pay more respect to the women working at morgues.

they tend to the dead
it takes sympathy
it takes care
it takes courage
it takes control

not the control of fear of stray souls
not the control of fear of phantoms
but the control of wanton

and that is why men aren't hired by morgues.

Airport

Covering my face with my hands, there is an incessant in-pouring of light. I feel like I am in a casket. My brain seems to be swelling, in tune with an invisible pendulum. Waves of nausea flood my body.  Small children thunder around in front of me, like hysterical nightmare projections.

I have never enjoyed being in Airports. They are morgues with an added buzz of visitors and commerce. The sterility of the interior design and the nervous excitability of the passengers sets me very quickly on edge. As a salesman for a major international e-commerce company, I am required to fly often.

To avoid excess stress and anxiety I prepare meticulously. Nothing must be left to chance. I am regimented and purposeful during my preparation. If the luggage allowance is 15kg, then I make sure that my suitcase is dead on that weight. I reweigh my suitcases on several sets of scales. Checking there is no error in their calibration.  I do not carry any prohibited travel items. I ring airline customer support several times to double-check. I rummage through my suitcase repeatedly. I allow no error to go unnoticed. I google articles about travel preparation, checklists, essential travel items and I read articles about anxiety related to fear of flying. Neither my emotional state nor practical matters are to take me by surprise. I am like a samurai undertaking pre-battle rituals.

Check-in is open. I funnel through to the check-in desk. There are several people before me; their movements generate a low pitch buzzing in my head. They are hyper-kinetic, speaking at unreasonably loud volumes in an indecipherable language. My arms vibrate down by my sides, my tongue thickens. I feel warmer and more vulnerable. I start to think about the first meal I’ll eat in Rekyjavik. I have panicked thoughts, recognition of myself in these thoughts is minimal. I swing around to check that nobody is standing directly behind me. The several people check in without issue. A man in all black clothing, I presume, a security guard intercepts me and asks me to go to desk 13. Although there is a sign hanging down from the ceiling with directions to check-in desks 10-15, I am unable to locate desk 13. I double back on myself, I ask the check-in assistant from desk 12 where desk 13 is. She says that it has been temporarily moved to the second floor of the terminal. Desk 13 on the second floor doesn't in the slightest resemble a check-in desk. A burly individual with an absence of ****** expressions or an officious manner mans an oak desk. There is no conveyor belt for the luggage, only a shopping trolley. ''Ermmm can I check in here?''. The man whom lacks an officious manner nods curtly without removing his eyes from the newspaper he is reading. "Documentation''. I hand him my documentation. ''Passport''. ''Going to Reykjavik?'' ''Erm yes''. ‘’Follow me’’.
The man, who lacks an officious manner, leads me a door behind the check-in desk that doesn’t in the slightest resemble a check-in desk. A young child with golden blonde hair in white robes pushes the shopping trolley behind me. We enter a room that is high like a cathedral and tiled in exquisite mosaic tiles; alternating gold and white into infinity. The ceiling is so high it seems to disappear off into a void. Sat down at a bog-standard mass manufactured desk in front of me, is a man who must be at least 13 feet tall, he has enormous ears like an elephant and is speaking in rounds of what sounds like the same phrase. I do not recognise the language. I am ceased from behind by the blonde child and the man who lacks an officious manner. The man with enormous ears like an elephant screams ‘’I hate Iceland’’, the blonde child laughs uncontrollably grabbing his stomach like he is holding his insides in. The ceiling begins to close in and a space opens in the floor. The man who lacks an officious manner says in a sinister tone says ‘’Do you think you would be forgiven”. I say ‘’I have got a ticket, I’m going to Iceland on business’’ I feel a prodding in my lower back and then darkness.

Here in America,
we improvise morgues
as needed.
in the cafeterias
or by the lockers,
near the ticket booths,
and at the altars.
We divvy up the dead.
Tally them
and report the number
like an answer.
13, 20, 49, 58, 6
Every death count
a timely national shock.
Almost as if  
our well-televised  
monthly tragedy
was ever anything less
than a game of roulette.
anything less than a matter of time
and time and time again.
Covering them each
with our bed sheets,
we try and stifle it.
Do our best to
staunch the the sights,
the noises,
(“just like chairs falling”)
the names
that keep bleeding out
onto our thoughts  
and tongues,
Far too much and
too often
not to choke on.

Here in America,
we’ve learned that  
horror is level-headed.
It is debatable.  
It is pangless.
It seeps, deep to the core,
perverting with a silent smile.
the steady, feverish dread
weaving itself into the mundane.
the “god help us”  
annulled by the
“respectfully disagreed”
the nightmare that lies  
always just underneath,
and just out of mind,
Until it insinuates itself
Again and again...

