Jun 23, 2015
Shouts out to Write About Now Poetry for sharing my work at Southern Fried 2015
(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GykkBpoiJ_o)
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Shouts out to Write About Now Poetry for sharing my work at Southern Fried 2015
(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GykkBpoiJ_o)
Here’s a recent performance of “The Pelicans.” Go Pelicans. You’re the best.
Poem 11/30 (Touring Texas)
I’m touring the Texas State Capitol
my small brown body dwarfed against the backdrop
of white coliseums as tall as they are ancient
I’m dancing in the bleached shadows of history
on my chest is a yellow T-shirt
with a picture of a hazy horizon as Texan as it is New York
there are two protruding towers
knifing up into the belly of the setting sun
a miniscule plane approaching them
mountains in front of the planes
and further below,are two shadowy figures
a cowboy mounted atop his horse
white gunsmoke blaring from his extended pistol
streaming a white line of gunfire
into the back of a Native man
who is tumbling clumsily, chieftain headdress and all
to the indifferent ground
beneath the morbid scene
is the word “Terrorism”
etched out in tumbleweed
when my white Liberal friend Laura
sees my T-shirt a few years ago
she winces
as though the white stream of gunfire
had leapt off of my shirt
and whistled past her ear
as if the chieftain’s blood
had splattered off of my chest
and onto her cheek
Me, I flash a shit-eating grin
that says, “Gotcha bitch!”
always looking for a way
to stick it to the man
and all his sons and daughters
I dangle the tale of the T-shirt
between the knife edged teeth of my grin
like an oblivious pup
who just gathered a rat up into his mouth
and drops his delectable find
in front of his repulsed owner
like, “Looka Massa’, look what I found!”
But now... I’m wondering about Brianna
and how she took to my not so tactful T-shirt
or if she even noticed it
Brianna, articulate and knowledgeable tour guide
who just walked me and a couple dozen visitors
through the pristine halls of the Texas State Capitol
Brianna, of light yellow Latina hue and American college girl humor
she is a walking library of White Supremacist mythology
trapped in a mausoleum of Mestizo skin
the jokes glint off of her Native tongue with irony
her commentary clashes with her culture
as she speaks of Texas history in the possessive
“We were defeated by Mexico in the Battle of Alamo in 1836,” she says
“We rallied back 6 weeks later and won the Battle of San Jacinto
and thereby founded the state of Texas,” she continues
and I keep trying to figure out how she can fit
all her light brown ME inside of all that Western White Supremacist WE
how she can so easily mince memories of Mocassin shoe mamas
beneath the the steel toes & steers of Lone Star boots
walking her across the marble floors of her oppressor’s history
as she speaks, does it not clash a cognitive dissonance
that blares as loudly as the assembly of American Diabetes Association
members dancing virulently to Reggaeton in front of the State Capitol
as she struggles to speak above them
I think they’re doing Zuumba or the Macarena or some shit
that English words fail to do justice
and I’m wondering how she fails to see the injustice
in the narrative she’s been paid to propagate
and can she hear her ancestors rebuttal thumping through
Reggaeton drums as their bass vibrates
through the corridors of the Texas State Capitol
Brianna, can you hear your ancestors calling?
at the end of the tour, an elderly white women asks Brianna
“What does the word Texas mean?”
She quickly replies, “It’s a Cahto Indian word for friendship.”
and I immediately want to look up the word friendship
and see if there’s something I missed
perhaps there are etymological references to blood
splattered chieftains and Trails of Tears
perhaps those are key ingredients to lifelong bonds
and i’m the oblivious one
maybe what I perceive as truth is little
more than the rat in the dog’s mouth
a meager diet for a minor player in the human kingdom
a scavenger’s find of a perspective
banished to the gutters of history
or maybe…
maybe Texas, like America
is just a really fucked up friend
the kind that vice grips your bones in its handshake
until your bones are ground to dust
and the dust of your remains mixes
with the blood and sweat of capital gains
to form the paint they use
to decorate the monuments to their greatness
they’ll etch your name into
the edges of their borders
shade you in their shadows
as footnote, loser of the battle
vanquished foe turned mascot
misguided tour guide through the halls of their history
once main ingredient now providing seasoning
to accent the recipe of their narrative
never as foundation
as keeper of land before hostile takeover
as blood rites to this ground before oil rape
Texas, if you are friendship
then what do I call my enemies?
