from my old morethanmud.blogspot.com page….
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2010 (edited feb 12 2013 at 2:damn-early a.m.)
this pathos-by-proxy still twitches
at the mere mention of paterollers
storming the gate / neanderthals with
knuckles dragging - swarming the stanza;
dupes in white robes, haute-couture dunces
capped in trivial pursuits; they’ve come for
the gardenias, the organza. and the penumbra
spills over every edge, haunted / daunted
by a post-slavery stress disorder that’s anything
but paint-by-the-numbers. voices told me
to buckle up; that work was to be done.
but who knew i’d be the one
to grow up mapping the spinal cortex
of yoruba-oblongata / talking the dead down
from the ledges of ivory towers, stalking
spirit-guides on chalkboards, and in chatrooms,
and in chapbooks always in a state of rough-draft
that outlines the underlaying pedagogy
of a sun-people who’ve been told for years
that melanin undermines
their accomplishments,
their merit,
their every seat
at the table.
money changed hands.
the bets placed on the crowd-pleasers
and social networking favorites. but who thought
it would come down to this: - me - taking
the witness stand as public defender
for africa’s stolen property; one
of 200 million
“exhibit a’s”.
(recess)
the story goes i was born
the son of an egun-runner and fell
shadow-first from several wombs all at once;
was assembled on a single line / stitched into sorcery
by the gnarled hands of an unseen seamstress,
but i digress.
this poem is my mess-of-pieces
and in haste i assumed you already knew
the elemental weight of sankofa. the dna of most
nursery rhymes are made of angst and atoms,
but mine are composed of some poro mask’s whittled
remains, of the wolof wail of tears, of robert johnson’s
cigarette ash, of blood spray from whip’s lash,
was told by high school guidance counselors to be
“a gash man” but i write trash/rehash/a whole rash
of broken teeth / tonsils / rhythms / wisdom,
etc.
anyway,
the banana in the pocket
of this poem is a poltergeist.
but i’m not a ghostbuster
whispering the echos
of the dead…
i’m the doorman for the dearly dormant.
it’s a tough trade. not as in demand
as you would think…
(court is back in session)
i was born
to translate tarbaby’s morse code
into a canonical course (jes grew 101), my dissertation
was on head-lump reading. baron saturday was
my first instructor, paid me to re-edit the wiki-page
for the pot-liquor sciences. he taught me to be
everywhere you want to be. that’s why i’m known
as prometheus backwash on facebook and, by luck
of the drawl, i’m jujuchagalia on twitter…
i’ve been told that “upfromsumdirt” is kiswahili
for “switchblade renaissance” (or “this meat done turned”)
and my hand writing looks like basquiat’s long lost rorschach,
my john-hancock the sonogram for incomplete cultures
in red, white, and blue…
woo-shit! - you should just see my cat-scan!
no lie, my medulla is a fun-house mirror.
i see saint octavia’s image on toast and tree-bark
or when connecting the moles on the back of my lover’s
neck. i was hit by a marching band as a baby and
that’s why i see everything so clearly.
just didnt know i’d be the one to grow up re-inventing
a wonderland, where kentucky replaces Ile-Ife as
uncle tom’s backdrop where cabins are shingled in bluegrass,
bourbon glasses, and the soul’s weight in cowry shells…
does anyone know the trajectory for a black poet
profiling himself? then again, it’s not like i was born
for recognition, my mug adorning the t-shirts of drunken
frat boys and feministas on the college courtyards across
the land. in me is not the tradition for upholding
a metered dialog; i was born an act of reclamation
so what need i for “social progress” if the thought-process
is afraid of flames?
you:
continue taming your lions and chasing
gazelles; i was fed the breastmilk of hyenas born
in a cage - don’t mind my jagged teeth and breath
every bit rancid, the brochure says the rabies
will only kill you
if left untreated.
(the plea)
it’s my nature to alert you to aneurysm;
when i curl up at your feet it means
a conniption is coming.
i’m only trying to save your life:
your lover’s husband has a knife,
the midwife is on birth-strike, little timmy
is stuck in the whale….
my words:
the harpoon you need / the playbill
for a pitiful revolution.