On the night
I learn about Demitri Allison I smoke and I cry
And I drink
And I try
And I talk
And I laugh
Like I ain’t me
I look in the mirror
And I look in the mirror
And I see
And I look
Again
I reflect
And I respect
This shell that leaves me without helmet
Exposed
To the elements
Prison
Statistics
Poor
Health
And I wanna go home
Let my family know I am not
A brown boy falling from
3000 miles up
This time I want to remember
not just with my head
but with my heart
with this body
This time I want to be open
Not just with my mouth
with my ears and eyes
I want to (re)discover practice
I want to discover play
For so long studying freedom in a glass box
It feels good to be out in open air
With respect for the elements
this Community of breath
This is New
This felling of renewal
fills me
even in this moment of distress
Home is where I am
My heart is split
in Two Places
All I want to do is
Be Present
And be a present
for some kid
who doesn’t know
wonderful can be everyday
That the Peace that we speak of
Cant be bought
or found
on a the shelf
or showroom floor
Most days I struggle
to remember this lesson myself
When the waves of welfare
and guilt around around a “choice”
to be poor poet
Are crashing against my lifelines
Yet I am here
In the midst of it all
Trying
Pushing
Gathering
Just to be ok with being
30for30 poem number one. ..Just how I feel.
I am somewhere reeling
out of control a soul trapped in the body of human
We brothers be Moon Men
wrapped in Lunar Eclipse Skin
a riddle wrapped in swaddling fro’s
with enigma colored star patterns
a stripe
for every clutched wife
every suspected knife
when the only concealed weapon was hiding in plain plight
an implicit criminality in melanin
But we colored boys be brave
flee the cage
grab spear and disappear into the Darkness
Darkness is a strange thing
It can all too often be too much of everything to find itself
Too much Blame
too much Guilt
too much Defensiveness
too many fUCK yOU’s
Not Enough Love You’s
We are misunderstood
perplexing beings
because people often forget we are human
or at least dressed like it
This Sunday I wore no tie
instead I donned sleep
wore covers like a cocoon
Picture Me Black Butterfly
dreams my metamorphosis
the Only time I get to Evolve
really get to solve all my problems
Feel like I don’t owe a debt to society that charged me in the first place
One moment in present presence of being
They say the opposite of fear
is curiosity
yet we still confuse them to the point
where they respond with the former Fear
so now there’s no one moved to tell us what’s right
then a million critics when capitalism reassures Weezy what he should write
even if its Wrong
A million different colors concentrated into one song
one soundtrack of a life
Close the case
compress the face
Into a zip filing cabinet
we don’t hear the audio until it hits the radio
or the family sits across from the quarterback behind glass
clutching receivers
like its 2 minutes left
As the guard screams 2 minutes left
and the song has barely started
Funny how we don’t see the system similarities
How close “Give me liberty or give me death”
Sounds to “Get rich or Die trying”
When lady Liberty has always been a laundered shade of green
On on this plantation where
Freedom really means you can pay to do as much dirt
as you can stick to the blood on your hands
They forget this was never our movie…
We just wrote the soundtrack
A people with stolen Language
Lost in Trans Atlantic translation
like a piece of Santa Maria driftwood
We Learned well though
That dollars make sense
and cents well
They make you smell a little too much like you’re burning
From Welfare or Wic
A candle with two ends
Death or Taxes
government hold the matches
40 hours or 30 lashes
fill their pockets or caskets
they treat us like animals
beings without conscience
like people without families or feelings
like these systems that tell us after stolen history
40 acres and a mule will suffice
Then you get it and they still don’t treat you right
We are men in a machine
I’d imagine it looks like a giant
cotton gin
with gears like 28 inch Tiananmen tank tires
and a furnace fueled by blood soaked cotton and Fubu t-shirts
and when its all said and done
They throw us away
like cheap labor
Talk about how we should’ve been
better fathers
better brothers
better husbands
When we learned this from you America
Studied your script
The same one Reagan read from
The same one Dov Charney is reading from
and so we wrap ourselves in dream like costumes
True American Apparel
Politician pilgrims hand us these presents like blankets
and don’t get the enigma colored star patterns
but hope the gifts
would silence the voices of thousands of lost souls
wrapped in the vacuum of a lunar eclipse skin
We Brothers be Moon Men
Looks just like the man I met at this night.
