(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.

Octosyllabic rhyme was killed.
Her epitaph I chisel here…
so face the book and feed your twit;
while I the rhythmic record clear.

The sad remains of Lyric Wit
are here interred—no more to rise
(lest poets’ brains be forced to think
and plummet from post-modern skies).

You phonies scrolling Twitter-blink
and scribblers with advanced degrees
look up, and hearken to these words
while feigning your conceited ease.

The academic gallows-birds
reviewing chap-books, high on fluff
make darker the sepulchral gloom—
as if it wasn’t dark enough.

The verdict’s in and all assume,
as measured meaning leaves the court,
he meant to **** her (Poetry).
Life sentences are written short.

The killer, grinning artlessly
in blank-verse handcuffs, void of rhyme,
composes abstract lines: the dull
memoirs of his poetic crime.

The prosecution’s notes are full
the case is made, the jury hears
his guilt made evident, at least.
The victim’s mother melts in tears

He murdered her himself, the beast.
then dumped her: a deflowered rose.
His incoherent imagery
dismembered her like slaughtered prose.

She met her end lamentably;
He did her in and cut her down
thus shortening her metered day.
(murderous, evil, free-verse clown!)

Behold her grave—where grass turns hay
as poets’ bones subside to dust;
her soul with God to reconvene
(or wander in bemused disgust).

Her grave-site paints a pastoral scene,
poetic fodder: life from death…
and calves shall fatten near her tomb.
Oh coward reader: take a breath !