Here, in America
We line the bodies,
death slumped, and  
bled out on the pavement.
We arrange them-
Side by side.
Most are missing things-
a hat, a piece of face.
one shoe, a dulled pencil
(fill in C)
phones
buzzing on the ground
lit up with unread messages
(“Please call me”)
They are missing-
an upcoming  
7th birthday party,
(Star Wars themed)
They are missing-
their vacations.
their first dates.
their college applications.
job interviews.
kids.
fiancées.
Lined up lifeless,  
they are missing
far too many things  
to gather.

There was a child went forth every day,
And everything she heard or saw, whether it was perceived with love, dread, hatred, pity…became a part of her
And it may have faded away in moments, or lingered with the day …or remained for years on end, caught in the web of her mind.
The voices became a part of her
And the broken glass and the splintered wood and the tear streaked faces and more than anything else the shouts
The sharp words and the words that weren’t words but blows and the words that turned to shrieks and the words she blocked with her hands and the slamming of the door… and the words she wrote in her journals… and the sobs coming through the crack in the door…. And the desperate cries for help she stifled with her narrow white teeth… were all a part of her.
And so were the laughter and the marker scribbles and the days at the flea market and the dinners in the living room
And so were the picnics in the yard and the games of t-ball, all those were part of her too, but there seemed much less of that.
And her friends began to dwindle one by one, as she grew older
And as she grew older it all grew worse, former friends gave pointed stares and words that stung like poison darts
And everything was closing in, the house, the town, her own emotions
The shouting was worse, the glass wasn’t broken but instead held poison that made the house stink… the stench of sterility and morgues and slow but ceaseless destruction
Her own father slowly filled her soul with a treacherous ocean of words and tears and memories and mistrust, he let her down again and again and again, he watched her fading and helped her along… whether he knew it or not
The man was still breathing, still had a beating heart, but the father was long dead, shredded to bits by his own words and the broken glass and the splintered wood and bottles of poison
The girl was fading swiftly, blocking off her door with silence and books to hide behind
They never questioned the self inflicted bruises since she was clumsy anyway….the dark circles beneath the hollow eyes were never commented upon, the silent tears were never seen… hidden behind glasses and too much hair
She was silent always, not agreeing nor disagreeing, simply hiding.
If she was quiet no one noticed, he didn’t notice, and if he didn’t notice, the words couldn’t hurt
But she wanted to cry out, scream, fight, her head was shouting that this wasn’t right, aren’t fathers supposed to love their daughters not make them bruise their arms and hate themselves? But her heart slammed no no no he can never know how scared we are.
So she bit her lips because bleeding was better than crying and no one noticed the swelling and everyone told her how happy and perfect she was… she faked a smile and bit her lips again
And every night she went home to slamming and shouting and words that bruised like punches
Fat, ****, stupid, useless, worthless, no better than me… the shadows of insults floated behind her eyes, under her skin, manifesting in tears and dark circles and scratches and bruises
She fought and she fought as he tore her apart and every night she stitched herself together
Washed her wounds with her tears and tried her best to sleep.
The shouts and poison were gone when the father left
Leaving the daughter bruised and bleeding and broken and hurting where no one could see
But she stitched herself together
The wounds have time to heal now.
The friends she made would give her new words, the drawings would let her take out her pain and her anger on something other than her skin, the words she wrote were the shouts she never allowed herself
The insults are still there, she has not forgiven the father but without him she would have no pain to pour onto pages like blood from a wound that has yet to scab over and scar, but now there is the laughter and the hands to hold and the new words that remind her of the new memories of grass and sky and smiles and effervescent voices
These are a part of her now too, and they are the things that have kept her going,
And they are the things that will keep her going and going, into a future he claimed she’d never have.

Mine is a generation of taboo.
We are tribal tattoos and cheap motel room honeymoons.
We are slander,
and slang,
and brittle teeth.
We are born-agains and suicides.
We are podium preachers and cracked-pavement prayers.
We are melted plastic and oxidized metal-
sometimes we gleam with the Liberty Green of corroded copper,
sometimes we crumble with rust and stain calloused hands.
We are the last stand of Art.
We are the manifestations of forbidden bloodlines
and insanity.
We are just as much our mothers
as we are our fathers,
and we are everything that they are not.

We are stigmata.
We are red paint on white canvas.
We are fast food coffee.

