Jook Sing Lo

[jooksinglo]

Underground System at Bowery Ballroom 6/10/17

Underground System asks slowly, then screams loudly, “ARE YOU WITH US?” Here’s the front woman Domenica Fossati, demands we stand and cut the bullshit of calm (which the night begins in). She tells us to FUCK – ey ey VENGA venga – a blend of Afro-Caribbean, funk, salsa-led anti-fascist ska. It’s the music of first-generation children of color, raging in their rooms –trying every color to stay cool. Here’s an ode to those of us who burned holes in summer nights. And here’s a band that gets you soaked, then wonders aloud why everyone looks so sweaty.

Oh by the way, fuck you, the band pulls out a flute now –they rock that too, while operating a Steadicam booty. Fossati plays actual jazz flute while her u-joint ass, keeps her body independent from her booty poppin’ self. Also, there’s Maria Christina Eisen’s baritone sax – riddle me that story. After school symphonic band at P.S. 269 and NYSSMA was too boring?

What’s System here to do? It’s hard to tell if they’re here to salsa, bhangra, vogue, belly dance, crump, or mosh. Just shut up and dance. I mean really dance.

If the angst-release of yesterday was teenage wasteland: I-don’t-want-to-try-too-hard/can’t-don’t-know-how-to, then here is the emergence of the rest. We who are a little darker, a little more SAT prep inclined, who mosh but prefer to cypher. We, who crave the community of limitless and carefree. This is for us, to dance a brilliant release. Brooklyn Industry opens the chance for infinity, their own endless fun run for all ya’ll with that good hair.

[jooksinglo]

Heart(pang) Pt. 3

How much must a man be forced to eat? How many repulsions -gut revulsions, revolution of hearts-cycled must it take, before he can wish it to fail?

Wish the muscle to fall to the stars; wish the eternity of tears initiate; wish to beg them to break from his stubborn eyes, solvent that remains unclaimed.

There; is liquid that registers with black phlegm, lodged and unmoved, who takes residence in union with heartbreak; an eternal beat, the congruence that goes palpably unrivaled. Unless you take it

here. Above the sky, in this expanse of darkness; nobody can accuse you numb. Not here. Not in the inkblot noire of space.

[jooksinglo]

When I left earth, I left nothing I was part of.

When I left earth, I left nights waiting at the door staring at the sky.

When I left earth, I left the sun setting on dead leaves.

When I left earth, -that barren planet, nothing was left.

[jooksinglo]

I knew then as I know now that I was living a memory

[jooksinglo]

The Days of Brooklyn Gone

Friend from the desert visited once, infantryman to his core, lost it on Fulton St-Fort Greene. 

A Ranger captain who passed bonsais on sale, looked at me earnestly and asked, 

what do you think, do you think I can do it?  Bring plants on a plane?

[jooksinglo]

Is There Insomnia in Space?

Is there even night in space in this quarter-to-forever midnight?

Sometimes I think of those last kisses one shares, before the discovery

of their reluctant skin, shrinking from your fingers.

Sometimes I munch on space ice cream, those thousand flakes;

and stare at midnight through the bay doors.

[jooksinglo]

Death Metal

I remember once, 

how the Earth consumed metal

how after the rain one leg of the structure sunk 

how after days, stress marks could be seen in the rest of the beam

how after weeks the metal began to warp

how after months the metal was twisted

how after years the metal bowed

how the Earth consumed itself.

[jooksinglo]

Escape from New York

When I left Earth– I fingered my-gloves and toed my-boots, counting my-pulse racing passed the count;   

I suddenly remembered that I left my papers on my father’s desk in his home on Long Island. And I wondered if anyone would mind if I unstrapped and opened the craft to grab those pages:

likely packed by now, those last artifacts  buried by themselves.

[jooksinglo]

Birds of a Feather

To the sparrow in front who made no sound final flight to my window;

whose toes curled into permanent fists,       –nowhere to go, laying on this brick. Move to my garden 

where beak will unfurl     feathers transform; grow to rise again.

[jooksinglo]

Frenetic Silence

The silent type of siege where one stands, quietly bumping slightly into others staring through the subway window, a thousand walls crumbling

[jooksinglo]

The heart pangs, sometimes; craves cradle, craves flesh, craves bone.

Sometimes, it gurgles and bubbles from the absence, the want.

Take for example the last time, the moment of contact under your arm.

The last time you felt the gooseflesh on their arm, the sacred bumps, happy on their trail.

Sometimes the heart pangs, and we listen through the night. 

[jooksinglo]

After Philip Levine -- What Work Is

It’s the music that you don’t normally play no bass, only treble, distorted from the tiny speaker -- waiting to start the day. It’s the fuck you’s, the HA’s, the how are your kids and what’s that wife of yours up to. It’s staring at the sky, staring at the dirt the wondering about what sounds quiet at home. It’s the ten-ton hammer that strikes beneath your rib cage, that seizes your breath when the Commander steps out and gathers everyone to speak. It’s the horrible shattering that you’re wet in, when you’re interrupted by someone squeezing your elbow. And he smiles and he winks, freezing the aftershocks. And it’s you, staring  at the Commander as he speaks. And it’s you, smiling now.