Annotations for Structure: Poetry Reading

New Year's and play Nina Simone in the bedroom while we twirl like conductors batons and point to where the notes should have been.

We sometimes cry in corners and curse the air for its lack of affection.

Our womb pleads for us to take notice while we crush the past underneath our heels and condemn ourselves to the fire next time.

We sometimes punctuate the earth with our beauty.

And challenge the galaxy with our smiles we sometimes transform.

Because evolution is in us all.

And to prove Satan a liar.

And

we sometimes take life by the hand and peel her like an orange.

Slowly, slowly.

Come from behind the protection of the white sheets you've worn, the piles of the ashes of the crosses you've burned, the

stinking rotting corpses of the niggers you've lynched, and face your damnation.

Pretend that my problems don't exist, that I'm just bitching for no reason in particular.

That I'm full of shit, and you will face damnation.

Continue to show an abundance of my negative side, without giving equal weight to my positive.

To show me as a menace to society, but find no faults in the society I menace.

To arrest me for committing a blue collar crime, but acquit yourself of white collar crimes.

And you will suffer damnation.

Ask, why am I not happy being a lower case letter in your capitalistic system?

Why am I not satisfied with the rats and roaches that come with low income housing?

Why am I not filled from head to toe with hot dog and apple pie chanting USA every four years patriotism?

And I will say, because I didn't ask to come to this damn nation.

Yesterday, a black cop, while crossing the street, was hit and killed by two black nuns on a mountain bike.

The cop dude didn't have a chance to pull his trigger, call for backup, down that day old donut, or polish his plastic badge.

You see, the cop wasn't paying attention.

He crossed in between, not at the green, saw nothing at all of oncoming traffic, didn't even look before stepping off the curb.

Besides, the nuns had right of way anyway.

And no, no funeral was given, no investigation was done.

All that remained were the skid marks of the Roman Catholic nigger nuns.

Subterranean night colored magi, three moods in the mode of Miles.

Subterranean means underground.

Deep, profound, and Miles was one deep brother.

Miles deep like a shaft, descending to the mother load, blowing undersongs.

Miles on tenor trumpet, tenor eleven levels deeper than the next cat.

Painting all up under the canvas, making it blue bleed out the other side.

Blowing solo, only we hear his bedrock blues.

Underground cultural resistance.

A virtual virtuoso battling musical mafiosos burrowing under their skin.

Miles, the son of a dentist doing root work with a hoodoo horn hollering bebop toast like he was Petey

Wheatstraw, Satchmo's son in law, or Stagger Lee stabbing mediocrity with a sharpened fifth, or a signifying

junkie jumping cold turkey out the lion's mouth, or shine below the deck of the Titanic, bluing up the boilers.

You see, Miles could blue like bird and freight like train, early like bird and night like train, wing like bird and rail like train, tunneling underground.

A night color is blacker than a thousand asphalts and Miles was one deep black brother.

Black and mysterious as smoke.

Black as the sky, round midnight, round midnight.

Black as the pot that stewed a bitch's brood.

Black and turning like a tire, treadmarking musical notation on the asphalt of life.

Miles was slick as black ice, cool as black snow, sweet as black cherries, hitting harder A black Jack Hammer, black Jack Johnson, or a black Jack Daniels.

See, Miles was a Jack of spades, but an ace at his trade, blowing night colors.

Like deep black, triple black, shiny black, cinder black, ashy black, quarter black, mega black, multi black, all shades of Miles.

Shifting harmonic gears in his chromatic Ferrari.

Blowing with his black turn to the audience.

Speaking coolly Magi are priests, wailing wizards, soloing sorcerers.

And Miles was one deep black magic brother.

Miles, conjuring in the key of we.

Magi, Magi, that's the confused ones.

Miles is singular, they say.

But Miles, we know you plural, you y'all.

You be bop miles, hard bop miles, cool miles, fusion miles.

Lord, Lord, Lord, you reverend miles, tonally testifying from the book of the blues.