I meet Everett at the Bar
he is a 50 year old Man wearing over sized Jacket and undershirt
in 30 degree weather
He asks for the cheapest beer they have
Bartender replies Naty Bo
gimme one of them he says
and begins to look for his money in the two cvs bags
he has brought in with him
that seem to hold what’s left of his life
After polite introduction
He asks the 20 something brunette
if she is afraid of black people
The barkeeps pounce
Claiming he is asking “racist” questions
As if we don’t share a history of silence
as if the question isn’t one our fathers founded
The rest of the bar finds him annoying
I find him sitting satire
The joke no one gets
Tar baby Tosh.0
So amazing the way we claim space
For ourselves
Like the space is one we were destined to manifest
He is too loud now
Talking to this lady on the phone
dismissively calls her bitch
The way white men do with their wallets
yet this is no cause for alarm
not the reason he is out of place
There are no cat like reflexes
no outbursts or barroom brawls
This bar is too small
A row of gas masks line the walls
They are small the kind children might wear
Almost encouragement
For lovers in the night
To think of post apocalyptic potential
pre natal porter
empty vessel bodies
bottle the baggage we will birth
have a round on we
Start tab
charge it to the shame
The energy is off
The music starts
She makes the drink in front of me
And keeps an eye on Everett
Her eyes scream creep every time he speaks a word to anyone that isn’t me
I can hear her father telling her “baby there are some people you just can’t help”
I,
the only black man in the bar besides the drummer and Everett
At this point realize
With my income and 20 more years
I could be him
A walking library in a room full of blind people
That has not yet translated itself into Braille
feeling for what they know is there
but don’t have the language to acknowledge
His slurs and forward questions
Are the only ways he know to be social
It’s is culture
It is diverted eyes and
a life that doesn’t small talk often
He uses his last four dollars to buy a shot
barkeep is suspect of his request
He sees me friend
A face that won’t dismiss him
Won’t call him creep in its expression
Fact is
I see him
Uncle, Cousin, Brother , Dad
For some boy who looks a lot like me
And here he is
A mosaic of labels and brown glass shards
And it is all I can do to write
In this noisy bar
Photo By: child_stainless DeviantArt.com
Learn to vomit quiet
This night is not so graceful
It is hardwood littered with left feet
And bruised toes
A motorco moonwalk to soon to save face
Wish this night I could wear different face
Marijuana mask
Covers the scars well
The ones I can’t always hide
in conversation
with these singed vocal chords
from burnt choir robe offerings to a jealous god
I just want to not feel
Not care
Not hold this
It is not mine
Yet it is
Wish my partners understood relationships are no different than friendships
Such a persuasive paradigm
we live in
this world is not enough
Yet tonight I am losing
Breath and speed
She lies next to me
The night
residue on an erased right answer
I am here restless and wanting
I, the elephant in an empty room
This night is no fun
Spent mostly schmoozing with potential friends, lovers, friends of lovers past
This followed by a lack physical contact
Feels like punishment
Friends are not supposed to do this to each other
At least not so soon
Theres so much more to know
Before we stop assuming good intentions
Seems like God didn’t see fit to give a black man nothing but Dreams*
And I’ve lost a lot of sleep to then
Slept through Childhoods because of them
Soon as you catch
Seems you fall right back behind
Got half a mind to give in
Half of me is fed up
Don’t wanna try no more
Feel like I been working my whole life
Destined to die working for someone
who’s mad their tax dollars
Are going to keep my children clothed
Fed, Educated
Said they shouldn’t have to pay for us to be healthy
Say we ain’t giving enough to the machine
Funny, I have always felt wrung out by the gears
Pressed permanent
Wear this blue collar like a scarlet A
Glad I wasn’t born a woman
Or Immigrant
Or not speaking the Native language
Just Black
They taught me it was the absence of color
Found out it was the opposite
In a country that treated me opposite that definition
I want so many things
Things it don’t seem unreasonable for a young man to want
Things adults taught me with the golden rule
Now seem unreasonable
Unless I sell myself to the highest bidder
“That’s just how it is,” they say
“Work harder,” they say
Head down
Back to your regularly scheduled programming
Put on the chains and repeat the phrase
Our bodies be tourniquets for this broken system
This nights filled with shots and slings
Still asking you what I can do for my country
that doesn’t feel like a slow death
A secret kept in a wicker chest
This country breathes inside of me
While I apply pressure and heat
Keep the swelling down
Go to work and smile
Clock in and check out
Whatever makes you happy has a price tag
Even the wife and kids
Don’t we look like a happy family
No tears for the camera
Only bright smiles and plastic smiles
Pose like porcelain
Like you are valuable because the flag said so
Red
White &
Blue
Money
Power
Respect
Drink More
Eat Less
Unless it’s Corn or Chicken
And my Heels are clicking
In pair of shoes made by people they call Yellow
Trying to envision a place called home on stolen land
Missing the people they call Red
Illegal as the people we call Brown
Like our skin is not the same
all when put next to white
Seem a little less pure
Is it no surprise they call me black
Something to be feared
Like the night
Prone to violence and fights
Bob
Weave
Quick Left
Fake Right
I pause with patient for sight
Remember the past in presence
Remember I am but clay when I hear the rumble of rockslide
When the hills roll like pills
Roll like rock and hard places
Stop like old faces
Faded photographs
Remember I am speaking
Polaroids
Remember I am humam
Remember I am Breathing
Remember I am held
Remember to take them “no’s” like vitamins
Remember all the black gold
in a prison pipeline
Remember that I am more than statistics
Remember to take these dreams
and spin a better reality
Poem was inspired by a quote from A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry
Quote by Khalil Gibran Poem by CJ Suitt.
