what does it mean?
it makes no sense to me!
even charlie rose on tv
said huey newton had been shot to death a number of times
on a san francisco street corner.
Aug 7, 2015
Aug 7, 2015 at 9:52 PM UTC
lay me down
when the music's over.
lay me down
but remember my laugh.
lay me down
when the candle stops burning.
lay me down
when my time is past.
think of me
in the quiet moments.
think of me
when you're all alone.
think of me
as you've always known me.
for you see,
I've not really gone.
Jul 10, 2015
Jul 10, 2015 at 7:23 PM UTC
if you develop a wart on your wrist
remove it with a bomb.
that's the American way.
Jul 4, 2015
Jul 4, 2015 at 11:29 PM UTC
The fog crept in on giant monster claws,
Surely no itty-bitty feline foots, I pray:
“Feets don’t fail me now,”
A line that will live in infamy,
Way back in a vaudeville when,
A minstrel Chitlin Circuit then,
Was an actor known as the
"Laziest man in the world,"
A character designed to stick to a
Collective white consciousness,
Stick like Tar-Baby, that negative
Image of African-American men--
I speak of The Brothers--
Who for over a century, have been
Struggling to live down a pernicious,
Most persistently demeaning,
Hollywood trope.
Tribute is due to the black actor born:
Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry.
Oh, Mr. Perry, & yes, you were the
First black actor to receive
Screen credit in a film.
Well, I guess that puts you right up there,
With Jackie Robinson & Sidney Poitier,
Carver or Tubman, or any of those
Countless northern abolitionists--
With no personal stake in slavery,
Or emancipation, but fervent nonetheless--
Color-barrier breakers &
Household saints a-coming &
A-marching in, in that number . . .
You paid a big price, Mr. Perry:
The indignity & débauche,
By abject surrender to the Boss Man,
Tribute, recognition is due for
Feats of humility & self-abasement,
Entailing total superhuman surrender,
Capitulation to the dismal, prevailing
State of American race relations at the time.
Stepin Fetchit: a name & a persona,
Not just painfully racist, but
Downright subversive.
Jul 4, 2015
Jul 4, 2015 at 2:33 AM UTC
it's four in the mornin' and the city's sleepin 'cept for me and my kind,
... and them.
i turn the corner and i can see him at the curb in the middle of the block, hiding among the cigarette butts and beers cans, the broken glass and used condoms, the ubiquitous philadelphia detritus.
he thinks I don't see him as he lays in wait, but i got this sixth sense.
i don my swagger, leading each step with my alternate shoulder, arms swingin' behind my back as i strut towards the patrol car from the thirty ninth police precinct.
unseen, the carefully packaged spoonful drops to the sidewalk behind me and instantly pretends to be street rubble,
and i'm dutifully surprised when 'the man' exits his vehicle, shoves me against a wall and begins to ***** me like he knows me.
after awhile he gets bored and tells me to go home. I turn the corner at the end of the block.
"hello, po lease? **** gettin' real, y'know what I mean? Maurice be wasted and he not too happy wid his ol lady. and he be packin'! better hurry! yeh, 4228 fairmount."
heard sirens, peeped around the corner and the trash had a new demeanor.
I happily retrieved my spoonful.
Jul 1, 2015
Jul 1, 2015 at 2:01 PM UTC
Humanity i love you
because you would rather black the boots of
success than enquire whose soul dangles from his
watch-chain which would be embarrassing for both
parties and because you
unflinchingly applaud all
songs containing the words country home and
mother when sung at the old howard
Humanity i love you because
when you’re hard up you pawn your
intelligence to buy a drink and when
you’re flush pride keeps
you from the pawn shop and
because you are continually committing
nuisances but more
especially in your own house
Humanity i love you because you
are perpetually putting the secret of
life in your pants and forgetting
it’s there and sitting down
on it
and because you are
forever making poems in the lap
of death Humanity
i hate you
Jul 1, 2015
Jul 1, 2015 at 1:10 PM UTC
God, this stupid thing
language! and what of it
anyway? What pleading sounds
can it make, as
no one listens
to poetry anymore...
no, though it turns
letters into cities
and cities into salt
and salt into
oceans and gold.
And from them:
what dumb sounds
do they make?
but a susurration, a murmur
that everyone knows:
one spiraled shell
on a beach like all spindly shells, same
thrumming thrush, rush
of blood in the ears echoed
from the heart —some string
of the loveliest of sounds—
yet one
is enough.
One is enough, so
of course,
no one listens to poetry
anymore.
