Love.Speak.Easy. Read online

  This morning a group of people working for the government decided

  that all children who lived below the poverty line should not have to pay

  for breakfast or lunch at school

  Be we don’t give a _________________.

  No, man we the people don’t trust the government

  We the people…don’t trust the police

  We the people…we hate the police

  They don’t care nothing about us

  We the people…be steady mobbin’

  The headline read, “3 Young Black Men, Killed”

  No one saw or heard anything

  No one knew who did it

  Two weeks later another headline read, “5 More Young Black Men, Dead”

  We the people…take care of our own

  Don’t need nothing from ya’ll

  Don’t want nothing from ya’ll

  Them white folks don’t care nothing ‘bout us

  We be steady mobbin’

  We be steady mobbin’

  Tar graves for tar babies

  The concrete graves cry out

  See, we the people don’t go over there

  She ain’t making no money

  I can make more money than him without no degree

  We be steady mobbin’

  Tameka was 15 when her son was born and 18 when her daughter was born

  Tavon was 13 when his father was locked up and 19 when he was sent to the same cell block

  Big ballin’ is my hobby

  We the people…you don’t want to mess around with us

  You see Lil Will was 14 when he made his first sale and 20 when he made his first million

  You see Lil Will was 16 when he murdered someone

  Now that Lil Will ain’t little he still cares about the neighborHOOD

  He made sure that LaKeshia’s tuition was paid for

  We take care of our own

  We the people…be steady mobbin’

  We be celebrating drug dealers

  We be lovin’ our ball players

  We havin’ our babies

  We be droppin’ out of school

  We be getting’ locked up

  We steady mobbin’

  Gun Girl

  Gun shy, grinning girl

  Beaten by the crazy stick

  Lovely nights of hot physical nothingness

  Screeching nightmares of wedding bliss

  Dumbfounded, confounded

  Misused china doll, dirty faced

  Cleaned up

  She is just a baby all grown up

  Waiting to be consoled

  Gun shy, too young to be so old

  No more innocent smiles, now just womanly wiles

  Someone to be feared and used

  Gun-shy girl, not a killer

  But, a fighter weakened by forgiveness

  Grins of past disasters and private pain

  Haunted by babies never held and love never consummated

  Gun-shy girl can’t stand to live but too scared to pull the trigger

  Some Say

  Some say it is more than what it seems

  Who says? Who are those quotable folks?

  Where are they when it is actually happening?

  And life is actually moving

  And decisions are actually being made

  What are they saying then?

  When, it is really going down

  And life is turning round and round

  When up is where and where is down

  Are they creating their quips?

  I beg to understand it

  Some say this

  Some say that

  Who says its right?

  We validate by saying it over and over

  A Question

  What have we done?

  So carelessly, so effortlessly

  What generation have we created?

  They do not care for school or books or writing

  They do not care for history or classics or language

  I fear we have weakened out children

  Alienated them from expression

  Snatched their voice

  What utter doom awaits

  Those who cannot communicate

  What tragedy will ensue?

  I have seen their faces riddled with insecurities

  Absolutely unable to tell us

  What ails them, what hurts them?

  Curse them, ignore them

  We sentence them

  We sacrifice their black bodies upon the thousands

  Of imprisoned and illiterate bodies

  Marred with the scourge of slavery

  We have turned our heads see our sins

  We have closed our ears so we cannot hear the cries of history

  To my students

  These words are

  For you

  Born in this world

  To those who

  Have been labeled

  Never listen to those

  Holding the labels

  Because they have already decided

  Who you are

  Listen to your heart

  Because it only beats for you

  With deliberate speed

  Can we cure it with all deliberate speed?

  The children can’t write, the children can’t read

  Injured parties of our idiosyncrasies

  I plead to all who will hear, are we as mobile

  As a vengeful army moves upon an enemy?

  Can our speed be as deliberate… steadfast…unmoving?

  Can the leaders of the free world lead, if they cannot decode the language of their countrymen?

  The Creatures.

  We are destructive creatures

  Merciless, uncouth

  We cry and crouch in the night

  Screaming to God

  Unseen and unheard

  Chopping through the midnight

  On a murderous rampage

  Tasting blood to feel some healing

  God, can you hear us?

  The pleading begins. The begging.

  Dreaming stops.

