Rhythm

Tie me into your locks So I can hear the music in your head Before the others do Dance me lightly into your tange foot groove We step left foot first then right Your blood pumps in sync with mine in 3/4 all the time Me and you Is different Sing me softly with heavy vibrato into your lullabies I will know right then that you love me Weave me into your butt naked dreams Where you are begging me please To take your hand and follow you into forever Take me I wanna go Roll me up real tight Smoke me in your jane Exhale the black green red and khaki fatigue in me I will stand fist raised gun cocked for our kingdom And I will dare a muthafucka to invade Make me unafraid to love you back Loose my inhibitions and I will love you lovely Giving understanding new To the stress of our very everyday When we unite Our world will be transformed Carmex me beautiful on lips Full of promises kept I will speak in cadence often Of my love never ever ending for you boldly Vaseline me greasy on knees ashy From rising always after being knocked unjust I honor the essence of you Smell you every time I close my eyes You lie beautiful underneath me Walk like a king righteous I will submit Humble soon comfortable Knowing my back is got Sit shiva facing me I massage real life into your scalp Beeswax sticky on my palms Tell me you love me I will believe

Musings

Today I heard a gunshot in the alley under my window I am not wise to the makes and sizes of guns I am a poet an artist a mother Three shots to be precise not just me somebody else hadta heard it too We are up in arms when white cops kill black boys while we rape our women on the way to the rally Where are the waves fists behind this It is three in the afternoon A sunny day June These are the things that riot my headspace when I endeavor to write about Grandmothers Garvey Drums Rallies Relationships Relevance My poems are little now Perhaps someones life has ended No one has missed a beat At the liquor store Crazy Melvin is begging for change Rolanda the crackhead is selling pussy In unit B Demarco is smoking pcp The couple downstairs is making love I am listening because it is beautiful I imagine she lies face downward grips the headboard tightfisted While he is stroking inside of her long thick The cushion of her backside is Christmas Merlot Rent paid The fucking is good I am never short of stories on Buckingham Rd And elegant name for a street with such drama Even more ironic that it intersects King Yesterday someone pissed in the hallway The ice cream truck comes by after dark Pushing weed, swishers and Philly blunts Trent Allen was shot in the head for his 280z Zuri Williams shot Jerome Richardson shot Myra Carmichael eleventh grade Shot in the face by her boyfriend who said if he couldn't have her then no one would There were no rallies Last October brothas set off fireworks for two and a half hours starting at 1 in the am A boy jumped off a building because his classmates harrassed him for being gay And so what With all of us looking for love we should be celebrated for finding it at all I would like to blame this on the white man It is 11pm I am up writing While I am grilled stuft burrito 1 in 8 go to bed hungry in the U.S. alone who knows the numbers on who don't have a bed to go to at all I am in search of the who of who I am on the Saturday night in Los Angeles Where someone is being asked to dance Bishop Collins is preparing his message Maybe tomorrow he wil not just shout it from the pulpit but explain how one just gives it to Jesus And Good Times don't come on local networks no more Maybe Michael was too black too strong for TV Thelma to gorgeous to be nappy and brownskinned I surmise they killed off James because white America couldn't handle a black man sticking with his family through bad times I am writing The musings and prophecies just come Like Wednesday before last the children were out front playing Two boys and a girl on one side Three boys to the other A volley ball type game Except there was one boy in the middle In my day I am old enough to have a day We called it keep away Now, monkey in the middle This I will find a way to blame on the white man But life in the hood aint always bad On Fridays Hank the dealer buys books and balloons and toys for the children who don't have much The grandmamas and granddaddies are ma'am and sir The peace and sage sistas are Miss Ladies Lil Andre carries the groceries for Mama Jerome when her boy aint around But the splendor of moments like these and more is shadowed by my neighbor Claire getting the fuck beat out of her by her boyfriend I don't know his name But every kick follows a Stupid bitch this every slap a silly muthafucka that I am so sorry I cannot make her have a better life Where are the rallies for this It is Saturday night in the Jungle and I am just writing

