever   and eluvium         the  toothless   smile    of    new   sharks,       feels    like    everyone    is    in     disguise    while  I  tiptoe  by   naked    and   stray         carrying     the     gifts      revealed    by   their    undoing     or   being     the    gift      an  offering     that    isn’t     sacrifice        but    ribboned     gauntlet    sharp      and     fast    to  slice     a   burden   into    ash               assure   them    of   their    safety    from   the   podium  in the   saddle   of   a   bomb           the   jaundiced  trauma   of    triumph     doesn’t     warn      the    lion   it   will   become   its    own    prey     on the rim  of   conquer

 lonely    man       lonely    man       doesn’t       warn    her       as   fists   of   laughter    slur     the   name    through  lattice    and    fastened   tilt             ma        a        f a                 ma      a aaaaafa         did    it     really    happen       I don’t work  for  him       do you   work  for him ?      

 A   rumor    mute   with     two-way   memory      and   as    empirical    as    lazarus     who          had   the   fire    all  to  himself     and    forgot     how    to     burn         That   habit  of  starting   over   of  getting   it   better     or     getting    it       the    same     calls      himself   black    with a   6 at    the   l     with    a  hissing     accelerator          calls   herself     ma  a    fa       mother    and    father      coerced    onto   the   song  as    shadows   of    the   flexed     hands   of     silent     clowns           

I came  around   in   silk  gloves   and    a gown-like    overcoat      scarlet   puddles   on my   lips   and   held    the  ropes  of Sonny Liston’s    ring    before   he   was  a    bell        heaving           this   jester  of  me       into    his    sheepish    eyes         beat  me      as    hard      as   you     would       if    you    owned       me        I   whispered          and    we   went    over         some     rules     together         

This Lit

This belligerent     devotion    got   close   to  Rome       hit  send     senseless     until   the   s   was  invisible   and   swollen   machine     I   love   you   so.       The  world    has   ended   with   Stevie  Wonder   on two   knees   as   a rising       sea    collapses   over   Puerto   Rico  and    my disdain for literal  negroes     vanishes   with  all the lights  out.   All the lights   went  out   and   remain.  All  the remains    are  about M a a f  a    and  I’m a main bitch    to   every   somebody,  hush  now     touch Jehovah leaflet  with   a been-saved howl   and      what   color    are   the   weeping   eyes   in   his   kneecaps   what crooked   childhood   50  yard   dash       he  was   always winning   because    he   couldn’t      see     the  finish    line        she was  always  cheering from      just    beyond          All the electric   lights    that   is.      There’s   still   this     trophy  wife    highlighter   by   badgirl riri       there’s    still   a    dirty   blond   leak   in    the    sky        a   crisis     of      shine     a golden     time keeper      a   public    enemy    with the    watch  tickling   his  neck     for   creases       and   fight.      I keep  fighting     like   that  golden     crisis        like    that    blind    singer     on  his   knees     in       prayer     like      the   ice   isn’t    melting  into rabid azul lace    and   the   others    aren’t    eating    one    another    in a mellow   tone      while    the   lights    shone     well     underground         and    the   bite    marks    roam    like    sirens       Ima   eat  my   baby  first    cause  I don’t     want    him     to    see      this      Ima   feed     him   to  the   abstract     birth    slipping     free   from    time         I   ate   my   baby    I   bled   him   out   into    the   high sea  screaming      fight     the   power    fight   the   power         I  had    a  nightmare     this   was  medicine   for  a nightmare    

Starts with a series of lynchings ends with a series of apologies

There comes a time to wake up to what's happening