the oswald interview

the retired assassin grimaced

as he tried to explain how he became

a spirit spent on a soul-less paradigm

he wore expensive glasses with both lens cracked

there were bird feathers

a string of baby saliva

and lord knows what else

that stood out on his junk-wire beard.

he had the face of a world

that gave birth to a still-born Africa

he spat that the only way to kill Ecclesiastes

was to write poetry from right to left on

parchment without lines

to change the flow of red rivers, he said.

with a mischievous grin and snicker he quickly added

that he stole the idea from one of his victims and

that he probably got the details mixed up, or left some out.

besides, he mumbled, the sun really doesn’t make a distinction

between whats old and whats new…

loop dance

they walk to and from their escapes

oblivious to all other escapes

until they are apprehended by the

screech and smoke.

they contemplate the rush

then snap back into their deity

their lesser heavens at each end

of an assembly line of plaster molds

that bob up and down

rock back and forth

wobble side to side

some are empty except for

the hollow

(ants carry their crumbs with more dignity as the ecology embraces them).

all ceilings are gray now

some praise their Michelangelo

many have no time for art

their flesh hanging on the thorns

for the butcherbirds

though out of sight, still circling overhead.

black clouds

are at waist level and rising

becoming wisps of another world

as escapees chase the color of summer leaves.

sermons

maybe the

inflections

are not

infinite/

the rising and falling of dubbed

messiah songs.

canals that open and close

like the gates to mythical domains/

rapture’s root stretched to the limit

laid out on nightclub floors

in spilled beer and blunt ashes.

the fire now. right now.

hymn-books made of sheets of

asbestos/

no binding hallelujahs.

just amen.

again and again…

corporate america

it’s during the post-mortem days

of january that it is really felt

when winter becomes the trifling sister

with her razored, cold stares

then there’s the white tongue of frost

stuck out in mockery, just after derision,

licking away the distinguishable features-

we become frozen in the unity of nothingness

we rise beneath tears heavy with ice

but we become no wiser during

this unseasoned storm

the weight of what we absorb

is all that identifies us

as we melt into the numbing mire…

room service

staring into the hell-house mirror

219 suddenly becomes a 187

another death by distortion

he can’t help but wonder

who allowed her eyes to enter

into the room

he dialed lust for murder

but the line went dead

as cold as the snow that speckled

the windshield like drops of love

frozen and fractured

during the long journey back

to the beginning…

he stared at it

wondering if it was as long as

the ones her friend whispered about…

back to the beginning-

blood trickles

down the side of his face

though he is surprised

that he has any left

the tears have sapped his veins

been on the rack for a long time

down deep where no one can see

brought up every now and then

and put on display-

today’s mannequin for madness

that reigns throughout the lonely castle

made from the plastic of

childhood toys molded and mangled

like memories that mold and mangle…

a staff made from cuervo gold

is the only thing that he can hold on to

his soul oozing through his fingers

like wax from a candle that can’t be

blown out

he stares at the gimmick in the mirror

and starts to cry…

back to the beginning-

issues of manhood and money

his face (from an old photo)

taped onto a counterfeit bill

small denomination

he knows that he’s worth more

but the bill-of-sale has faded

since 1619…

denomination

the caste of brethren

that he shares the room with

damned by paper-thin divinity

and devotees they pay love to…

last night in the vestibule

i was hoping that it was the wind again

pretending to be an old senile actor trying to

carry a message

a warning

between forgotten lines

wanting to be born again

but giving up and dying

in the form of this man

whose features i had often given

to the night

whose voice i had often given

to the darkness

who was at my door…at my door.

he rang the bell as if all of his blood

had surged into the one hand, the one finger

like the one that pokes our chests or our foreheads

after each utterance of why

after each scream of why

like the one that belongs to grandmama, to granddaddy

or their grandchildren who don’t know any better

the finger that seems to always separate the blood

into explanation

blood that was about to be set free

flowing like declared independence

after alley-crack dialogue

filling lies where rock and sand have failed

no, the wind’s freedom is not the same.

maybe his blood was Ashanti…as mine became Dogon…

there were shadows standing along the drawn-up boundary

hearts beating like hands against a hollow log

he was a wanderer seeking refuge from the shadows

like an unplanted seed needing one last embrace from the sun

not caring to take root beneath infertile rhetoric.

he was a stranger

seeking refuge in a vestibule…in a village

Senufo…Bateke…no…yes…no…we were both african

but he could be conquered

his hand fumbling through the boot-legged images

that could bring death from the shadows

that could conceal death

but he could be conquered.

hearts beating like hands against a hollow log

a shared dialect heard above the babble

of fading shadows

…Ibibio…Yoruba…no…we were both african

i could feel it in the wind.

