Jean-Michel Basquiat, Pablo Picasso, Francis Bacon;
Charles Mingus, John Coltrane, Ahmad Jamal;
James Baldwin, Dante Alighier, Daniel Dumile.

These dead men speak to me;
literally and figuratively.
They left behind works I wish I could rival,
maybe I’m already there,
seeing their art burn in my glare;
feeling their art and poetry go through my wet black hair.
Wish men didn’t need to die,
but I love listening to dead men sing,
feels as if I’m listening to the start of spring,
but they’re more dead than the ice-cold winds of winter;
these avant-garde artists.

They come, and they most certainly go.
Some of them were young and took too much blow,
others were taken from us, treated like an unwanted **.
But they’ve gone into the void, their bodies destroyed;
all that is left is their art, and the memories that we embroid.
But even as I stare or listen to their beautiful art,
it fills me with a sense of peace, as if I can feel them touching my heart.
But it terrifies me;
these men mightier than earth left me alone—
now I’m out here sinning, I wish I could atone.
They’re all gone,
they went deep into the dark unknown.

All that is left now is the memories of these men,
their physical attachment to earth is nothing more than the art they left—
and here I am,
a delusional man,
dedicating a poem to a dying clan.
And this feeling of loneliness is all the same:
Did Basquiat see the duality of pain?
When did Picasso understand the art of childlike wonder had more beauty in its reign?
Was Bacon alone with his demons to blame?
Did the BPD of Mingus fuel his jazz?
How did John Coltrane break through the glass?
When did Jamal know his art felt like calm green grass?

Baldwin,
Alighier,
Dumile—
these poets are the reason Esioré is here.
They set the foundation for me to break through the ice,
even as they deport Mexicans and act out in an unholy vice.
They allowed me to see the pain of Haiti,
they helped me realize that my pain is tasty.

So I write to be like the avant-gardist,
so that when I die,
when I one day finally learn to fly,
even though I am so clearly drowning,
one day I can finally end my lie and look myself in the eye.
And say to my reflection, “Esioré, I see you.”