10 Things I Would Like To Say To A Black Man
Copyright: © 2009
1.
Happy father's day
2.
You would have thought the million man March would've sparked so sort of revolution,
offered some resolution for us to stop shooting one another in the streets,
loosen our addictions to cotton cocaine whips and chains,
but strange how soldier only march in garrison and we've been at war for centuries.
so the next time you decide to show up in D.C.
be prepared for battle
I'm quite sure they were.
3.
you can't blame Justin Timberlake for what happened at the Super Bowl.
He only did what he saw us do for so long;
strip our women down to their souls
and leave them exposed
for the world to see them face the consequences alone.
And it's not like any of us showed up to defend Janet's honor.
Because that's something you do for a wife,
not a baby momma.
4.
I'm beginning to think that genocide
Is just embedded in our culture,
like hot sauce on fired chicken, and spitting sunflower seeds .
Like fathers that leave.
Like crips killin’ bloods
Like Jesse Jackson draggin' Obama's character through the mud.
Like the give and take handshake
Melting hopes on metal spoons, biceps wrapped with rubber tubes
Dreams consumed by thin syringe
A pinch through skin into vein.
And lives crumbling like cookies between the teeth of toddlers.
Our forefathers must be rolling over in their graves
Watching house niggaz and field slaves
Murder each other over the length and links of their chains.
5.
You have far more to offer the world
Then bastard sons, bloodbaths, and drunken accounts of misfortune on the evening news.
Through your veins courses the blood of illustrious pharaohs, Nigerian kings, and Zulu warriors.
You are Douglass, Dunbar, Du bois,
Beck, Baldwin, Hughes, Carver, Washington, Turner, Jordan, Jackson,Powell, Malcolm, Martin, Marcus, Marshall, Mandela, Obama.
We have, are, and shall continue to overcome despite being history's rejected,
for we have not always been kings
but we will forever be majestic.
6.
your hands remind me of things that are waiting to be fixed.
Like the leaking eyes of our baby burdened mothers
the self esteem of our youth
and the singed hearts of dejected lovers
who've had playaz burn through emotions with broken promises
like kids burn through toilet paper rolls with matches.
And I can't cure them with elegant metaphors in attempts to romanticize the agony of their crushed spirits,
because my lyrics are not as potent as your presence.
Our women once clasped heaven in left hands
'cause your figure reminded them of what God looked like
Your dark skin a silhouette of His image,
your words lace inner ear like remnants of scripture,
your voice offering invitations to enter into rest,
because the heart in your chest has always felt like home.
7.
We are just as much African as they are European
So drop the prefix you never needed it.
For our back is the anvil upon which the sword of this nation's freedom was forged
Our pores drip with the sweat of Louisiana swamp water.
Our hearts beat with the tunes of steamboats cascading the Mississippi River.
Our babies are delivered from the womb of Georgia clay
We are just as much American today
As they were in 1776.
8.
It's almost embarrassing to note
That Tupac and Biggie are no longer with us
Because of a feud fueled by media hype
and yet Don Imus is still alive and well
Even after claiming he hired a co-host
Simply because he had good nigga jokes
after claiming that Serena and Venus Williams
would more likely be seen in National Geographic than Playboy,
and after calling the Rutgers girls basketball squad nappy headed hoes.
We have mowed down our own brothers in public with automatic gunfire for less
and yet no one has even stepped up
to so much as personally break this man's nose
9.
it won't always be like this
there will come a day
when we can hang our anger on the coat rack
beside our hats and umbrellas
step out of the rain and just relax.
I'm telling you
you are strong enough to make it
wise enough to hold on
too precious to be lost
in a hail of bullets
the shuffling of tombstones
or the slamming of cell bars
and far too powerful to exist under the hand of an oppressor
for we are living proof that even death is afraid of tbe dark
because we are too resilient to die without a fight.
10.
I love you
but I'm afraid
you won’t hear it said often enough
to believe me.
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Fishing For Justin
(a poem to my little brother)
Copyright: © 2009
They say, “You give a man a fish
You feed him for a night;
Teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime.”
And I would suppose this task was past to a big brother,
Someone to be my keeper
While my father was sinking deeper into the consequences of his sin.
Someone to demand the respect of a teacher
While offering the companionship of a friend
That older sibling who would run his fingers under my nose
In hopes the scent would give my imagination a sense
Of where he had been the previous night
The one who could keep me out of fights
With the revelation of his reputation
Like, “yo don’t mess with Tre cause that’s so-&-so’s li’l brother.”
Someone who could mend my heart with laughter after it was shattered
By a girl he would have warned me was no good
Someone who understood when no one else did
The only adult honest enough to tell a kid
There’s no such thing as a bad boy if nothing in this world is of any good.
That one person who would’ve let me know
That I was the brighter part of their reflection
So they kept me hidden away in their shadow
Because light has a funny way of exposing our ugly interior
And sometimes we just need the mirror to lie….
You see I understand why you are mad,
Because I never had a big brother.
So I learned the fragrance of feminine pheromones from my own fingertips
My own fist taught me that sometimes reputations need to be checked
Because no one is unbeatable
And a broken heart is a disease that’s only treatable with time.