Blowing muted magic like chapter and verse, making a joyful noise unto the Lord.

And anybody else hip enough to dig the scene?

Magi Miles with crazy styles, even sported a tutu.

Miles, 1.

6 kilometers of cool.

Miles, 5, 280 dancing feet.

Miles, too much distance for their musical rulers, pouring decades of music like vintage wine.

Miles, wily, never smiley, too quick to hit and took no shit.

Nobody's fool, sleek, satin, cool, anciently new, kind of blue.

Our subterranean, night colored magic.

On this dark of bottomless night, She returns, touching, quiet, making us Silhouette swimmers in an ocean of sheets.

What I have missed is my hand gracing tender up the arc of her back and her whispering music before the tune escapes my lips.

What I have wanted is her so nuclear with wanting that she melts sun and paints the sky plum purple with passion.

And the stroke is so good that I jump crazy at the sudden of my alarm as it screams reality across the mess of a lonely room.

I peep the digital demon whose red eyes wail six o'clock.

And now I know why I hate mornings.

They always leave me holding pillows like lovers.

Ambrosia.

Hush.

Somebody's calling your name.

The first buzz you hear, tiny as a raindrop, is the Scout.

She travels miles on sturdy wings, thin as mica.

Miles through ozone drenched currents.

Miles past housing projects.

Miles.

Miles past bald headed little boys, pot bellied little girls, and weary grandmothers.

Finally, a field, wild flowers, clover, she tongues the purple sweetness, baptizes herself, returns to her kin, miles and miles away.

Children, go where I send thee.

We swarm, nestle ourselves in the bosom of mountains.

Our hymns, a chorus, reverberating, breaking sound barriers.

She said what you did wasn't of any substance.

I said, damn, you're right.

Because I had read back to it and it wasn't of any substance.

She said it didn't address any issues in the community.

I said, damn, you're right.

I said, uh, got to do a little bit more writing.

And there were some important issues in the community and important issues where I was at.

And I was going to church at the time.

So I thought I'd write a little bit about the church, and uh, I wanted to say, there's one important question when you go to church that you need to ask.

That is, ask, who gave the money?

Ask, where does the money go?

Now, sisters, ask the preacher.

To read with you from the book of Mark.

Now ask if the Bible is opened when he opens the finance books.

Ask if the message in one book can answer the message in the other.

Ask him to turn to chapter 12, verse 38 through 44.

Ask him to preach from that passage.

Ask them to preach it's meaning.

Now ask,

why are there no women trustees?

Ask, why no sisters sit on the deacon board?

Ask, why brothers ask sisters not to ask?

Where does the money go?

Then, counter him.

ount to him the number of sisters in the church.

Count to him the sisters who serve on the usher board, who sing in the choir, and tell him not to forget those who teach in the Sunday schools.

Yeah.

Count to him the small number of men in the church.

Count to him the number of times you've heard that only brothers can count the money.

They have to count the money early in the afternoon.

Because baseball, basketball, football, boxing.

I said boxing.

They create conflicts.

And they just can't stay late.

Except,

oh yeah, except.

Except if there's a special service.

Like that time the champ was called.

Yeah, it was that special Sunday.

The champ, Iron Mike Tyson was called to walk down the aisle.

And he gave an exceptional donation.

All the brothers were there.

Preacher was there.

You should have been there

to ask.

Ask him to open that book again.

Yeah, ask him to read that message again.

Ask him to read the part about when the collection was taken.

Ask him to read the part about when that multi multi millionaire gave that multi multi money.

And that little itty bitty woman.

Oh, she gave a little itty bitty bit.

Read your Bible now.

Ask who the Bible said gave the most.

Now, then ask.

Ask if the church's Sunday school teacher says that she's been raped.

Raped by that same sports hero,

Iron Mike Tyson.

That same Seventh Commandment breaking sports hero.

Ask, who will the church believe?

Ask, if his book is still open.

Finance book

or Bible book.