  Nightmares rise up and stain the once picturesque horizon

  Pitch black; tears flow; crimson spills

  Doubting, doting killers

  A prayer might be in order

  Listen.

  Lil’ Mama

  Mama loves those girls

  Hers but not hers

  Young mama with more

  Than she can handle

  Mama loves the boys

  Hers and those she birthed

  She don’t know how to show it or feel it

  Her heart is not unscathed

  And she gives the best love she knows

  School don’t love her

  Books don’t get her eyes

  She loves the ease of the streets—she thinks

  But it’s all she knows

  The streets don’t love her

  The blocks they own her

  And brick and cement suck up her life

  And the paper trail ain’t too far

  Mama loves those girls

  Mama loves those boys

  But not so good or so well

  Mama wants to see and hear and speak

  My boys—revisited

  He got hands

  Small hands now

  Big hands later

  Emmitt was 14 when he met his end

  Too big to joke and be

  Inappropriate

  Beaten, shot, stabbed—most horribly

  My little boy is so mad

  He throws chairs down the stairs

  Flips over trash cans

  He doesn’t understand that he got hands

  Small hands now

  Big hands later

  Trayvon got into a fight—wearing a hoodie

  The last thing on his body

  His last day on Earth, breathing

  Too big to buy Skittles, stroll through

  Talk
s smack and be inappropriate

  Killed—shot—and again

  My little boys kicks doors

  Hits other little boys

  Screams and yells

  He got hands

  Small hands now

  Big hands later

  They got hands too

  Hands that dig graves

  Easy

  An 80’s Thing

  Yeah, yeah I was conceived when

  Luther was making love a vision

  Bellowing out dreams of love faithfully

  I was conceived when

  Glamour was revolutionized and

  Doves cried in purple rain while a Prince

  Became a star

  I was conceived when the sky was lit with

  Atlantic Starrs and they created masterpieces

  While romantics enjoyed secret loves

  I was conceived when

  Vanity was sanity, and a curly haired boy

  With one glove danced across the moon

  And thrilled a globe

  I was conceived when material girls

  Lived the glamorous life

  And dressed up boy toys in love

  It was a time when life was an event and time

  Was measured with a never ending Rolex

  A Little Light

  We are walking in darkness

  Someone lit a match

  Poof!

  Good God Almighty

  Hear my prayer!

  We are stumbling in the path

  Of speckled moonlight

  Peeking through the clouds

  God deliver me from

  All this violence

  Amen.

  I say a prayer. I shroud myself

  In belief,

  Knowing people somewhere are walking

  In the glow of dawn

  God deliver me from all this death

  Amen.

  My eyes are filled with trouble

  Dirty little angel faces

  Whose bodies are filled with life

  Menacing. Menacing. Menacing.

  The air chokes you with despair

  Someone light a match.

  Poof!

  Trudging, trudging, trudging, trudging along

  God helps those

  Who help themselves

  Stumble. Trip. Fall.

  I can’t see in here.

  Broken

  You think you got wings

  Polished. Smoothed.

  Get your feet in the air

  And find your wings untrue

  You touch them, glistening

  Sparkling divine

  How heartily I wish these were mine!

  The feathers are clean

  And sweetly perfumed

  Awaiting a flight on

  A summer’s afternoon

  Covet not. Want not.