Make It Plain

 Note: This interview of Malcolm X took place in 1965 on CBC-TV’s (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) “Front Page Challenge” just a few weeks before his assassination.

he

who was

red

really ain’t dead

because his tone colors

what flows through

many veins

and arteries

sometimes clotting

because slogans

are slurred

during drunkenness

from dreams

or when

arteriosclerosis

becomes a

code name

for

agents

that infiltrate

the purification plants

and poison

the life-giving

sustenance

that is injected into

streams that are

red.

rosa verses/outkast

 

For Rosa Parks, who sued the rap group OutKast for defaming her name. Today is the 55th anniversary of her historic act of protest.

they should have

been able to sit themselves

in her space

they should have

been able to see the look

on her face

as she sat at the

threshold of birth

as she reversed the

spinning of the earth

but…no connection/no direction

trivializing

the struggle to fit

the rhyme

careless chants

do not echo from her time

she felt

the wetness on her face again

the spit and the spew and the

frost hurled from frozen lakes of blue

the complexities of their profane homage

deriving analogy from a historical stoppage

when a nation began to see itself through

the windows of mass transit…

something large, often empty and hungry for profit.

funeral for a doll

so fragile it was

so fragile it is

a porcelain offering from

a man without false shine

alabama hardness that often hid wealth mined

from beneath the carnage he often

reached the bottom of, acting as if he had

discovered some new form of extinction

in a land he defended as if it was his alone…

but her smile always lit the exit tunnel

when he choose to suffer the surface of things:

he would rise from the bottom slowly

as if lifted on a scaffold of crud and circumstance.

she smiles and giggles, as she did back then

remembering the way he handled her firstborn

pulling it out of a greasy bag that was

as rippled as the wine it once held gently

the same way he would hold her

from time to time, his breath smelling like that church

on the corner- he said it was his church- where the

men and women preached funny when they came out…

he would preach funny sometimes too

but he didn’t preach at the funeral for her little baby

that broke after it fell off the kitchen table when

he slapped her sister, sending her flying underneath it

into one of the already rickety legs.

he said that he was sorry about what happened to her baby

he grinned and said he would try to buy her another one

she really didn’t believe that he bought that one

but his teeth shined just like her little baby did

so she just smiled back and giggled…

Winter in America

It’s winter…winter in America…and ain’t nobody fighting, ’cause nobody knows what to save.

From the song “Winter in America” by Gil Scott Heron/Brian Jackson

Nowadays when I reminisce about being young and black in America back in the early 70’s I see it as a special time, a transitional period in different ways, on different levels. Personally I had successfully made the leap from grade school to high school and was reveling in my passage into the teenage years,  bolstered by the belief that manhood was just around the corner. 

But things were drastically changing in the world at large as well. Dr. King was assassinated in 1968, and I remember standing on the back porch on the second floor of the apartment building that we lived in and watching the sky turn reddish-orange and black from the flames and smoke during the riots that had broken out. Then a couple of months later I sat in front of our black and white television mesmerized by the news coverage of the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy.

From what I was told these were good men that stood for what was right and wanted to help make this society, this world, a better place for all people. The fact that they were killed because of their benevolent beliefs was a signal to my young mind that this world was not as nice a place as I thought it was. I guess that it can be said that I had developed a higher level of consciousness about people and the society that I lived in.   

 

Then there was the music. The songs began to reflect the prevailing spirit of the times, questioning and outright challenging long-held notions and beliefs about America and it’s commitment to the principles of justice and equality.

One of my all-time favorite songs of this genre of music is Winter in America, by Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson. Released in 1974, the song still powerfully speaks to the pain and disillusionment that stems from decimated dreams and perverted promises and the spiritual toll of struggling against complex forces that suppress and oppress.

One can only hope and pray that there will always be those that will never stop believing in and working towards a changing of the season that leads to the realization of the highest of American ideals…

Ntozake Shange: When the rainbow prevails

When I die, I will not be guilty of having left a generation of girls behind thinking that anyone can tend to their emotional health other than themselves.