We were born to the sweet smell of formaldehyde
in rooms dressed in florescent white
that share plumbing with the morgues
beneath the linoleum floors.
We are the mix of ***** and innocence that lingers
in the kiss of a dimly lit basement.
We show and we tell but always only for the right price,
the wrong reasons,
or the promise of an exchange equaling to the feeling that
this is a mistake.
We are rosary beads counted between gnarled knuckles
and dragged across smooth palms that long
to sweep tear salt from flushed cheeks.

We are Heaven's lonely singles.

We are skin stretched out too thin over skeletons.
We are the complexities that machines can't calculate
much less imitate.
We are the futile cries that once tried to keep towers from falling
when the sky came crashing down.
We are the pardoned and the withered.
We are the hardened faces of those that have
worked too long
and been loved too little.
We have been told that the safest place for your soul
is in the hole of your chest,
but only if it's reinforced by
four inches of concrete and steel,
and strapped tight with a Kevlar vest,
because they said people,
at best,
are manslaughter.

But we have never been great listeners either;
when we were growing up
we pressed our hands to hot stoves
even though our mothers said not to,
because we couldn't just be told what it was to burn
we had to feel it for ourselves.
So every now and then we will crack open
our rib cages in the hopes that someone will come,
light a fire,
and decide to stay.

We hopelessly spray paint things like wings
On deserted brick buildings
So that, at the very lest, we can feed the
Hollow-eyed passerby the belief
That these streets still have guardians,
Even when we, ourselves,
Abandoned such ideologies in
backroad dumpsters
along with our deities’ infidelities.
  
We are the period at the end of the sentence.
(Or maybe we are the ellipses...)
We have redefined the American family
and proven that even Christianity knows how to hate.
We were raised by sixty-percent divorce rates,
yet we still believe that we are soul mates.
We are the jokers of the deck:
either smiling fools or wild cards.
We are cocked heads with smoke billowing from throats
coated with blisters and cough syrup.
We are back alley scavengers crawling on all fours.
We are the era of the Auto-Tuned voice,
proof that with a pretty enough face anyone can sing.
We are foggy mirrors with smiles drawn on them
by print-less fingertips.
We slip up the thighs of our lovers
and swirl down the drains of sinks with chipped paint.

We are the hearts in your hands-
Crush us into powder and brush us across your face like Indian war paint,
Give us up to the sky so that we can be revived by lightning,
Dance to the rhythm that we beat,
Squeeze us and watch as we seep through the cracks of your fist,
Conceal us in your pocket and only ever speak to us in a whisper,
Or,
with all your natural voice,
sing to us
songs about thunderstorms
to wet the dusty desert dirt around our rooted toes
in the hopes that we will blossom in the most vivid colors.

Just do something with us.

Don't sacrifice us to the tops of lost bookshelves
to collect dust
or rust in the rain with everything you once loved
but grew too old for.

Folded into this numb-husk of unknowing,
undeveloped eyes, wrapped by distressed skin,
continue to peer, unseeing, accustomed
as they now are, to a feed of distant

Telegenically Dead. These short lives have been
socially shared and mocked,
as morgues overflow to floor;
impromptu fans recirculating mournings hot air.

There is little chance for grief on Day 13;
rage has to be spent like a brass cartridge
or slung stone, or drowned in red pools
mixed with the water of collective driblets.

Meanwhile a politician says something else.

No Justice. No Peace.
We're killed for jaywalking,
But are expected to remain at ease.

We're seen as looters.
When terrorists are heroes.
And never unjust shooters.

They "protect and serve."
They protect each other.
Whether its inhumane doesn't matter.
Then they serve morgues...
with young black bodies on shiny silver platters.

They don't want to hear us.
So we're told to remain peaceful because it's easier to ignore a sound that isn't being made.

And if we remain quiet the passion for wrong doings will begin to fade.

Black people are ashamed of each other for rioting in their own community. But it doesn't belong to us.  So feel free to burn down gas stations and break the windows out of a Toys"R"Us.

We'll be executed in suits. We'll be executed in sweats. We'll be executed when we're armed and We'll be executed when we pose no threat.

So scream if you have to.
Let it all out.
Fight fire with fire.
It will grow, and eventually someone will put it out.

Because remaining peaceful has gotten us nowhere.

When we're peaceful they don't care. They torment us. And we're mocked. And are attacked with tear gas while rubber and wooden bullets are being shot.

So don't shoot. But when you need to. Shoot back.
I want us to be able to raise children who won't be murdered for being big while black.

And it isn't in the U.S.A.
Where Unjust Shootings are Admissible.
And Uniformed Shooters are Admired.

