untitled

as she wrote

she saw

glimmer of light

photosynthesis redefined

colors refracted in rainbow hues

she saw

atoms spinning forever

making things matter

the cellular truth in constant division and refinement

she saw the intangible beyond the concrete

the strong mortar holding thought to thought

a foundation impenetrable to termite lies

she wrote beyond the subjects and predicates of her days

conjunctions keeping her intact

tenses present and kicking inside waiting to be born

she saw the devil and laughed in its face

she saw the real behind the smoke and felt her way through the maze

she saw pain beneath her placid smile and acknowledged it as her own

she saw the love of her life and recognized her own face

and as she wrote

she saw the god in herself

she saw the god in herself

she saw the god in HERSELF

prayer for lynda

all praises to the microphone

all praises

all praises to the microphone

all praises

all praises to the microphone

all praises

all praises to the microphone

for keeping my secrets

for listening to me when others would not

for amplifying my thoughts into poem

for loving me when no one else would

for setting me free

for setting me free

don't you know this mike is a priest and I'm the confessor

don't you know the coffeehouse table is my altar

don't you know that I'd lay down my life for the verb

mike hear my prayer

o mike hear my prayer

espresso machine whirring like a prayer wheel in the background

electric beats per minute of a poet spinning nouns

audience throwing themselves on the altar of the alphabet

mc leading us like a prophet to the promised land

word, set us free

word, set us free

in a war-filled world

we lay down arms for the word

when the money gets tight

we invest in the word

when there's no job to go to

we work for the word

when life beats us down

when hope slips thru our fingers

when we have no choice

we bow to the word

we bow to the word

we bow to the word

and we bow to the mike

we praise you

amen

sooooo bored (from Summerfruit)

usually late july early august is when time stretches and grows longer for a kid in summer… hot minutes circling around the blades of the fan caked with the moist dust and dirt in the air making the blades turn slower….slower….slower. whenever it’s hot like this mom always says it’s oh hallelujah porkskin it’s too hot for words…so if I don’t say anything maybe it’ll get cooler….not saying anything…not saying anything…still not saying anything…tried that for five minutes…it didn’t work …and there’s nothing to do in this house…

….and tumbleweed’s outside playing football in the street with his boys…giving each other five on the blackhand side when they make a touchdown….and I just want to touch his hands….just want to get out of here……

mom’s cooking curry in the kitchen…the house smells of mom’s curry—yellow curry hanging on the walls….sitting on the furniture for days…breathing in the spaces between my damp fingers and toes….and MOM I’M SO BORED running out of my lips for the 19^th time like stale warm tap water….all tv is just one big long repeat…saw that kung fu episode three months ago…saw that that starsky and hutch….JJ’s not feeling so dyn-o-mitiiiite……hong kong phooey is….phoeeey….

…just wanna run my fingers thru his honey blond fro…mom’s not gonna let me go out with him outside—she calls him a varabat—west indian for thug…oh my GOD……..

then mom comes out from the kitchen and yells why don’t you put away the dishes…… CLEAN UP YOUR ROOM….read  something…..I don’t want to read I’ve read everything....

….and I had….I read all the Archies comics and the Peanuts comics… ….WELL STOP WHINING—I DON’T LIKE WHINING she yells and goes back to stirring the curry in the pot…..and then I’d go back to looking at the fan….imagining I was a little boy in india looking at a cobra in a basket, the fan moving and swirling its head…taming the cobra with an intense stare….I am the cobra spinning tales of heat and dust, creating magic in a continuous circle….I am locked behind a circular cage  and I need to jump out of this cage before I EXPLODE …….cobra spinning and looping strands of heat and time together….summertime and the heat stretching out like a rubber band that never snaps….never ends….never shouts MOOOOMMMMM….I’M SOOOOOOOO BOOOOOORRRREEEEEDDDDD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

…and there goes my man outside…smelling like afro sheen and polly seeds…gliding on that sidewalk like he had wings……

red is beautiful

in summer me and my sisters lisa and laurie would take mom’s old yellow faded out bedspread and lay it on the brown lawn

we'd lay out in the sun pretending to be white girls getting a tan

look at how fast I tan lisa would say flipping her hair back and forth and back and forth like a blond woman in a breck shampoo commercial

laurie and I rolling and laughing hysterically on the lawn

but secretly I would push my hair back at the top my forehead

I had blonde hair too just like those women on tv

I could be white around the forehead

besides mom told us the other day that our great great grandfather was from Scotland

all of us sisters could be white if we wanted to

but we were black

and black was beautiful like the revolutionary chant we heard on the tv and the street all the time

black was bold and beyond basic

we would never be blonde like our Barbie dolls in our Barbie country camper that we all bought together with our collective allowance plus a few quarters and dimes

they had plastic bodies and even more blonde plastic hair

black is beautiful

AND  IT   JUST   DON'T    CRACK

yellow blanket with black girls changing color in the noonday sun

skin turning red like a peach sitting on the top branch
RED     IS      BEAUTIFUL

RED     IS      BEAUTIFUL

RED     IS      BEAUTIFUL

and it just don’t crack