Poem 10/30 (Egyptology)
these words are
the broken ceramics
unearthed from long lost
trade routes of Egyptian sands
reminders of a buried truth
3rd eye be using the shards
of my shattered past to carve
out peepholes into my future
once upon a distant sun
eye crafted golden chariots of war
engraved with blueprints
of their construction
as instructions for my unborn
knowing that when the gold
rusted into the muddled brown
of our future decay
when our one day children
were mastered by those
that they once mastered
the curving lines of ancient
glyphs would arch angles
of their memory into
the divine light of
the world from whence they came
Poem 9/30 (add a lesson: when u were 12)
when you were 12
your voice squeaked like rusty hinges
cracked like an open door
and your eyes squinted at the long corridor
of all the unknown before you
you put on your shades
played it cool
hid beneath the decibels of bravado
that you turnt up from your speaker box mouth
hoping the echoes of false confidence
could drown out the whispers of your self doubt
it did not
your insecurities developed a tune of their own
a muffled bass line of tremors
beneath the harmony of your comfort zones
an atonal rhythm dancing offbeat
to the footfalls of your self-assured identity
you tried to crush any hint of vulnerability
that might make you miss a step
flash forward a decade or so
you're all grown up
your once soft adolescent feet
now grown callous
after traversing hallways and dance halls
too numerous to count
you mastered that same old 2 step
and you still hate the offbeats
they serve as painful reminder
of all you tried so hard NOT to be
but then so does the loud speaker box
mouth your 7th graders give you
when they blare, "I ain't doing this stupid shit!
This shit is lame!"
when they cooly talk over your lesson plan
like dissonant chords
strewn over a muffled bass line
you will see yourself 12 again
scared again
as a chic that's just learned how to fly
and doesn't yet know what to do with its wings
or perhaps like 12 year olds
at their first school dance
who don't exactly know how
to place one foot in front the other on beat
too scared to miss a step
and too proud to look lost or lonely
so every juke and jerk
is a fuck you help me
interchangeably
Poem 8/30 (Writer's Block)
what then
can be said
when my words
are born of sight
and my sight has turned
all blight
all blunder and thunderous cloud
all brick wall and iron gate
my innards all penitentiary complex
what then, will become of
my writing hand, my pen?
my poems?
will my wrist and fingers too
be cast iron vice grip
my pen full of clouds
raining acid diction
my teeth barbed wire
‘round my lacerated tongue
bleeding beneath lips cemented shut
words heavy as brick
this cobblestone catharsis collapsing me
deeper into recidivism
and these poems
all Alcatraz, Angola
all State of warped mind
correctional facility
all holding cell for my demons
with little rehabilitation plan
my pen
seeking angles to arch
cracked wings of angels
turned hostages of my fears
left to wither in my brain cells
i fancied myself a wordsmth
who could heal with his gift
but maybe I’m just a glorified window washer
a janitor in the prison of self
sweeping up the halls of my past
till they dust storm the gilded lenses of my present
my words, dusting off the view a bit
polishing perception perhaps
but never quite key
setting me free
7/30 (MAN)
still not too sure about this thing called MAN
or when I even became one
all I know is, one day, I woke up
and shaved all the years off of my face
peeled back the layers of skin beneath
and there he was, MAN, had stumbled into himself
at some point when I wasn’t looking
somewhere between New Orleans and Brooklyn
had etched the curvature of the years into the crevices
of my face, had sculpted the lines into my countenance
grafted from the map of my past
where the contours of callousness, violence
machismo--and all things decreed by the topography of society
had dictated the weight of my footfalls in days forgone
had predetermined the volume of my steps
the necessary silence thru pernicious pavement channels
too wrought with danger for disturbance
the loud thumps out of dark alleys
when my physical frame was backed into a corner
and by any means necessary were the requirements of escape
Manhood, or all we know of it
is a rock and hard place with no room for soft
whatever we know of soft becomes the hardened mortar
sealing together the brick stasis of our emboldened being
the mortar… in its softer stages… be childhood, be love
be the glint of awareness in a child’s eye, or a lover’s grin
be every wild, tender, unkempt thing that ever dared to dance
in the backyard of our imaginations before we ever
solidified into this brick immovable thing called MAN
Aww man, I remember when I was just clay
a malleable clump of moist earth
feelings still running from life sentence in the cobblestone structure
of the State mandated penitentiary of Paternalistic Patriarchal tradition
remember when my voice and my gait hadn’t yet learned
