Poems

POEMS FROM SONGS IN BLUE NEGRITUDE

My Grandfather, the Poet
(For Mr. Leeal Hall)

My Grandfather, known as Brother,

could tell tales that grew fast and tall

like hay in the summer. His eyes flickering

like lightning bugs as he looked upside your head,

soliciting a response.

This man, cooler than Alaskan snow,

had a way of making words shine

like new money outstretched on red clay,

as he shuffled and swapped words

like a card dealer; reading your face and body.

This word-swapper, my Grandfather,

enjoyed a life as unpredictable as a game of dominoes;

as reflective and candid as the blues.

A life of unforgettable bends and turns

like the roads and highways he traveled in search of

memories--fine as split silk.

Good as cake and ice cream.

i want patti la belle to sweat her make-up

as she stands over a pot of neck bones

funk kissing her between the eyes

squinting and gyrating

marinating and moaning

over a soul food plate

flanked by her sugary yams

stacked perfectly just for me

a dragging in tx

i could see all of the tension

in his body

and in the chain

the tightness and stiffness in his jaw

the wild glare in his eyes

the mosquitoes circling his dusty-musty black body

sun-dried and reeking of cheap tobacco juice

compliments of dirty southern men

in pure white sheets

who delight in taking the side roads

the beaten paths

too often traveled

in the weeping darkness

that can’t mediate

between the voiceless victims

and the gutless human creatures that ravage

human beings for sport

in killing fields

where nightmares are nurtured and harvested

perpetuated and pre-meditated

hushed and silenced

as they envelope and engulf black bodies

strong and well-designed

like the eye-catching               body-dragging chains

hooked up to fords and chevys

that pull grown men

and     dismember          dismantle            decapitate

husbands         fathers                brothers               sons    men

like rag dolls devoured by pit bulls

who       contort           jerk      break necks            snap bones

and split open down the seams

as passionate red and white entrails

mop the pay dirt in

the good old  u  s of  a

POEMS FROM ZURI: Selected Love Songs

india arie’s skirt

whisking brazilian sand

in broom-stroked fervor

is oven-warmed peach cobbler

with extra sweet crust

heart claps

jump-roping double time

good-smelling soap

at the end of a dirty day

brown-skinned giftedness

high-jumping boundaries

over catfish and caribbean rice

in a smoker’s rasp she intoned:

otis redding sounds like a male version of billie holiday and pasty cline

no matter how hard the day he helps me get through life with his young old soul

i rested my fork and listened as she spoke about soul and jazz with verve

amid my assembling her thoughts and deconstructing her lifestyle

otis reminded her of bo diddley—a genius that looked fifty-six at eighteen

she grew up singing his songs

she flashed him when his tour bus passed her on a stretch of memphis road

i dipped my catfish in a plastic container of tarter sauce

while she dissected groups and songs as the jukebox played in the restaurant

which was once a store that played dyke and the blazers and other groups she liked

i folded my napkin as she sucked the marrow from a rib and licked her fingers

squinting as she told me jazz is like algebra:

it is pretty but complicated

she prefers blues because that is what she knows like the tattooed flames on her heels

and the neighborhood where she lives the best way she knows how

day to day