Month: May 2010

the chili cock sauce
will leave your lips burning
though not the same way
as the sweet cream
deliberately whorey
to match my recklessness
I should spin this on repeat
since it’s no longer a rarity
to see myself jumping
both feet in
with a hand over my eyes
but the other this time
may be holding one
that doesn’t belong to me
this could differ
in that I’m not the only
one to take the plunge
I’ve got a second at the helm
kicking up the speed
as we take a dangerous course
I could be ten years younger
and it wouldn’t make a difference
but it’s cracked the shell
which made me feel
at least ten older
now I’m grinning
ear to ear
with a seared pink ring
around my mouth spreading
‘cause for once I can admit
how drawn I am to the sting
and I don’t mind if you watch
as I eat it up

I was barely there,
Passed out and now
Unable to recall anything,
The screaming, hers
Or mine, the blood,
And the light, which was either
A beautiful moon or
A terrible eye, the first one
Having a look at me.

What a terrible party it must have been,
I’m glad I missed most of it,
Was sent to bed early and allowed
To sleep while everyone else
Worried about the mess.

Now every year we try and make it up,
For those who may still remember,
And for those who were there,
Causing the walls the shake
While turning the floor wet.

Simple water pressure
And gravity pulled me out,
I could not run, even walk,
My arms were weaker
Than my tongue,
I did not crawl into this world,
I was pushed, and
If I had been stronger,
I might still be there in storage
With mother on her back and father
Always building a bigger crib.

Still I am here, and that
Is always the given reason
When all others fail
And no gifts exchanged,
For a celebration.
I have survived,
Grown and learned to cry
About the things
The world truly cares about,
Not realizing that the first time
That I was wet and dirty,
A risk to the health of others,
And naked.

The heart our heart
is beating a hollow drum
flittering
filled with empty Daimler Dreams
the heart changes in all things
king of the hill stumbles
dandruff on the shoulder of your
Armani jacket in this land of
lowered pulse…
but the food is good
(says Winthrop)
and the boys
are doing fine…just fine
the line is busy
bees have taken over and
planted stink bombs in the bridge
flushed us into the open until
so that
a nation of warriors
under wraps
herded by busies into the boiler room
where the moving mechanisms
and the inner workings of it all
.rock.roll.rumble.com
as the pleas from within
thud as dead as
dead steel drum
hum drum
dead as dumb
jimmy carter, peanut farmer
paints his pictures
cries before sleep
his head on a pillow
wailing for another chance
a second chance
gentlemen don’t waste em
that elusive empowered thing
empowered, as a punchline
for Saudis at parties
oil golf Texas men
an ice sculpture of Michael Angelo,
drip drippity dripping away
as a thirty-something sous chef
works on the flan,
backstage,
in the kitchen,
armed with sharp edges
and heightening ill intent

the ride to the coast
was a treat like
being offered a reward
for good behavior
but we had to come back
like a segregated recluse
to the center of the
sugar patch
we did not know
that exclusion had
been forced
its policy implemented
on the sides of our
school buses
divided like main street
there grocery stores
were better than ours
we never saw a politician
they did not need our vote
back then
we lived as separate
as barricaded
as that dyke that
held back Lake
Okeechobee
if it were to flood
it did not matter
we were labeled migrant
labeled bean picker
labeled corn shucker
labeled celery setter
labeled pea sheller
labeled sanctified
like US 27
left abandoned
and yet we did
not feel it
because my mother
told me to go
ride your bike like the rest
of the children
I did not want to
but I did she watched
me from the window

The sheets and blankets of thunder clap,
The inky debris like militia led towards the black,
Clawing up the skyline.
Desperate to join the battle of light and dark,
The hounds of hell bark and the angels hark,
It is Evil versus the Divine.
I watch this battle curiously,
Which side to support I question furiously.
Their fight reflecting my own war of right and wrong.
The angel’s song is beauty personified,
But the delicious dark shadows tempting me causes the divide
In my mind.
Temptaion, if given in,
Is one of the deadly sins.
I understand, but I cannot fight it every time.