Ask, who gave the money?

Ask, where does that money go?

The black woman's struggle.

Her head swings low like Sweet's chariot, but she ain't coming forth to carry you home.

She and her sister, carrying too much as it is.

Hello, my name is Toni Blackman.

I want to give a shout out to E.

Ethelbert Miller.

One of the reasons that I've been writing for so long.

Irving G.

Russell.

He's a very helpful brother.

I write a lot of four poems that have maybe seven words in them at the most.

So, um, I think today that's what I feel like reading.

And this one is called Accident at the Church.

The steeple toppled into the parking lot, causing the parishioners to scream, to actually care about one another.

Spell number three.

I tried to write a poem about your eyes, but you kept staring at me.

Intercourse.

Last night I made love to myself for the very first time.

There was absolutely nothing painful about it.

Every Sunday.

Miss Lucy in that old tired red velvet hat struts the avenue as if it were the night.

And my final piece is written for my brothers who chant the pussy song.

Obsessed with vaginal chants of regions of acts of nonsense.

Not moving us forward, stagnant we remain.

Clutching to those concepts with which they have brainwashed us, with which they have controlled us.

Sex can be hypnotic if you allow it to be.

Sex can be an escape if you allow it to be.

The only true escape from reality is death.

And we are allowing it to happen one by one by one by one.

We are an endangered species.

Sex is not for our people, no.

We cannot allow it to happen.

For we, we must make love.

What?

You don't really want to battle.

Are you buggin Comin at me with some old muley mouth bullshit about why can't the brothers and sisters get along.

Fuck that, fake punk.

You know you only kickin that shit so you can have sex with a pseudo revolutionary, nappy headed, falsetto intellectual who is jockin you because you have a nose ring.

A nose ring.

And you surely ain't no bull like I am.

Preachin about respect.

You don't respect what I stand for.

Always talking about represent, hmm, what the fuck do you represent?

Bourgeois black trust fund baby trying to be real, phony punk, what?

I know you ain't saying nothing.

Doing this rhythm and poetry to rebel against your parents.

I don't have parents.

My mother dropped me off when I was 12.

I was old.

I have suppositions.

And you want to battle me?

Bitch ass nigga, step!

I ain't got nothin to live for, and nothin to lose.

So what, nigga?

Step.

Yeah, that's what I thought.

What's happenin

Much props to my daughter, Nandi, the creator.

Poet from D.

C., 8 Rock.

It's your mug.

Stage Black.

My favorite piece of a journal slash book that I'm editing called The Flow.

New black poetry in motion.

Manpower.

Appetizer.

Strawberries.

Orange slices.

Pineapples.

Grapes.

Apples.

So I ask her, What about the watermelon?

She reads me like a page out of the Afro listic Guide to Nutrition.

You never mix citrus fruits with melons.

Start with the scratch, and there will be no itch.

We must return to the old ways, to the old way.

Abandon that which is new and confusing.

Just because it's modern, don't make it real.

It just become temporary, like my job.

Paid 5 G's a week to smile at corporate fearing would be Tarzans with jungled bellies who make 5 G's a day to smile

at corporate wannabes who waste no time making well thought of jokes about OJ.

Obey your thirst, drink Sprite.

Obey your drink, thirst Sprite.

Drink your Sprite, obey thirst.

Thirst your drink, obey Sprite.

Obey Sprite, obey Sprite.

The blacker the smile, the sweeter the pension.

The slower the walk, the faster the lynching.

We remember Roots, the latest version.

Written, directed, produced, conceived, created, marketed, and starring.

Introduction, I don't recall.

Part one, the untouchable, airborne nigger.

Part two, the innocent, crotch grabbing, more than black nigger.

And the saga continues with part three.

The most recent unstoppable airport nigger.

Caution, niggers.

Mixing citrus fruits with melons is hazardous to you and your health.

Lately, everything has become sexual.

The way you walk, the way we talk, and even my job has become sexual.

