pain is an unavoidable side effect

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.

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.

if you develop a wart on your wrist
remove it with a bomb.
that's the American way.

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.

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.

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