Dear Uraeus

I am sorry that this is the world you get I wanted a safer place for you 1. I am watching news on ABC wondering if they are going to say something about the execution of Troy Anthony Davis yesterday Nothing I am sad for all of us Weeping for those who rejoice in any man's death Justice should look different from this If it will not be fair It should at least be sure Uraeus, do not ride in a car with three or more black boys 2. I am not ready to write this story about us There is too much too sad on TV news I don't know what channel I am watching As if channels matter I am too old too emotional too sensitive too hormonal Too not ready to celebrate to commerate to honor to acknowledge to look at twenty years of the L.A. uprising Uraeus, I hold you too tightly too often 3. This is a reminder of burned buildings bricks through windshields on heads looted televisions Human beings not relating too many whys A reminder of our fear There are triggers all around me The store clerk following young black boys down isle three up five back down seven Dearheart, I love you and will not lose you to this foolishness 4. I cannot pray for my son without praying for myself for my fear the fear I inherited from my grandmother and her mother and hers all the way back to wrinkled red clay gold blueblack woman heard her boy was gone The stories keep coming One black boy after another Beloved, I will not rear you with my fear I will not rear you with my fear I will not rear you with my fear I am reminding myself 5. We scrub blood stain out of concrete Tomorrow we will get her through tomorrow Let our communal love be enough to carry her through the night These mothers Tre'von's Oscar's Amadu's Emmitt's Sean's What will we have left of him if we wrase the blood stain We scrub and we are afraid girls will skip rope boys will bounce balls not remember his name and his name his name Our heads over red bucket filled with tears with pinesol amonia with bleach This should be no parent's lot This is the rainbow Ntozake called enuf Love, Mom

This something called us

Your capable Vunerable fingertips Hold me like secret Inside your skin Your nails Bite Into my whisper name Say my name say my name I almost forget what had happened With us The hot and cold of me You and your closed mouth Hungry for a normal I cannot give myself So we dance This One step three step Awkward Off beat Snapping where we should clap In the midst of this waning and ascending This fire and freeze called us I do love you still Still the hardest parts of me soften When I see you smile The coldest days of me Crack open when you hold me both armded My nose in your neck My heels on your toes Tight I'm not running away Need time to gather Pieces of myself I loaned to lovers Who didn't know they still had them Time to collect my self respect From days too dark I can't go into alone Not even in a poem But I do For you I do for myself And anyone needing time and space Doesn't always end happily The request doesn't come with promises Just know I'm doing the best I can for you Making me a better me

Never misquote a poet

1. She will hunt you down with the truth of her phrase and hurt you with correction. Every word in the proper place is important. 2. Don't bother using quotations if you will not get the shit right. 3. Do not "whatever" or "same thing" our words away with the dismissive wave of your hand. Never misquote a poet Say it how she said it Or leave it the fuck alone Until you are given written permission to paraphrase

Me with Brooke Rose part 2

She's been talking to me. Not out loud but in my mind Brooke has been talking to me. Going on and on too. The first time I was in the bathroom and I felt her wanting to say something. She hadn't yet, but I could feel it. You ever feel like that.

Me: What?

B: You scared of me?

Me: No I'm not scared.

B: That's what you wrote. You wrote that you were scared of my ghost.

Me: I'm not scared scared. I mean, I don't want to see you or hear you out loud or really dream about you or anything like that. And when I don't want to hear you in my head then I want you to go away.

B: So those are the rules?

Me: For now yes. And I don't want to feel you. And if I feel like you're driving me crazy then you gotta go away forever.

B: Tell my story ok?

Me: How did you die?

B: Not now.

Me: That's your story though. How you died? Where are you? Are you stuck here? Did you see a light and just didn't go into it because you have to find out how you died and you found out and now you want me to tell people how you died?

B: That's not it. I won't work like that.

Me: We're not working. You paying me for this? How did you find out about me anyway? Why me?

B: You write about dead children a lot, why?

Me: How did you know about that?

B: I know a lot of things. I don't know how I know them. This world is different. It doesn't have to be that much different but it is.

Me: What do you mean "it doesn't have to be that much different?"

B: Well, now when I need something I know that if I really need it then it will show up and it does everytime. It's like, remember in The Matrix when the lady needed to know how to ride a motocycle and then it all came to her. Or was it the man riding the bike? But you know what I mean right? Well, it's like that.

You can do that too. You don't know it. But you can.

Me: How do you know about The Martix? You died in the eigth grade.

B: I told you. I know a lot of things.

Me: Are you going to tell me how you died?

B: Stop saying died.

Me: I don't know why I keep saying that. I don't usually. Usually I say passed away or something like that.

B: I haven't passed anywhere. I'm right here.

Me: Yeah but you different. You know that.

B: I know you have to get ready but I got it, you don't want to see me, feel me, hear me out loud.

Me: And don't drive me crazy.

B: And don't drive you crazy. And you'll tell my story. I have my own pace. Don't drive me crazy.

Me: And don't drive you crazy.

The what the why

Teenagers shot and killed in Wilmington, CA
A ten year old killed in a fight
What?

A fight about what
Shot and killed for what

And while the what is relevant
What difference is the what
Because our babies are dead
For nothing

Mothers and fathers
Friends and families
Are grieving and wailing
Stuck tears and stained tissues
For what

Because somebody said...
Somebody had to prove...
Because nobody walked away

Because we weren't there