We mourn atop skyscrapers
As our forefathers
Mourned amongst baobab trees in Uganda
Because we have been forsaken,
It is judgment day,
And we’re fearful.

To cast an infinite chamber
In certain places of the moon,
To twist and to waltz
Till the black night fades.
Then soften at sultry morning
Underneath a baobab tree
While afternoon stroked the horizon lightly,
Lovingly as I ---
A strange yet, delightful vagary!

To cast an infinite chamber
In the beloved areola of the sun,
Waltz! Twist! Twist!
Till the brisk day is done.
Soften at fallow night…
Underneath the baobab tree…
Night stroking gingerly
Lovingly as I.

A wild posy
Shriveled and perished.

The evening-warriors chuckled ---
But the day-warriors fussed.

A wild posy
Shriveled and perished.

She rises
In the darkness,
This burdened woman
Shrunken by
Weariness and regret
Like a black rose in winter
In the icy rain,
Like a wind-swept rose in winter
That has yet to raise its neck
Again.

In the California mines
There are 300,000
Native Americans hustling.
What type of verse
Could you possibly
Craft from that?
300,000 natives
Hustling in the
California mines.

The woman
That pirouettes and pirouettes,
Pirouetting as she sweats
And pirouette amongst the reveries
Of men, ---
Underneath the strobe lights
Their libidos
Are great black swans
Against the bloodied vanilla sky.
In the moment
They bark crimson pyre.
The woman, ---
Pirouetting as she sweats,
Young men.

She is no lady of mine
For I am impoverished,
Black,
Dependent and coy, ---
Not her class.
I myself
Have told her so, ---
No lady of mine.