Ntozake Shange

With Tyler Perry’s movie For Colored Girls opening today, I felt compelled to devote a post to the vision and influence of the woman whose literary work the movie is based on, Ntozake Shange. I believe that this is a day to celebrate and that the celebration should be about something far more significant than any success or failure that may be assigned to the movie.

In preparing for this post I came across an interview of Ms. Shange that was done several years ago. When asked why she decided to become a writer she said, “I couldn’t find anything that truly reflected what I thought was my reality and the reality of other women my age. Since I couldn’t find it, the only responsible recourse was to write some myself.”

The movie will be introducing Ms. Shange’s play for colored girls who considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf to a new generation, specifically a new generation of African-American females. Ms. Shange survived several suicide attempts to become one of the most accomplished and recognized writers of our time. Her story is not only one of survival, but also of triumph against destructive forces that besieged her from both within and without.

In another quote from the interview Ms. Shange shares that “…the imaginings of women of color are particularly sacred to me. Those are things we cannot afford to lose when we are being beaten down constantly.” Those words still resonate with raw relevance today, and regardless of any reactions or reviews that the movie may incite, I believe that it will serve a far greater purpose than for the pursuit of profit or praise…

voodoo

the echoes of men

crying out

screaming out

her name

can be heard in the tone

of her incantations

he watched her for a long time

before seeking the remedies of her science

before summoning her style of divination

so preliminary  so momentary

now there she was

chanting an erotic syllabus

of liberations

simple sighs between day-to-day breathing

her power comes from

the ways that she is worshipped

that which is desecrated and disposable

becomes astral

a priestess becomes a savior

her spell is synonymous with others

except for the eyes

they search

they sear

they solder souls together

she never senses the veil

that was placed upon her face

long before she appeared.

lost sketches

death was not so much final as it was finished

like a chalked profile slowly filled

with asphalt and aspirations

blackness as texture and tone

the mixture for pencils broken in desperation

upon the outlined emptiness

within the outstretched hands

(the grabbing and pulling back)…

we sometimes die like unfinished sketches.

I can see him sitting in the basement

in the darkness, for long periods of time

staring at the dusty, webbed, gray paper

(and the occasional unopenable window)

holding, caressing, the tinted skin

he had poured himself into

(brown like himself and just as fragile)

a prop for the art,

the partial depictions of the man

that he had run away from,

of the man he had become,

with each stroke that he didn’t make her

scream out his favorite portrait,

or simply appraise him as a man

within the walls of that gallery

(uneven alley of self-portraits bought and sold)

where each of their works were displayed

(it was her motions that often formed

the brush, if not her tongue)…

there is that portrait on the elder’s wall

confirming that he had compared sketches with the sun

and had exchanged notes with leaves that fell out of season

beauty both portrayed and betrayed, turned against,

within the walls of that gallery

(collections of reproduced conscience bought and sold)

where his profane works were the most celebrated…

we are sometimes forgotten like lost sketches.

the afterparty (…an interpretation featuring tupac…)

born of a panther

this rhythm cry will never end:

its volume is an eternal dance.

life-steps

that fall in time as

the soil inhales and exhales.

life-movements

that flow from the soil.

not to be mistaken for loose dirt

that swirls across vacant lots

during a changing wind’s last sigh. emulating

something natural, disastrous. exposing

tracks that lead to and from where panthers

give birth.

this rhythm cry cannot end, because

there is no end to be seen.

breathing life into a slowly dying

struggle. blasphemous to some, the

breathing is the religion, heresy is

the dance.

a manifesto is each motion.

see me. feel me. touch me. i am here.

this is my space. thumping, bumping

space. as narrow as a needle with no eye.

celebrating a moon that sits

in the sky of a hot july afternoon.

jumping up and down, pumping

fists into the air.

not moving.

mandingo

if she truly believed that a woman’s

words can kill a man

why wasn’t she more careful?

like the alarm that promises July’s radiance

but only delivers the narrow eyes of the blinds

searching through a shackled greyness

her moans often sound an empty dawn.

someone said

that the true test of a man

is the woman he loves…

she weeps this proverb

into the pillow that she hugs

as they make love facing her favorite painting

of an African woman carrying her manchild

on her back as she stands in the middle of a village

laughing with another woman.

he often rests his head upon that same pillow

struggling before he’s able to sleep

as he tries to recreate the same old dream:

that her old lovers were conquered in the moaning…