Strut, with swollen feet
Walking on America Street

Sirens
Blue, Red
Red and Blue

Held at gunpoint
Please, don’t make any quick movements
Wince, I looked away.

Old friend
Why didn’t-
No why didn’t you stay
I thought you married her, her blond hair, and soft eyes
Why didn’t she stay

Red curly afro hair,
She is not your age

Why didn’t you give me the time of day?

Oh well,
Walking on America Street

I.

Bless the salt,
not from tears
but
from the water
from the air
from the Spartina grass
that laps it all up.

Bless the Plough mud,
full of nutrients, exfoliants,
that'll have you sinking, sinking, sinking
if you dare to enter.

Bless the beach.
Bless every shell,
broken and whole,
still beautiful.

Bless every dead jellyfish I saw
washed up on the shore,
managing even in death,
and still deserving of life.

Bless the dolphins
who've made this place
home.

Bless every pelican
which must
hunt relentlessly,
which must eventually
die for the hunt.

Bless the Carolina Gold,
which in the end,
tasted like regular rice.

Bless the history of this place,
the good and the bad and the ugly.
May we not forget any of it.

II.

Remember.

Remember
what t felt like
to feel toes in sand,
salt in hair,
cold, cold water lapping at feet.

Look at a shell
and make it mean more
than a vacant home.

Remember
the hunger of wanting to know
everything about this place.

Take that hunger back North,
where you must eventually go.

Remember
what it felt like
to move your body
to see something other than
city streets and bars.

It sounds cheesy,
but you need nature
more than you know.

And
you may never come back here,
but
remember
you can always find it.

Find it.

Honey-flowing rivulets of jazz-beaten syncope,
Trumpets blowing smoke across the room,
‘Curveball’ Sammy hustles bass behind the bar,
Snares his songbird in a played back loop.

Harlem shufflers work the floor, breaking safe,
Clave rhythm scufflers with a New York twist,
Black keys write with borrowed brass on iv’ry walls,
Pick the lock on a swelt’ring southern riff.

I came across a BMW 528i today -- same make and model as yours, same rusty maroon clunk ******* you drove so proud. Could’ve been yours, with its cracked leather and yellow stuffing vomiting from seat to the floor, steering wheel worn from your callouses. High school football team kind of callouses, country boy livin' kind of callouses. Inverted smile, dimpled chin, kind brown eyes kind of callouses. Take a girl like me on a 4-wheeler and make her scream middle of a Sunday kind of callouses. Raise in surprise as headlights blind you in Charleston kind of callouses. Lay limp with pavement shot through your skull and bone shards in your leg kind of callouses. Some drunk kid driver says just some ****** drunk kid crossing the street, came out of ****** nowhere. You were some drunk kid, but you had the right of way, and how couldn’t he see you? You brought the light wherever you went, drunk kid, and now you're ICU comatose-kid, and thousands of us are thinking about you back home. Drunk kid, high school football star kind of kid, just out for a drink kind of kid. Likes his cars like his women – flashy, look past the maintenance kind of kid. But your girl’s back home projectile vomiting yellow body stuffing through leather ****** lips, and your 528i is somebody else’s, and they didn’t appreciate it like you did, kid. It's just sittin’ in the street, and you’re just lost. Some kind of hospital kid.

We like to dance
Feet moving in a trance
Transition to a different stance
All of us jump and prance

We get in a groove
People’s rhythmic motion is smooth
The head banging is proof
Dancer’s enjoying the beat and *****

With Deejay YouTube on rotation
Music revives the good sensation
As boys and girls pair up to charleston
The vibe is lively in Camden

Everyone is revelling
In the style of crip walking
Zimmer frames towards the ceiling
As the old start break dancing

these colors don't run, they say
don't tread on me, they say
heritage not hatred, they say
as the blood of our black american children
runs down the drain
and the necks of
muslim men are snapped in the street
and the backs of
hispanic women are broken in the fields
and how can it be "heritage, not hatred"
when the flag of your heritage
is the epitome of hatred?

What year is it in Mississippi?
Sometimes it’s hard to tell,
You’d think in the 21st century,
We’d be able to tell time well.

Talking slow and taking it slow is okay
At least for most of the time
But there’s a big difference in drawling what you say,
And never reaching your prime

What year is it in Mississippi?
I don’t think it has its own zone.
Surely it’s impossible for the entire state
To have their watches on loan.

What year is it in Mississippi?
They seem so hopelessly behind,
Most other states quickly recognize
That her flag is hatred-lined.

What year is it in Mississippi?
Sorry, but I have to ask,
First in everything bad, and last in anything good,
To even tie with another state seems an impossible task.

Because when you act like you’re still in the past,
You’re going to keep being last.
And passed.
And bashed.
And masked.
And trashed.

No one thinks it’s hopeless yet
Or that the whole state is obscene,
I just hate to break it to Mississippi
That it is 2015.

We can wait ten years to change the flag,
Or another whole generation.
We can turn this thing into just a snag
or rebuild from the foundation.

We can change the confederate flag tomorrow
Or just wait around til we’re last,
We can bring the next fifty years some sorrow
Or mark it as a thing of the past.

We can get made fun of by every other state
First place in everything bad,
Or we can start to fix our problems with hate,
And make being actually first the new fad.

We can cling to a symbol of hate and loss,
And pretend it’s simply tradition,
Or we can dispose of that top-left cross
And avoid all of the opposition

Because Mississippi,

We can wait a week, a month or a year,
It really is a choice.
But the flag is going to change, it’s clear,
With or without your voice.

Don't you know I am a mirror?
But my handlers didn't handle me too well
Ignoring fragile this side up,
They dropped me on my head
And naturally, I shattered
Had I been alive,
I guess I'd now be dead.
A shard of me is trapped in Charleston
Caged in by a terrorist
Hatred and racism rattle the bars
What the **** do they mean
When they insist they do not see it?
My broken shard shows a murderer
Protected and escorted by the police
And isn't that the most ****** up part?
My broken shard shows a murderer
Protected and escorted by the police
And no one can tell them apart
I've forgotten the names
I've forgotten the faces
I've forgotten the number
of people of color killed
by cops in this ******* country
Because there have been too many
And a new soul joins the list almost daily
I don't remember their faces
But I see them in my shards
How do so many white people
Think it isn't our fault?