Want to stick my disc in the drive and load my software.

Error.

Unable to read the disc.

The program worked last week.

So I checked my hardware and discovered that the problem is my memory.

I discovered that the problem is my memory.

Was it French or Italian?

The tomatoes and olives should be seasoned with feta cheese.

Break the lettuce into half inch pieces and then add the croutons and the radishes.

Mix everything in one bowl and chill.

We walked the slow walk, the walk of zombies and snow.

We don't owe nobody, don't own nobody, and don't know nobody who listens to Garth Brooks.

Khaled Mohamed maybe, but not Garth Brooks.

Leonard Jeffries maybe, but not Garth Brooks.

Maulana Karenga maybe, but not Garth Brooks.

Professor Egypt himself, but not Garth Brooks.

How you gonna practice an ancient philosophy in 1994 and expect it to work for you when it didn't work for them in four?

Silly rabbits, Afrocentrics are for kids.

Grownups walk in the sun, avoid snow at all costs, and attend narrow nationalist pre Afro historic lectures as much as they listen to Garth Brooks.

The phone rings.

It's 6.

30.

It's not her.

Fresh green peppers, diced onions, marinated in tamari overnight.

Mushrooms sautéed in olive oil for three minutes.

Fresh green peppers, diced onions, marinated in tamari overnight.

Mushrooms sautéed in olive oil for three minutes.

Fresh green peppers, diced onions, marinated in tamari overnight, mushrooms sautéed in olive oil for three minutes.

I removed a package of Japanese stir fried vegetables from their freezer, where they had been sitting overnight.

Enter mock duck.

Not real duck, fake duck.

Fake deal.

Real late.

She's supposed to be here.

I'm supposed to be finished.

Supposing it's 8 o'clock and she still ain't here.

Supposing the game is on in one hour.

Supposing she comes at 8.

45 and expects to eat.

Supposing she don't call.

She don't.

Supposing I sit down to eat by myself.

Supposing I finish eating and sit down to watch the game.

Supposing I find that the game has been preempted by another game.

I thought he retired.

Maybe him just tired.

Replenish the body, black people.

Feed the mind, African people.

Reawaken the soul, Sun people.

Chocula for the children.

Food for the dissatisfied buppies.

Chocula for the CBC.

Food for the NAACP.

BET.

BDP.

BBD.

You and me.

Everything that survives on this planet needs food.

Ask the questions, poets.

Answer the questions, scientists.

Probe the mind.

Teach the truth.

Grow the child.

Till the soil.

Plant the earth.

Work the body.

Study the mind.

Watch the people.

Love the people.

Cross the desert of your black mind.

Cross the desert of your mind.

Sprinkle water on black brain cells.

Sprinkle water on your brain cells.

Reward your desert with spring water.

Return to the way of the flow of the water of our people.

Beware.

The wrong river will take you to distant places like wacko Texas, and South Carolina highways, and 7 by 9 foot cells, and separated marriages,

and lonely nights, and tapped phones, and repossessed cars, and ripped condoms, and overdue flowers, and 9

to 5s, and renovated plantations, and late retirements, and multiple organ failures, and late dates, and late dates.

And late dates.

Glancing on the kitchen table, I see my paste up, wondering, when will I get tired of this job?

The three month itch is almost up.

When will I retire, or better yet, when will they tire of me?

I mix the citrus fruits with the melons, the nicks with the rockets, and escape to my TV room where I eat

three months of insecurity, pain, laughter, and joy in three minutes.

I stood up, contemplate whether leaving the juice would make me any less Afro neolistic.

Suddenly, the phone rings at 10.

30.

I answer.

The voice asks, How are you?

It's her.

She who doesn't see the wine, and the glasses, and the vegetables, and the duck, and the juice, and the juice, and my tears.

Didn't I tell you I had to get my hair done today?

Hair today, gone tomorrow.

She asks, What's on my mind?

I hesitate, wondering whether I should tell her that I mix the citrus fruits with the melons.