So fight back. Even though we're already so tired.

the home
we once lived in
with wardrobes in shambles
and drawers with clutter
is now empty.

i packed everyone's bags,
gathered the last pushpins
from the wall in the kitchen,
and went on with my life.

i made sure to grab
the books we'd hidden in the attic
as well as the photo album
you'd stashed under the floorboards.

i opened the curtains
and then swept the floors.
i made our bed for the last time
and collected the closings
of the dust on the mantelpiece
that nobody ever cleaned.

i got two extra boxes
for all of the medication unfinished.
i marked them "fragile", for they were glass capsules
containing the substance needed to keep my daughter alive.
but her illness didn't **** her.

i was well aware of the dog's bed,
and it found a place
in the passenger seat of my suv.
his quiet whimpers and cries
were all i heard that evening
as i drove away from what once was my life.

when i finally got to my feet again,
i returned to making dinner for myself.
i only knew how to cook for seven,
and i found tranquility in washing things in sevens.
now i made food for one
and washed for one.

i accidentally brewed two coffees this morning,
in hopes you were still here to take it
and laugh at me for making it too strong,
but you're not.
i awoke at noon the day before and sobbed,
for i was used to being awoken by child's laughter
and small bodies climbing into our bed.

tomorrow, i will bring your briefcase to work
and leave it on your desk.
i'll collect it when i go to leave
and frown at the fact you never opened it.
i'll dispatch you three times in the field,
but you won't respond.

i used to see our wedding day,
but now i see your funeral.
i used to see our children's births;
but i've gotten used to their bodies in morgues.

your physical features
become the trauma described during your autopsies,
and our family photos
became the ones used in the funeral program.

the home
we once lived in
with wardrobes in shambles
and drawers with clutter
is now a house;

a house with things
that even i can't pack away.

~for Lori Jones McCaffery~

Lori Jones McCaffery commenting on
“a new time (poetry in the time of pandemic)”^
“Tender and brutal at the same time. Like the times.”*

                                                     ­          <>
your observation, a commission, opens an incision,
bleeding out a Noah flood vision:

                                                        ­        <>

when we begin, to compare and contrast the movable tender and the unstoppable brutal, the poetry must rise to equalize the pressure of unbalanced times, the tender, and the brutal in an uneasy peaceful coexistence, at the same time, same place
                                                           ­     
                              
                              
                            
The Brutal                                              The Tender
—————                                             —————
life in the epicenter, the greatest,       in the darkened bedroom,
noisiest city, now landscape               she awakens, her hand quick
painting quiet,                                      comes to rest on my chest,
one lives/writes/eyesights thru       the quality of motion+volume
pink mask + a minimum six              of heartbeats, is it loud enough,
feet of separation,                                steady on, no need to dial 911!
a citified tableau of macro wave       she unaware that I can hear
forces in crashing collision, upon     her loud, tender exhalation
your skin’s cells                                   celebrating surviving day#?

newspaper images of Death’s            many volunteer, food delivery,
ministers applauding the newly        though I am asymptomatic
arrived mobile morgues, for 100        my request tenderly, firmly
died yesterday,                                      denied, for I meet too many
their brutal death rattles                      of the vulnerable criteria,
overwhelmed  the super-surround.   instead, offering food to me,
sound silences of                                   to deliver to me, to deliver me,
brutal emptiness of millions of           tenderly I say, no thanks,
sacrificial                                             ­    my tour of duty, almost done
                              
                                all of us isolate lambs, in day jailed,
                                for we still breathing the maybe tainted,                
                                oxygen molecules of no safe surety      

a consummate perfection,                    the same, taming words I tell  
the holy quietus of                                 my son, young father,
those no longer breathing,                   tender me necessary tasks that
they now rest up above,                        require outside journeys, say I
hid in a white cumulus                         send me into the red hot areas
cloud cover, a noise suppressing         insert me into the front line,
sky coverlet, moving across a               militarized zones, he replies,
bright blue pure background,              ”you’re too old, part and
a train of funeral caissons,                     parcel of the most vulnerable,
brutal noisy hooves clacking             better-write-you tender-poems”

daily, hourly, the statistical alerts,         why so hard, to write tender
brief résumés delivered,                         so easy of the brutal, their
drumbeating, look now!                         curses so readily supplied,
are you up to date?                                  is tenderness short supplied?