the confinements of bass and baritone and limping swagger
before my hands knew gun, or fist, or dagger
till I wrapped my young palms ‘round the rigid wheel of manhood
took that ride for a spin
became unraveled and undone
twisting through roads designed before my Time
thank the heavens for moms, and grandma, and teachers
as speed bumps or I mighta wrecked myself
against a Brick Wall along time ago
No thankyou. To the bullets whizzing past my ear
the angst ridden thrusts in the middle of the night, the loveless fuck
the stab wound, the mandates, the yelping dog of a MAN
barking through my TV screen, the “bitches ain’t shit
but tricks and hoes” and since we all come from
their wombs, I guess that’s how we become dogs
to the dog fights, the war wounds, the yelping lone pitbull enchained
to a fence in a dark alley eyes black and lone as that back alley
the man on the corner with a “Will work for food” sign
to the blind, corporate robot of a man rollin’ by ‘em
in his Mercedes that can’t see ‘em
the beholden eyes of the little boys that wanna be ‘em
to the look up, the look down, the look away
from responsibility, accountability, fatherhood, community
the runaway into that good night
like our Manhood was a plantation we still trynna escape from
to the lashes on the back, the cat o’ 9 tails
the cat with 9 tales for 9 lives with 9 women
to the denial, the comeuppance on the backs of those
we think ourselves greater than, the less than
the subtraction of our presence in a family unit
the dark pathway towards adulthood that just don’t add up
without guidance, the lost boys beleaguered in back
alleys blindly bouldering themselves towards Manhood
by any means necessary… they be me… be what I was…
where I’m from… and who I am…
So thankyou…
to the bullets whizzing past my ear, the yelping
dog of a man barking through my TV screen
the “bitches ain’t shit but tricks and hoes,” the angst-ridden
thrusts in the middle of the night, the loveless fuck
the stab wound, the mandates, the homeless
man on the corner, the rich man that can’t see him
and this rigid vehicle of manhood and its twisted
road that almost shook me out of my skin
but more so, to the speed bumps along the way
to my mother and grandmother and teachers
that gave necessary pause to my actions
showed me when to pump the brakes
to the lovers and the children that left their imprint
on my clay and mortar flesh before it ever hardened
to their imprint and its echoes whispering still
through all these layers of brick
still not sure about this thing called MAN
or when it is that I even became one
All I know is, in the balance of all that lies behind me
I managed to find… ME
Poem 6/30 (Race is a House)
Race is a House
built of the multi-shaded bark
of a tree called human
that tree be rooted
in a DNA we all share
but by the time
them roots sprout into that tree
from whose limbs and bark
we are all made
and that tree gets sliced
and spliced into the House
we call Race
no one can seem to escape
making Race a madhouse
where trying to get out feels like
scraping at the makings of your own being
like scratching at your own flesh
trynna peel back centuries of stagnant history
stillborn beneath your skin
like knocking on the pearl toothed door
of the minstrel’s grin, trynna beckon
a deeper truth to come out
hoping a fully formed human was
hiding behind the smile the whole while
maybe it could sit down for a few
chop it up with the coward puppeteer
hiding behind the steely blue eyes of the man
hiding behind the white hood
help him live up to the true meaning of his credo
since Ku Klux after all derives from the Greek for
Circle of Brothers
let the Circle be unbroken
like the colors of the spectrum
before the colors learned to war with each other
where Brown hates darker shades of itself
and they both hate Yellow
who doesn’t take too kindly to them either
nor Red, who ain’t got much love
for any of the aforementioned
and everybody--I mean EVERYBODY hates Black
yet still wants to be ‘em
and fears White--yet still wants to be ‘em
which works out just about right
seeing as how Black and White, like Hate and Fear
are on opposite ends of the spectrum
yet inextricably connected
and if you look directly into this dynamic
you can see that truth reflected
in how everybody fears Black
but still wants to be ‘em
and everybody hates White
but still wants to be ‘em too
and White… poor ole White
trashed his self on delusions of grandeur
born of self-esteem lower than the Mason Dixon Line
been whistling White Supremacy since his inception
just to hide the fact that he was secretly afraid…
of Everybody
made War on the whole World
just to camouflage his cowardice
erected missiles like totems to his own
fantasies of phallic superiority
bustin’ imperialistic money shots on the planet
like his own personal homeland-made porno
(like “Looka me world. I gotta mighty big dick!
Don’t ya like my mighty big dick!?)
raising guns like champagne glasses
toasting to the greatness of empire
Long Live the Empire!
short lives for the multi-colored backs it’s built upon