Instead, I choose to calm her unnecessary guilt ridden simplicity with the fruitful culmination of my evening long introspection.

Everybody's conscious, but when we gonna eat?

Peace.

overpass Cuts tic tac toe into ashy skin The tall one, Shaneen, choosing just the right moment to talk.

Her talk angles her tongue like a spoon.

Tissa kissed Raheem, put her tongue full in his mouth.

Thick black braids and running shoes, swoop like birds of prey circling up to dive again.

Tongues circle and dive, ululating iron like cistern at a whaling wall.

Darkness shivering to the high pitched ring of steel.

So how you know?

Winged flesh hunts out innocence.

Sucking gaps in back of full grown teeth.

Eyes roll sticks of juicy fruit.

Now or later, lips smack and pop.

Comparing him to red popsicles, Kiss to cool a high noon heat, A girl's own sweat, Glistening on upper lip, Tongue darting in, tongue darting out,

Measuring meter and testing rhyme, The thwap of ropes, Against the pavement, the pavement, the flap of rope against black ground cowie tongues curled.

Just so are a third eye, a sensor, dividing every black girl's destiny.

Telling each one when to trust the angle of the turning rope.

Telling each one exactly when to jump.

And my second poem, I'd like to, um, dedicate it to friend of mine whose birthday is coming up soon in almost.

Almost a year ago, when we first met, this is the poem I read to him over the phone.

A Woman's Rights.

Aching goods deciphering ocean Bear half moons to battle with the dawn Black

palms rocking oceans Talking

They shed her beads each autumn, Scraped clean this August, Rusted long, aching ghoul, Discipling Oshun.

She cups their breasts to Olokun, Taught tributes flowing, Fee his fond.

Black palms, rocking oceans,

talking drums.

Seven women rattle old, oh, goo, Breathing coals to baptize this pong.

Aching goods decipher ring, oh, shoo.

She denies the blood red urge to run.

Sister warriors, we're Burnt, burnt, knives drawn, black palms, rocking ocean,

rocking ocean, rocking ocean,

drum.

She lights their pyre, ha, to mock the sun, raffia skirts, praise Oya.

Thunder, yawn, aching goods, deciphering ocean.

Ah, black palms, rocking oceans, into drum, drum.

Thank you.

I fell into a friend last night, mourning the loss of you.

His laughter and fraternally engraved body led to Swiss mocha bedsheets and pages of journals and notebooks, papers crinkling under our decision, scratching the flesh.

My breath awakened the red hiding in your thirsty rose sitting in my windowsill as we drifted to the window.

Faced to cold glass, I clawed for warmth and passion, but unearthed a nakedness that runs deeper than the flesh, the truth.

You raped me,

and I coped.

Buried, hid, and rationalized.

Vindicating the blue pureness of you.

Why?

Behind tear stained glass, I stand before hallucinating stars and blindfolded trees.

The muteness of nature has acquitted and convicted me.

And, uh, this is the last part.

It's called Satin Blues.

Um, it, it, I can't explain it, it's, I just can't explain it.

Um, I wrote it from the standpoint of a tree.

Any other way I couldn't have gotten it out.

His skin felt good against my branches.

A blue satin ribbon that danced around my trunk and played hide and seek through my leaves.

He gave me joy.

For years he played with me, around me, under me, in me.

Until the day I saw his eyes.

Blue eyes.

Satin blue.

Poisonous satin.

Hypnotic blue shroud cracked revealing satin tentacles that overpowered my branches, leaves forming mock barriers.

Disgraced.

My fruit is violated.

Rooted here in his moment, waning each time the wind sojoins through my decaying trunk.

A leaf collapses, asking, Does stolen fruit still taste as sweet?

Thank you.

It pains me to know all the troubles I've been through.

I've turned to alcohol, to sex, and even to death, before I turned to you, my first love.

Sometimes I feel ashamed having gone against your wishes, time after time after time.