catalog the debris, organized with brutal necessary efficacy, quantify, qualify the costs, include even the tender ineffable, countdown and graph the brutal calculus of the curve infection, and you, numbed, past the point of eyes capable of what once was tender droplet tearing

highlight the unknown faraway, the tender hope of a distant apex inflection, while plotting the second derivative, the rate of change of the rate of a brutal yet trending upward *****, the ascending all-inclusive stat, infected, the rate of change of decedents, downed, descending, giving in...gowned in hospital blue, for the funeral pyre

a city of lines, crosswalks, velvet ropes, unused, unemployed, social separators, no one about to need to separate, anymore, only the living and the dead, both staying indoors, so neither in attendance, at the empty funeral services, everybody is on the out list...

the now newly indistinguishable, the irresistible collision of two one-sides polarizing poles of no longer opposites, the tender and the brutal in a single embrace, but no, not kissing, embargoed, as we are stationed from above, far, high up on the watchtower observatory, observing the contrast dye that flies so fast on people denuded grand boulevards, down narrow hospital hallways, body-lined decorated, tales of millions of lives isolatized, and don’t forget the brutalizing discovery of scores of elderly, dying alone, withering in the dark, counted, lumped in to the category of statistically irrelevant, if dead, who cares, matters not now, in the afterworld no one asks how,
                        in a fashion both tenderly and brutal,
                        what was the actual cause?

The hospitals full
The ambulances all gone
My heart empty
My trust gone

The hospitals full
The ambulances all gone
The doctors and nurses maxed out
Can life still go on?

The hospitals full
The ambulances all gone
The morgues and mortuaries over-spilling
In the City of Angels and lost souls

The hospitals full
The ambulances all gone
I wear two masks, a smile and one of cloth
Life must go on

The hospitals full
The ambulances all gone
As ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three
Happy new year?

In the City of Angels and lost souls
The hospitals are full
The ambulances all gone
as we ring in a "new" year and life must go on

The hospitals remain full
The ambulances still gone
as one, two, three, four, five, six friend and family we bury
as living death still stalks on

The battlefield long now cleared
of corpse, blood and gore.
Belay the epic truth they tell,
knee deep in history and wars.

Dead stacked like cords of wood,
burnt on unsanctified fires.
Log by log of rigored souls
sent the flames up higher.

years later make shift morgues sat 'bout
to hold the fallen heroes.
Kept in dungeons and deeper colds,
till springtime thaw for burials.

Those that live on to build
and keep recording life.
Never thought once and all
war would end their daily strife.

So it goes, axe to sword,
Cannon to machine gun.
Scud missles to nuclear.
Who will be left to say they won?

Nigeria my beloved home is under siege:
A death trap I see in her third mainland bridge.
The crying blood of the slain in the North-east
overwhelms vicious politicians with guilt.
Humans with hearts of beasts ravage her North-west,
outgunning her corrupt weakened armed forces.
Catacombs of mass graves quantify losses
incurred from incessant farmers-herders clash.
Darkness looms as stupendous amounts of cash
are cast in an energy sector like trash.
Her healing centres are no more than health morgues,
and her institutions breed intellectual dogs.
Her oligarchs of the six zones unify
to plunder, **** and line their pockets with filth.
With peanuts they entice poverty stricken
youths, just to have their sit-tight bids guaranteed them.
Indulgences from the gullible gratify
custodians of faith endowed with seducing lips.
My beloved Nigeria has failed to hearken
to the values of the elders before them.
With priorities misplaced, we go seeking
for stereotyped reputations in our trips
to foreign climes for filthy lucre to acquire.
Good Lord! When will values my mother-land require?

A percentage of me has to hell been consigned
by the ever raging zionists' war machine.
To each livid soldier, a mandate is assigned
to uproot terror where multitudes are confined.
Torrents of explosives have swept my landscapes clean.
Churches, mosques, schools have all to mighty vengeance bowed.
Stricken mothers wail uncontrollably aloud.
Itinerancy pervades my horror stricken crowd,
whilst my kids toy with explosives, carnage and ruin.
Survivors will take shelter from snipers shooting
death ***** and lead from peevish and portable guns.
Horror unprecedented the people outruns.
I have metamorphosed to nothing but a morgue.
Lice and bugs have infested hoodies lined with borg.
Disease and maimed limbs have no remedies in sight.
Let not the world be unmoved by my sorry plight.
Why must I this price pay for a thousand or more killed?
My morgues are beyond their capacity filled.
The deaths of innocents are nothing but unjust.
My once-populated streets have been turned into dust.

