She's very much alive
But she is dead to me
The decision wasn't mine
She wanted to be
A tombstone in my mind
A grave inside my heart
A perpetual funeral
That has no end or start
There is no wreath to set
No flowers to lay
The only place that this exists
Is buried in my wake

she slides her slender
white fingers down the
branches of his spine

her eyes melted like
glaciers and lips as soft
as freshly fallen snow

skin lustful, but heart
unforgiving, exhaling
his every intention

she is autumn in his
palms, her trees bare,
the leaves rust fallen

flashing indifference,
thoughts plucked in
shades of violent rose

I want to tell him
that I’m scared,
that I’ve been here before.
And that the last time I felt potential like this it imploded;
I imploded.
But I don’t want to taint it,
You see I’m still hopeful
That maybe this time
Won’t end up laced with maybes,
Or what ifs,
Or open wounds pouring blood onto paper.
That maybe this time,
just won’t end.

I’ve not quite worked out whether I think it’s beautiful,
Or stupid -
The human capacity,
And pliancy,
And longing,
For love.

Tick a hundred places,
You wanna be..
Mark one too many people,
To prove wrong..
Note down each rule,
You wanna break free..
Have so many dreams,
You wanna see, come alive..
..that even depression can't inspire suicide..
..and instead, find pleasure in offending life.

(A Choreopoem after Ntozake Shange)

Babbling publicly into your phone
the tragedy’s yours, and yours alone:
messages from your dysfunctional city
inflicted in Afro-eccentricity.

Turn off your phone and spare us the drama.
Look for change from the Lord (not Obama)…
Quit twitching your neckline, stop making that face
there’s nothing you merit because of your race;
no right to entitlement. Take it to God—
we hope He will change you, but spare the rod.

And we pray He does change you, put “yes” in your can;
and that change that’s left over (from Savior to man)
might enlighten your heritage, lighten your load
help you calculate more or less what you are owed
in dollars or dignity (afro-semantics)
while twittering radically militant antics.

A debt unforgiven: this claim someone owes you
some change in a can that black history shows you
your hopeful presumption is scant reparation
for ghetto entitlement fouling our nation.

Go harvest your madness and reap what you’ve sown
now that tares have sprung up as you blab on your phone
now that reapers are ready—the data-plan paid
and our melanin levels beginning to fade…

I’ll shout from your rooftop until you’ve heard
and the crackers get fed to the mockingbird.

♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♫♪♪♪♫

I:  Lyric Line of Flight

Cavern Club / black leather / German rockers /  proto-youth culture groped its way from Liverpool / TV slowly sped up / modernity invented / flown in planes / swallowed in pills / I watch the second Kennedy funeral on the screen in shades of gray rain / warming to mid-60’s hues / into the stratosphere / a lysergic surge / retinal after-images / intensities of nostalgic color / that British courtesy in understatement / Paul’s voice a bassline / George a guru of six-armed confusion / tasteful: now a meaningless word / it was Apollonian-Dionysiac /  my childhood’s soundtrack

II:  Poem

They grooved—as our world became another

up from caverns to psychedelic flight.

They look so young in melancholic light

harmonizing black and white to color.

So distant—yet within our life’s short span

they grow apart as the hair grows longer

(The West’s resolve to expire grew stronger.)

Quadruplex visage:  young god sold to man.

I crack up beholding the mid-Sixties

lost in late-night YouTubes, I start to break.

time past: removed from the complexities

Recalling every song, the beat, the shake…

They sang the primrose path to confusion

nostalgia replacing resolution.

∅⚢☢⚧☯✰⚩✿⚥∅☢⚧☯✰⚢✿⚥☠⚩☯⚧✰

Too little and of course, too late
they spend what’s left imprudently
attempting to alleviate
the love of God’s own liberty:
The world transexual one-party state.

They think it’s normal — right for all
lost in a prideful dying fall
their lions heed the sea-horse call
attempting to transgender fate;
the devil searches for a mate
his nightly Babylonian date:
the world transexual one-party state.

They’ll legislate the Lord away
(his fundie followers as well)
their hateful heaven, holy hell
shall wither up and disappear
before redemption can draw near.
Their myths no more shall obfuscate
nor dangle such celestial bait
that underwriters overrate:
the world transexual one-party state.

Their antichrist is overpriced,
the nations, globally enticed,
now glorify the deviance
in herd-like mass obedience
surrendering to expedience:
where good is bad, and bad is great
and Christ the only one to hate,
allegiances exacerbate
the world ******* one-party state.

Parties will form and parties end
but parties can no more defend
consolidation into one
than flip a switch and dark the sun;
the Caesars left this part undone
the Muslims are just having fun
with our ******* one-party state.

Bring on the night until we see
that dark means dimming by degree
two parties? Overdone by one !
So let it bleed and let it be
till One is All and all agree
that we are doomed to hesitate
when God cannot resuscitate
the late One-World ******* State.

Race-baiting covers for agit-prop agents
splitting white hairs in their dark distress;
with name-calling, bullying, lunch money payments
and shifting the blame for their people’s mess.

Reparations are due for your boring screed
that you scrawled at the helm of the Black Star Liner.
You owe it to those who were forced to read
your obtuse agitations (you Afro-whiner).

Poisonous shout-outs to fallen comrades:
holy Saint Michael in reaper’s hood—
endless blathering racial tirades
poor comrade—your dreams are misunderstood.

You’re obsessed with injustice. That’s nothing new.
You’re a David anointed to overthrow Saul—
(as long as he’s white and less rabid than you,
oh prophet and scribe of the activist call…)

Stay mad at the system. Revile all your foes
with raving, with preaching, with bitter bad words.
Insult all your enemies; list all your woes
as you document stink on your turds.

It is always nice to know that you're not alone
but








It is also awful to know that they feel what you feel.