Once boys were young and had naught but fun
trained and done learned all that they could
Two young men would then step forth brethren
And join in the ranks of Knighthood.
One west one East and still friends, at least
until a dark cloud fell over their land
And peace then ceased as men turned to beasts
And one would die by his own brothers hand
These two friends lives they now divide
as each side then took up arms
And oath one friend was sworn to defend
While one burned down the villagers farms
With the country at war it was not long before
They were sure the big battle had come
The lines were drawn and at the brink of dawn
Came the trumpeting horns and war drums
Soon the battle enraged with both sides engaged
It was staged to become a tie
Rather than be caged both knight and page
Resolved they’d both rather die.
In a field of blood and bone they stood alone
There shown a gruesome scene
Old friends that hadn’t known that when they’d grown
They’re blade own a bloodied sheen
During a clash of swords a dash upwards
Straight towards the avenger guard
It was not a slash but words of trash absurd
that brought these two champions forward…
One said “Old friend, prepare to defend!”
A thrust sword to fend him away
“Your wounds won’t mend to that i’ll surely attend”
“I shall render your entrails astray!”
And flurried parried sparks of blades and blocks that hit their marks
and bad remarks that hit their softest vein
As it grew dark a blades deadly arc
upon its mark drew forth mortal pain.
And to his dying friend his knight friend said
“we’ve done, all that we could”
He said “My friend, this is the end”
“Of the long lost age of Knighthood”.

Juarez, I’ll call it
swampy and wanting
that water bog
as it sticks in spindles
two feet in the air
it mirrors my instability
growing wildly in all directions.
ten yellow tulips
with spring still fresh in their buds
placed in sugar water
at the end of my bed
so when I wake alone
their cheer can fill me
as I prepare another day
lost in confusion
and waiting, only waiting…
to season the sickly air
I alight every scent
a mixture of pleasures
stifle the slipping hope
wisping around the twelve-foot ceilings
Vietnamese cinnamon
ginger, curry, patchouli
lavender, eucalyptus
and honeysuckle for my sign
the one which makes habit
of enduring love in solitude
a boon as it is a curse
I love me, I love me
I love you ‘cause you’re not me
but just for a short while
as dawn brings the light
I fought not to see
it’s me, it’s me
all the love
I gave for free
to you and others similar
I should have reserved
exclusively for me

Never leave a drink unattended,
Because drinks are like people,
They can get lonely,
Especially around this time of year
All they want is to find someone
And make them happy, listen
To their problems and promise
With a bitter kiss, to make them go away.

Pause and look at that glass,
So full and yet with no one around
It is so depressing, such good grains
Gone to waste sitting before a stool
That is growing cold, waiting for a rear end
Pressing down on it with pleasure and pressure.

So go along and take them both,
The stool and the drink and try
To master both at the same time,
A hardy task worthy of a jukebox warrior,
There is a damsel in distress, she’s blonde
And she’s thick, take her inside and warm her up,
Never leave a drink unattended.

“Sheeit”, she says to me, “you better give me a muthafuckin winner tonight, or I’ll take ya’ outside, y’hear? Take ya out to the lot and shank you with a Swiss Army Knife–put a little hole in your kidney, yo, cuz’ I NEED that money, dawg, you know? I NEED that muthafuckin money”…And I do know b/c I actually work and sheeit’ I cain’t hardly pay no bills or feed no baby by my own damn self and I cain’t hardly feel nothing or see nothing but the red in my eyes and the fridge is empty and the boys in the yard they fightin’ over a mayonnaise sandwich, and I’d like to see her win some muthafuckin money, I’d like to see her smile like she used to back before towelhead mania, before Jethro Tull put down the flute–back when we was rolling in it, dirty dozens, and staring shamelessly into the sun; taunting it to shine, or not to shine…and I’d like to give her a winner, tonight, I’d like to call her a goddamn number but integrity is all we got in this place now, one of the few places we got it and one of many where we gets to lose it and I just cain’t bear to get cut again…not by her that used to shine like Old Miss Argenia’s Golden Lucky Buddha–not in here, where the pain is too great and the reward is too mighty and the sun don’t shine for us to mock…But I tell her, “I got you, sis, I got you” because lie is just a three-letter word and I cain’t hardly bear to watch her saunter away like that, shuffle off with her damn self and her lucky trolls and her damn numbers that don’t make no patterns no more no how anyhow, off into the middle of the fray, at her usual spot under the vast lingering spirit of a smoke cloud that eats hope for breakfast and drinks angry like a monk’s pen…

it was if I had walked
into a coup d’état
a tribe of elders
a cri de coeur
old men sabotaged
by blue baseball caps
money green windbreakers
thick creole accents
old men
eyes welling up with distrust
checkerboard fingertips
developed lips
disapora line running across
their forehead
libations are given
for the earthquake dead
offered veneration
to Shango and Damballah
oranges and mangoes
called on Aya
transformed this barbershop
into a meeting house
looked around the room
for Christophe
a young Touissant
with muscle tank skill
shave my skull
saved my soul
this mea culpa
with rubbing alcohol and aloe
washed away the residue
looked around the room
and saw Mandela
Martin Obama
Malcolm Desalline
Aristide
a chair available
I knew I would succeed
not downtown
but the underground
missed an ambush
in this shop on flatbush