I still got my heart in my pocket
And that same old locket
Yeah the one with the scratch on the back
Now I know that's a ******* fact

The skies are burning red tonight
And I can't seem to see right
Where you are I can only guess to God
Now I'm feeling heartbroken and oh' so small

There's that guy with the fat left eye
The one I punched last night for stealing my pie
Oh there's that guy with the fat left eye
I see him staring at your locket, whata' guy

The curbs are burning red with hate on every corner
The morgues are getting full with weary coroners
Were left here on this place without a clue where to go
Buy your ticket, rip your stub, enjoy the ride

And hell lingers round' me as I walk along alone
A sin in every mailbox, a catch in every mitt
Sailing in my car with the windows down just a crack
A lady last night she wished to give me a smack

Heave away those lofty regrets that you never met
Their weights in pasts that can be lost quite fast
Look ahead to the greater beyond
The last mountain to be seen will hold your song

when I bomb first
betta believe muthaphukkaz
touchin the hearse
I'm cursed
with a demonic flow
puff that hydro
but my mind ain't slow though
so stroll
with me down the valley of death rows
ya meet skulls to bones
watch yo steps
fool cuz I'm prone
to ripping up ****
shoot up even ya casket
if ya dead *****
since my money itch
I gotta get the scratch
cook up another coke batch
Naw scratch that
I'd rather a raider hat with a baseball ball to gats
make ya heartbeat flat
check the paper stacks
we got more racks
than a Swiss banks
smoke the baddest danks
freak the baddest skanks
but they never get a thanks
from me
***** cuz I gotta
ruthless mentality
make fatalities
to emcees that try to battle me
ain't no little in me
I'm b I double g I to e
hypnotize y'all with bars
thAt even glisten stars
and look at the scars
across the late night
shining bright
is my organization
**** tight
taking flight
over the industry
they beneath me
like they sneaky
huh I never trusted quotes out of a magazine
but still dump on fools out my ak47 magazine
with yo head guilltione
for tryna intervene my cream
got trusted killaz on my team
from eses from Diego to the bay
black nation Jamaican to Haitan
we ain't fakin
when we rob
we come hungry as wolve packs
counting paperstacks
and eradicate wacks
givin death the ultimate thirst
cuz it's dry
***** I thought u knew when bomb
Betta believe we the first uh


yeAh verse two
just as vicious
so ******* and ya crew
bust on fools
with hallow tips
now I see my favorite color drip
red dot means ya dead
ask Craig
I got flava in ya ear
life in fear with yo family in tears
cuz they know the thugs is here
to set execution
to muthaphukkaz
that thought
they could evade persecution
reducing
the population
one by one
listen to the sounds
of my guns
it goes rat tat tat tat tat tat tat tat tat
now ya body fat
but back
to this fiend hustle
money I'm talking
so **** the struggle
since I was bornghetto
I'll die ghetto
and when they bury me
don't throw rose peddles
just hold up the pistols
and fire shots in the air
like ya don't care true playa he'll yeah
I'm brutal as ****
to those pushing luck
don't get struck
by my fiery tongue
once I speak
brains get hung
*** kicks more than Chung
Li with speed of Bruce Lee
Y'all can't  see me
Naw but you'll sure as hell feel me
like spirits running in the late night
blurring yo sight
I sense the fear in yo heart *****
sweats tears getting bigger
am I there
or is it just a shadow glare?
I'm evil as they come
so bow down
when ya see the Don
black Al Capone
with a mansion of my own
soon to transform
all pen ****** home
built for the war zone
so I ain't scared to die
shoot me but ya better make sure I die
cuz if not I'll be planning yo burial plot
watch for my live shots from my glock
it don't stop even when I'm gone
still reigning as champions
fire blazin sky grazzin
hell raising
in the streets
coming after crooked *** police
what's worse ?
when we drive up in a black hearse
betta believe morgues makin money why ?
cuz we bomb firrsttt

I have watched mothers lose
their children, and children lose their mothers. I am tied
by my toes to a loop
which can be seen in cafes and morgues -
the breast-feeding, the burying, the everything is all
on a string. I have heard about
women and children thinking they are unlimited,
I am unlimited, too, if
the two ends of a circle never meet.
My lover once closed his heart off from everyone, and I
never understood until now
that you do not
have to open up in order to be full inside. I still can
water his flowers, even the weeds
and he never has to open his eyes to see and
he never has to open his heart
to feel. I understand that sometimes it is better to just be.