  Yet, I want to fly

  With these perfect wings

  Beauteous, pulchritudinous

  WINGS

  Unlike my tattered wings

  Unlike these filthy things

  That cannot glide

  As

  These

  Prayer

  This place, this place, this place of prayer

  Just close your eyes and you are there

  Quiet darkness filled with love

  In Holy Communion

  With God above

  This place of blessed

  Sacred conversing

  With echoes of angels choir rehearsing

  Enter this space, fearless, and jumble

  Accepting His grace, still and humble

  This place, ethereally

  Connects . . . . . uplifting

  You from the clinches of flesh

  Bring your grief, sorrow, and sin

  Leave them here, let them end

  Fear

  Afraid, yes

  I have been afraid

  So deathly afraid

  Terrified

  I have been scared of doors closing

  And windows locked down tight

  Scared of dark rooms

  Scared of closed spaces

  Scared of me

  Petrified of dying

  And horrified of living

  Southern Girls

  We some baby rocking, chicken frying, love making sistas

  We some cake baking, hip shaking, sweet tasting sistas

  We some sepia toned, silk brown, chocolate dipped sistas

  We some choir rehearsing, hand clapping, love shacking sistas

  We some fussing, cussing, deep trusting sistas

  We some love you all night long, never do you wrong sistas

  We some full bodied, hot blooded, soul stirring sistas

  We some fill you up food and love,

  hold you tight with kisses and hugs sistas

  We some mean collard greens, corn bread,

  and black eye peas sistas

  We some do you want sweet potatoes or candid yams sistas

  Hot tempered, Hot Loving, Sweatin’ by the oven sistas

  Lay you down where you can’t leave sistas

  Smell so good you can’t breathe sistas

  We some good bye don’t mean gone sistas

  We some do everything we can for our man sistas

  We some help is on the way sistas

  We some thank God for this day sistas

  We some love more than you hate sistas

  Wrong Song on Repeat

  Mingus and me sat down last night

  And I told him I was heartbroken

  Mingus kept playing, uninterrupted

  I screamed at him, he made me angry

  Mingus kept playing

  “He broke my heart,” I told him.

  Mingus kept playing, drums smashing

  Against the rails of my mind

  “Go talk to Coltrane!” He yelled, “You’re turning me off.”

  When getting lost is good

  Some days I am lost in a poem

  I cannot find my way back to the world

  I cannot think outside my poem

  I can’t do anything, but wrap that poem around my thoughts

  I have no time for silly people

  Or frivolous banter, no I must capture this poem

  Write it down

  Commit it to paper

  Through strokes of glorious ink

  Me—the story goes

  I is the narrative

  Story of my life

  Dream a little…die a little

  Forget a lot

  Truth be told

  There is no truth when you are old

  I am here again

  Narrating

  Live a little…scream a little

  Cry a lot

  True love exists in fairy tales

  Who’s living one?

  Close the book. Don’t read it.

  Look for the pictures.

  ? There aren’t any

  I can’t believe this is not in 3rd person

  Damn, I am

  Still the narrator

  Fornicate a little…judge a little

  Keep telling the same old story

  In My House

  Find yourself here again

  In the close of day

  Your mind in perpetual, intellectual reflection upon the day

  What thoughts have you had?

  What dreams have drifted in and out this day?

  Here’s a quiet moment, now

  Not for resting, but for thinking

  Turn world turn, like the reels of my mind

  I need to sit with Socrates

  And mull over this globe’s dilemmas

  And find solutions in the midst of mayhem

  Mr. Dubois, can mediate, while I serve

  Jimmy and Lorraine some tea

  Ernest likes red wine, and Mr. Eliot can only sip

  While picking Ezra’s brain

  Oscar laughs at the scene

  Eudora and I
will try to be on

  A first name basis with Mr. Faulkner

  And Margaret, she’s one to talk

  She kept Richard all to herself

  I felt he had some strong words for Mr. Washington

  Here I am amongst the thinkers, the real thinkers

  I pray Mr. Nietzsche doesn’t require my company—he’s not very social

  I am thinking with them trying to understand this western concept of self

  Tennessee and August over hear me and began to chuckle

  Mr. O’Neill joins them and I blush

  I cannot talk to Frances or Ida or Mary

  They tease me and call me “Young Stuff”

  So, I wonder around, not aimlessly though

  Looking for something, bumping into old friends

  Emily and Robert, I have not spoken to them in a while

  I believe Robert has been quite upset since I fell in love Mr. Hughes,

  And became infatuated with Mr. McKay and doted on Mr. Johnson

  I’ll love him again one day, soon

  I switch best friends like thoughts and whims

  Just ask Zora

  She understands cause we go way back and here I am

  You know I had fling with a most peculiar Mr. Salinger

  He took me for a ride and dropped me off on Mr. Haley’s steps

  And there I stayed, for a while too

  If you know Alex, he’ll keep you for a while

  I thought a long time about just up and leaving

  But, I couldn’t so I stayed longer than I expected

  And before you know it

  A lovely gentleman named Fitzgerald was romancing me

  It did not last as long as the others

  (cont.)

  But what a memory!

  I thought I couldn’t think with so many people in my house

  I’ve never really been able to put them out

  Even when they kept me up at night

  This space has thoughts

  This space has thinkers

  Short Lived

  I cannot shake this feeling.

  I cannot rip it out