Jul 1, 2015
Jul 1, 2015 at 12:57 PM UTC
nebulous mercury, or old neb as friendly namesome, was a longtime salty marner.
one day he was seasonally easing along with the flotsam and jetsons
when there appeared before his worn and weary orbs a macabre confoundment,
the vastly ghastly countenance of a slithering slimy see servant,
a critter that rose from the sea and had to hunch over so as not to break the sky,
the kind of monstrosity you only see in miffs.
he began to wrap his protuberances and testicles around the clig as to make repast.
ohh, dreadful tingers draggled forlorn!
shunned and electrolytical he was, old neb, awash in gloombulches and grovel gullies.
but then old neb snapped to! "Not my chipper clig you don't!" he charged allowed as he fingled forth in fury!
the battle eschewed in the stub of legends. old neb will ever be memorial for what he did that day.
to this very day, indeed up to this very moment right now, even chipper cligs flying scallion bones cut him a big bertha,
such is the perspective they feel for him
no hobo, but a ****** chum.
Jul 1, 2015
Jul 1, 2015 at 12:41 PM UTC
I’ve been made sick by technology.
Those key boards & keypads,
The roving mouse,
The touch pad, and ultimately,
That telepathic chip
Implanted while I slept—
Who-da thunk those fingers doing the walking
Would become tendrils of the Watching Class?
Surveillance inroads to your cerebral cortex,
Ultimately taking command.
“Pilot on the bridge,” the Bosun screams,
Whenever we needed reminding
That even our Captain,
“Oh Captain, My Captain,”
I would console my crew:
“Even the Boss has a boss.”
Interesting liability issues could be raised here.
How can a human being
Be held culpable for crimes,
Any crime or thought crime,
When their mind, body & soul
Has been wired to the mainframe,
Stored in some remote Deseret,
Like that secret NSA facility,
They are building
Out in the middle of nowhere,
Bum-fuck Utah?
So what if the people there
Are descendants of the
Original Apostles of Joseph Smith,
With a deep genetic recognition
That there was a time
When no one wanted
These Latter Day gypsies
Putting down roots.
Anywhere.
It was simply out of the question.
“Practice polygamy, really?”
That’s like wearing a sign round your neck,
A neon ankle bracelet round your crotch,
An in-your-face bright warning & caveat:
Men with wives or daughters--
**** wives and young daughters, or
Young **** daughters--
Or old wives in any condition
& Mothers.
Are considered fair game for *******
No thank you!
There’s the highway, Mr. Smith and
Take Brigham with you.
Cause nobody’s gonna sell you land,
Land around here.
Let alone there,
Or anywhere.
No one will sell you squat
This side, 500 miles from water.
Good water.
Farm-good water.
Wet navigable water.
By the 1830s,
The free soil
East of Ole Miss
Had pretty much dried up.
Those wacky bigamists
Pushed west again to Illinois—
The Prairie State, after all--
Raw land; still.
Raw people too,
Fearful, intolerant rubes,
Barely familiar with their own Book;
Scarcely needing another.
Our wacky gypsy Saints,
Treated like Christ deniers,
Treated like Jews, for Christ sake!
Joseph & Hiram--
The Smith Brothers
(Note to self:
Check on Mormon cough drop connection)
Slaughtered at Nauvoo.
Their Mormon brethren dispossessed of land again,
Try Missouri next--
Missouri, the show-me the door state--
These so-called Latter Day Saints
Get expelled by gubernatorial proclamation.
Saints pushed ever westward.
Until finding themselves in a place that
Even the ******* Indians didn’t want.
They dug their wells around the Great Salt Lake,
An American Negev chosen by prophecy,
They hunkered down in their desert Tel Beersheba.
But I digress.
We were talking about
That secret NSA complex
Being built in Utah,
Being built right now, July 2013.
When complete
The Watching Class will surely tune
Their screen resolutions
To those of us evincing
An unusually keen interest in
Issues like privacy.
Those among us, for example,
Using noms de internet,
Maintaining multiple email accounts,
Changing passwords
Randomly yet frequently,
Clearing browsing histories hourly,
Deploying anti-viral applications—
People: perhaps, with something to hide.
Those of us driven to paranoia
By the shape of things to come,
Those of us afraid of exposure,
Yet, incapable of staying off-screen,
Impelled by conspiracy fever,
Betraying ourselves on
Blogs and websites,
Leaving digital breadcrumbs behind.
Jun 25, 2015
Jun 25, 2015 at 10:21 PM UTC