By: Cedric McClester

It was clear from the beginning
That the only one who’s winning
From the violence underpinning
Why our population’s thinning
Are the morgues and undertakers
As we leave to meet our Maker’s
Heaven high or hell below
Becuz’ ya see, we never know

When our ashes turn to dust
It’s enough to cause disgust
As the perpetrators cuss
Then let their gun shots bust
Two rounds in the head
And the floors are running red
If you heard a word I said
No need to ask if they’re dead

But we’ll swallow up our grief
And no matter our belief
Try to seek Godly relief
For yet another unwarranted beef
And regardless of the venue
Violence is still on the menu
So no doubt it will continue
Like dancers of China’s Shen Yue

Let’s go in the laboratory
To review this time worn story
With its familiar repertory
And ironic allegory
It doesn’t make no sense
Like our Vice President Pence
Guess we’ll be kept in suspense
Until things get less intense












Cedric McClester, Copyright © 2019.  All rights reserved.

No Justice. No Peace.
We're killed for jaywalking,
But are expected to remain at ease.

We're seen as looters.
When terrorists are heroes.
And never unjust shooters.

They "protect and serve."
They protect each other.
Whether its inhumane doesn't matter.
Then they serve morgues...
with young black bodies on shiny silver platters.

They don't want to hear us.
So we're told to remain peaceful because it's easier to ignore a sound that isn't being made.

And if we remain quiet the passion for wrong doings will begin to fade.

Black people are ashamed of each other for rioting in their own community. But it doesn't belong to us.  So feel free to burn down gas stations and break the windows out of a Toys"R"Us.

We'll be executed in suits. We'll be executed in sweats. We'll be executed when we're armed and We'll be executed when we pose no threat.

So scream if you have to.
Let it all out.
Fight fire with fire.
It will grow, and eventually someone will put it out.

Because remaining peaceful has gotten us nowhere.

When we're peaceful they don't care. They torment us. And we're mocked. And are attacked with tear gas while rubber and wooden bullets are being shot.

So don't shoot. But when you need to. Shoot back.
I want us to be able to raise children who won't be murdered for being big while black.

And it isn't in the U.S.A.
Where Unjust Shootings are Admissible.
And Uniformed Shooters are Admired.

So fight back. Even though we're already so tired.

No Justice. No Peace.
We're killed for jaywalking,
But are expected to remain at ease.

We're seen as looters.
When terrorists are heroes.
And never unjust shooters.

They "protect and serve."
They protect each other.
Whether its inhumane doesn't matter.
Then they serve morgues...
with young black bodies on shiny silver platters.

They don't want to hear us.
So we're told to remain peaceful because it's easier to ignore a sound that isn't being made.

And if we remain quiet the passion for wrong doings will begin to fade.

Black people are ashamed of each other for rioting in their own community. But it doesn't belong to us.  So feel free to burn down gas stations and break the windows out of a Toys"R"Us.

We'll be executed in suits. We'll be executed in sweats. We'll be executed when we're armed and We'll be executed when we pose no threat.

So scream if you have to.
Let it all out.
Fight fire with fire.
It will grow, and eventually someone will put it out.

Because remaining peaceful has gotten us nowhere.

When we're peaceful they don't care. They torment us. And we're mocked. And are attacked with tear gas while rubber and wooden bullets are being shot.

So don't shoot. But when you need to. Shoot back.
I want us to be able to raise children who won't be murdered for being big while black.

And it isn't in the U.S.A.
Where Unjust Shootings are Admissible.
And Uniformed Shooters are Admired.

So fight back. Even though we're already so tired.

No Justice. No Peace.
We're killed for jaywalking,
But are expected to remain at ease.

We're seen as looters.
When terrorists are heroes.
And never unjust shooters.

They "protect and serve."
They protect each other.
Whether its inhumane doesn't matter.
Then they serve morgues...
with young black bodies on shiny silver platters.

They don't want to hear us.
So we're told to remain peaceful because it's easier to ignore a sound that isn't being made.

And if we remain quiet the passion for wrong doings will begin to fade.

Black people are ashamed of each other for rioting in their own community. But it doesn't belong to us.  So feel free to burn down gas stations and break the windows out of a Toys"R"Us.

We'll be executed in suits. We'll be executed in sweats. We'll be executed when we're armed and We'll be executed when we pose no threat.

So scream if you have to.
Let it all out.
Fight fire with fire.
It will grow, and eventually someone will put it out.

Because remaining peaceful has gotten us nowhere.

When we're peaceful they don't care. They torment us. And we're mocked. And are attacked with tear gas while rubber and wooden bullets are being shot.

So don't shoot. But when you need to. Shoot back.
I want us to be able to raise children who won't be murdered for being big while black.

And it isn't in the U.S.A.
Where Unjust Shootings are Admissible.
And Uniformed Shooters are Admired.