All the things you've given me, all the gifts you've given me, excuse me, I had taken for granted.

But still, you continue to care for me, my first love.

Once I had a terrible experience.

I feared you did not love me anymore.

For months and months I pondered the thought of living without you.

Oh, how terrible was that thought.

For you are the very essence of my life.

You are the reason I can wake up smiling.

My ever so near, ever so dear, first love.

You've always cared for me when I didn't care for myself.

You've always looked out for me when I didn't look out for myself.

And you've always loved me when I didn't love myself.

My first and only love.

I'm sorry for all the pain I caused you.

I have no excuse.

But on this day, this very moment, I have this promise for you.

That I will never leave, nor stop loving you.

My thoughts shall be our thoughts.

My words shall be our words.

And my actions shall be our actions.

For you were, and are, and always will be.

My parent, my friend, my guidance, my strength, and my redeemer.

But above all, my first love.

I hear your screams, I hear your cries.

Yes, I do.

Baby, just be still, let him do what he gotta do.

Before he beats me, or you.

I'm sorry, yes I am.

I love you, I really do.

But what is there that I can do?

He don't want me, he wants you.

And there's simply nothing I can do.

I know he's your daddy and you're a little young.

But it won't happen for long, he'll find another kind of fun.

Baby, I love you.

I really do, but there's really nothing that I can do.

But, I really love you.

Ah, don't lie to me.

The me I used to be.

Dream of being the me I'd be.

Dream the dream I thought would never be.

Dream the

dream so far from me.

A sunshine, a halo, a orange, pink, and blue.

Dreaming dreams of being, to be.

So for me, I used to be.

So the dreams and fears are not for me.

For me, I used to be.

So for me, I be and need to be.

Dreams of being, let me I be.

Dreams of dreams, my father's dreams.

I love it.

This darkness doesn't scare me.

No darkness can after Quang Tri Province, that sticky, heavy night, when there was no moon, when I had no eyes, when

I had no hands, when everything was pitch, and the smell of death was strong.

No one died that night, but our fear had us in body bags, on choppers, in coffins, in the ground, back home.

There was jasmine in the air.

No one smelled it.

I have stories I can tell myself to mark the hours.

I will know when it is morning when it is light.

Even if there are no sounds outside this darkness, I will know.

I will feel the surge of waking restless bodies through the walls.

I will feel them as they work.

The weights work, the tears work themselves.

I will know, and I will feel them struggling through the night, calling out, calling.

I have learned from sitting with men in the dark, with the young hopeful farmers in Bluefields, the

old patient ones in Four Corners, the nervous marketeers in Manila.

I have learned how to rein myself in.

I have learned how to watch.

Circumspectly, I have learned how to let what is going to happen come.

This darkness doesn't scare me.

No darkness can after Quang Tri Province.

That cool, crystal night when the moon sat plump and regal on a throne of clouds.

When sparks crackled along the surface of my skin.

When everything was desire, keen edged and elastic.

We all died that night and woke reformed.

There was jasmine in the air.

We lifted our heads to catch the fragrance, our eyes shut to better find the scent.

And we let it take us to our memories, winsome, fragile memories of love and coupling.

I could see my small, thin, gap toothed girl letting my unskilled lips and tongue taste her smooth skin.

Seeing her then.

I reached for her, my handheld invisible fruit.

Yes, I have stories I can tell myself to mark the hours.

I will feel the falsetto songs of the morning.

I will feel men turning from sleep and reaching.

I will feel the repetition of prayers, the flood of invectives, the proclamations of survival.

I will know when it is morning and I will be fine.

I will feel men touching their tattooed places.

And I will feel them rub the history they have pushed into their skin.

I have learned from sitting with men in the dark.

The frightened.

Resigned.

Betrayed.

And ecstatic.

I have learned how to set myself flying.

I have learned how to swim and to become water.

I have learned how to billow.

No darkness can scare me.

Not after Quang Tri Province.

Because I have learned to incandesce.