Lupita,
Teach me that the black girl
Is more than just, that –

More than just,
A **** provoking short-skirt
Tight-thick-thighs temptation

More than just,
A slim waist, supple flesh
And ‘shuga’

Stare into my ignorant eye,
And teach me
Lupita.

“My mind carries a pain
My skin bears a voice
I’m mad and it shows

It’s black in my soul
I’m bad, I’m insane
I’m mad and it grows

Black man with some vocals –
Black man with no arms,
Black man yes, the pain is mine, and it eats me  

Black man and there’s black in my thoughts,
So I keep screaming
Black man with heavy dreams that haunt him:

An ambition in the winter,
Flower never grow, for my seed cannot afford
Friction in the air when I’m bitter

Pay fee for my visions to come into sight, capitalism
Terrors caged in my intuition, neo-colonialist inhibitions
Give men races, take away our faces, branding

Culture punctured or am I just Insaniod?
**** the stereotype?
I try, but the Earth is stereohyped

Blame my senses? I can’t.
Too many cents owed me –
Nonsense.”

“The cousins leave, their laughter and cries do too
Upon that hour when sky’s flame
Is fell from up high

The water stops, the winds halt
Maybe even the blood stands too, still
For nothing moves, nothing’s awake at this hour

Minds and souls roam, free
Away from the heads plastered close to earth
Dreaming dreams, of planets, moons and else

Partaking, all in the blackness’s ritual
So dark, even the puppets of evil are tempted to lie still
All Men sleep, nothing’s awake at this hour –

Except me,
And the hand
From which this poem is borne.”

Drove to London in a downpour.
My daughter's family lives there.
I had a picnic in the bathroom,
With Aine pouring tea.
She held out a sponge plate,
Offering watermelon soap,
And facecloth chicken salad sandwiches.
Though long lost,
I dialed in her perspective;
Her bubbles never burst.
I'll recall that wet picnic,
On sunny summer days,
As a favored meal.

You packed for a picnic
Or a day in the sun
Now it’s time to pack it back
Whenever you are done.
Nobody cares what kind
Of drinks or junk you buy.
They care about the beauty
Of land and sea and sky.

You packed it in
So you pack it back.
Bring along with you
An extra ******* sack.
Care for our environment
As if it were your own.
We all live on this planet
You are not here alone.

Look around at where we live
What you can do to conserve
The wonders in nature.
Don’t throw us all a curve.
Pack back out what you bring in;
The right thing to do.
We are responsible adults
Not here to clean for you.

You packed it in
So you pack it back.
Bring along with you
An extra ******* sack.
Leave like you want to see it,
Think of more than just you.
Care for our environment
It’s the right thing to do.

I’d never noticed the
Freckles
On your
Shoulders.
But then again,
You’d never noticed
The scars.

Specifically
The ones
On my chest,
And if you had,
I’d never
Heard
Anything about them,
Or, “it.”

It had been awhile since we’d
Last crossed paths,
Encounters always
Ending in
Collision,
Connection
And corrosion come the first
Morning after; but welcomed.

You looked good though,
And that’s how it’d always
Started,
But beautiful nonetheless  –
A world-weathered skin
In the form of a twilight tan,
The vulnerable smile
With a small curl displaying

Aggressive sexuality,
And a dress, your cloth,
A critical juncture,
Of both cinema and satori,
A’flutter in the wind.
“Gift-wraps,” aside,
I’d always return to the
Form and curve of “You.”

Simply you
The half I could see
Leaving the other
Somehow elusive side of
You
To my imagination and
Memory
Of prior gallantry.

Unspoken words
Pave paths between the
Tables we now occupy.
So to,
Acts of predation await,
Perched and ready for
Gardens,
Accepted, the resulted chaos.

I wonder,
“What’s she thinking?”
As I capture a wink
And steal the sunlight
Bouncing of her
Shoulder’s freckles.
It’s an intoxication
At its finest.

Accordingly,
I sip my
Beer
And in echoes mumble,
“I want you, want you,
Want you.”
Luckily,
You wanted me too.