So fight back. Even though we're already so tired.

What happens in Vegas won’t stay there this time,
It’s the scene of a terrible, unspeakable crime.
From high up above in the Mandalay Bay
Bullets rained down as the musicians played.
Carnage and horror. Screams in the night
People were trampled as others took flight.
The gunman is dead but the questions remain.
Was this act one of terror or was he insane?
Fifty Eight are dead, It doesn’t seem right.
Vegas, our playground, has been bloodied this night.
The Morgues overwhelmed and the E.R. is full.
The shooter had come well equipped for the ****.


Is it time to restrict weapons sold in our nation?
Surely it’s time we had that conversation.

These monstrous buildings
that loom above us
cast a shadow
similar to an abusive father,
hand cocked back
as if the taste of his palm
will remind those he sways
of metallic bullets
and the forgotten stroll
the ****** streets
stumbling through lifeless puddles
as if a drunken Jesus
and the lonely seek solitude
and crave desire
and the life that fills the morgues
and graveyards
provides enough iron
for the worlds deficiency,
ashing our fingers as
anxious seraphims
pull out our nails
and staple eviction notices to joy
and mercy me
the trees fall to their knees
as if battered toddlers could speak above the screaming silence
at the table
of a broken home.

Moments no one could expect,
Like the year New York City finally slept.
When cuddles and kisses were no longer romantic,
And coughing or sneezing created mass panic.

We feared the air and what it could hold,
As we watched the breaking news unfold.
The days merged and time slowed –
We waited at home as morgues overflowed.

Strangers became heroes overnight -
Dawning masks of blue and suits of white,
Working relentlessly with no end in sight.

When keeping distance was a sign of affection,
Knowing it was for your own protection.
Children stripped away from friends,
For reasons they could not comprehend.

Through troubles and trials -
The answer to our prayers,
Came in glasses and vials.

For as the sunsets and rises,
Across every ocean horizon.
And like the certainty of tides -
This storm will soon subside.

This too shall pass -

Victor Frankenstien went shopping through morgues and cemeteries and picked out only the very best features,
stitching them together with string and tape

the flowing black hair and the delicate pale skin,
it should have been perfect

but once the lightning struck and the creature opened his glassy eye the truth was revealed

you can't make a person that way
not a good one anyway

the hair was matted and the skin that looked so fresh on a corpse was jaundice

the monster was a monster by design, even if it was not intentional

I understand what it means to take what seems so beautiful on other bodies and stitch it together haphazardly trying to make something perfect

I have Victors hands, the hands that play god

but more than that,
I have the sickly skin and the glazed-over eyes

I have the very best things I saw in everyone else

a gentle angel with one million eyes to watch over her children,
I took her kindness
a wretched holy beast that could never be hurt, I took his aggression

I stole ideas and attitudes that resonated with me,
I stole the rebellion that I saw the righteous wear in books and on TV
I stole the heart that some sweet girl wore on her sleeve with faith in the world around her
I plagiarized, I became everything I thought was beautiful

with my Frankenstein hands I had created a self to live in, an idea to thrive in my useless body

I thought I could live as the perfect boy, the perfect person

but the ideas split off, still inside me
growing and expanding and bulging out of my skin
my bones crack under the weight of so many people within

the sweet, the angry, they were always at odds

a monster, a monster that lies in poppy fields and dreams about love

a sweetheart, a sweetheart that slices rats in half just to see what their insides look like

I am not the perfect thing I wanted to be
I am fractured like the bones I had to rip apart to make them fit

I am too little too late and too much too soon all in one,
not enough, never enough, far too much to bear

I am the god I swore was dead,
I am taxidermy animals that don't look quite right

I am fractures of what I wanted to be

I am Frankenstein
but
I am also Frankenstein's monster

Forty-nine bodies lay in Orlando
Morgues waiting to be promptly claimed,
Which forty-eight families did.
One, however, was too ashamed.

One body lay unidentified--
Alone, rejected, day after day--
Because a stone-hearted father
Objected to his son's being gay.

So intransigent, so consumed
By his intolerant, cherry-picked views,
A father preferred to leave his son lying
In a cold morgue. Heart-breaking news!

After the horror of the nightclub massacre,
Adding insult to injury that dad
Showed the capacity of the human heart
To lack compassion. How very sad!

Extended family of the young victim
Later convinced authorities to release
The body into their care, so now
The abandoned son can rest in peace.

For years did the son have any support
From his dad, or was it too much bother?
One thing we know without a doubt:
The son deserved a better father.

- by Bob B