I’ve cast line after line to catch meals for friends that never learned to fend for themselves
And hell, I’ve even starved some nights so that they could eat,
Like when Rap got caught with a Q.P. of weed in the back seat I took the heat
Because for a mother the only thing worse than seeing her baby tossed in a grave
Is seeing him locked in cage
And when Jordan got jumped by those four boys in the Chinese store
I got in it!
Because I know what it’s like to be defenseless
While someone accuses you of owing them something that was never their’s
You said I was never there!
I never shared a meal,
Like we bumped heads more than we broke bread
But I beg to differ.
I never gave you a freebie, but I gave to you me freely,
Put a rod in your hand, a worm on your hook,
And told you don’t pull until you’ve got something
Stop rushing, you’re not hunting, you’re fishing
So stop running after your prey,
You tossed the bait now wait for it to come to you,
Remember if you get something you don’t want
You can always toss it back, for someone else’s meal,
Never steal from another man’s bucket out of envy or greed
Because you don’t know how many mouths he has to feed
But most of all remember to be patient.
Because the fish don’t always bite like you want them to,
And you won’t always have a big brother to catch one for you,
So no maybe I never gave you a meal,
I gave you a means of survival.
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My Mother’s Eulogy
Copyright: © 2009
I've never been good at just making up stories.
That’s why most of my poems sound like a brick fist
Wrapped with brass knuckles slamming against the jawbone of humanity.
Like life is my straightjacket
And the world is my padded cell
Cause at nine months old you walked
Away with my sanity,
And I've finally come to grips with the fact that
I may never see your face again
So I've stopped chasin' your apparitions through dreams
attempting to tell you I graduated high school,
I got married,
You've got grandkids.
And I've never been good at just making up stories
But when they ask where you are,
(and Lord knows they will)
Or what you were like
I will tell them that you live behind their eyes,
That's why they shine bright like stars at night over the Mohave desert
I will tell them you had ears like satellite dishes;
Not because of their size,
But you were able to hear my cries from the farthest of distances.
I'll convince them that your smile looked like an open heaven
Using such meticulous detail ,
They will think God lived on your tongue.
I'll tell them your hugs were like security blankets;
Hard to live without their comfort.
They'll believe you smelt like sugar cookies fresh from the oven
And you were great at board games
Like checkers and chess but you were the best at hide and go seek,
'Cause I was never able to find you
I'll tell them your hair was the same flaming red as theirs
Like angels were dancing on your fore head,
And when you stood in the sun too long it looked like your scalp was on fire.
Call me a liar but my children
Will never know you left without just cause
Or just cause you could
But I can't and won't
Have them thinking of me in the way I thought of you,
Pouring pitchers of salt water tears into the shoulders of imaginary mothers
That lacked faces and often covered themselves with pillow cases.
Nor will they ever awaken in puddles of sweat with only neglect’s neck to hug
Asking fear if the nightmare is over
Or is mommy somewhere is the darkness
I will use love like a broom
To sweep the dust of those memories under carpets of illusions
Too heavy for the prying pupils of scrutinizing eyes to lift.
So when they ask where you are.
(and Lord knows they will)
I will tell them you died the day this poem was finished-
That your heart stop beating the second the ink dried on the page
Because I've never been good at just making up stories
And I don't know how to tell them
I've used pens to slice your throat too many times
With words I wrote,
So now you are a ghost haunting the hallways
Of college ruled five stars
I've buried in duff bags
That hold the genesis of my past
Like the caskets concealing the corpse of my grandparents.
So I will leave these words like roses on your tombstone
Let pen grace page like wind across your gravesite
Carrying whispered wishes I wish were kisses
Because my lips have never felt the press of your cheek
And I'm not sure if I didn't look hard enough
Or you are just the greatest person to ever play hide and go seek
But either way I'm done hoping
done waiting
done wanting
and done wishing you would come back or call
and say, " I can't tell you where I've been
because I've never been good at just making up stories,
but tell me….
tell me you graduated high school
tell me you got married,
and I know I wasn't much of a mother to you,
but please,
tell me about my grandkids."
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Roses
Copyright: © 2009
Payment lay next to lamp, by condom box, lighter,
and ashtray with lit cigarette next to pack
Fingertips rest gently on small of back,
others caress curves of waist
Her face? Turned to side, eyes off in the distance
listening to echoes from a stranger's lips
smack against her flesh, before
dieing deaths only souls in hell can relate to.
She is beautiful,
but withered roses growing through cracks of concrete on Crenshaw
know more of beauty's value with less to offer.
Her body?
pliant design to a thin frame flower;
a sexpot planted in a cesspool city.
Too bad, girls this pretty
never make America's top magazine models.
I guess life is too cruel to hand out silver spoons
to those not born with them in mouth.
So death offers gun barrel, and bullet
or muzzle pressed to chin
pushing brain through top or back of skull.
Ain't no free rides!
Even if beauty is a bus pass
because it expires like the lights
behind eyes that carry dreams never achieved.
And not for the sake of age
but for the way we treat our gifted.
Placing money in pockets
during secret meetings in backrooms
we taint the pure at heart
with cruel intentions and desires for fame
then blame them for their own misfortunes,
making this profession
her portion of that equation.
Laying there,
still,
on back,
legs in air,
not scared-
that feeling subsided years ago-
but she still cries,
cause roses
growing through cracks of concrete on Crenshaw
need to be watered.
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