Blood of My Blood

Blood of my Blood

Blood of my blood
They know not what they do
Hold your tongue carefully
Because it is sharp
And swordplay is an endangered art

Blood of my blood
Your words can cut deep
In the dialect of opposition
When you strike and protest
Against your involuntary education
in the language of "just this"
We have never settled for "just this."

Two words wrapped over and over
Interwoven into complacency
Lacing the fibers
Crafting the rope
That they formed into noose
A destiny knot that tightened the cord
Suspending the bridge
That spans our generational gap
One end wrapped your neck
The other my ankle
I am hanging on every word
That comes from your throat

Blood of my blood
They have turned us against each other
Tethered past to present
Like chain to shackle
Every time you bend your neck up
I am dragged down
Every time I walk forward
The rope squeezes tighter
To strain your lambskin lungs

We must
Adjust our behavior
Adjust to their social control
And in becoming instruments of our own regulation
In turn become instruments of our own oppression as well

Blood of my blood
You will never run dry
You will sluice the sewers
And leave stains in the streets
As long as people are learning the language
of "just this"
Blood of my blood on their hands you will be
Blood of my blood on my hands you have been.

Crow

To everyone who has tried to love me
I am so sorry
I did not mean to offend
It’s just that..my reflex is to defend
What is left
And all that is left
Is all that I hide
The mathematics of shadow
Nothing + nothing = a greater appreciation of something
Even if it is only a falling crow calling out to its wings
Beat against all that is around you
That is the only way to keep flying
Cause when you fly solo
You fly so high
I have been told that people who sleep
In the fetal position are searching
For love and comfort in the posture and poise
Of dreams and nocturnal choice
I have spent so many nights
Sleeping in the fetal position
Like love is a verb
But it is not
It is a question
I have no answers for you

Haikus #1-3

Haiku One

The crippled phoenix
Stumbles towards ressurection
Breathing future ash.

Haiku Two

Tower of bone white
Hold in the sins of eons
Babylon is sand.

Haiku Three

The pervasive tongue
Speaks in the bright alchemy
Of coalesced dream. 

Ambush

Sometimes, when I'm lying in bed
Barricaded in blanket and pillow
From out of nowhere- I feel the point
of a sharpened spear.

It's wielder --> all scales and wings
All savagery and low cunning

I call him the Bad Noise.
He breaks the peace of my silence
With denigrating bombs and grenades.

YOU'RE NOTHING YOU'RE NOTHING YOU'RE NOTHING YOU'RE NOTHING YOU'RE NOTHING YOU'RE NOTHING YOU'RE NOTHING YOU'RE NOTHING YOU'RE NOTHING YOU'RE NOTHING YOU'RE NOTHING YOU'RE NOTHING YOU'RE NOTHING YOU'RE NOTHING YOU'RE NOTHING YOU'RE NOTHING YOU'RE NOTHING YOU'RE NOTHING YOU'RE NOTHING YOU'RE NOTHING YOU'RE NOTHING YOU'RE NOTHING YOU'RE NOTHING YOU'RE NOTHING YOU'RE NOTHING YOU'RE NOTHING YOU'RE NOTHING.

I'd like to say I'm strong enough not to believe him.
But - if the amount of your substance was directly proportional to the growing distance between you and the friend you used to have, at what rate does the volume of your self-esteem decrease until it reaches 0?

Show your work.
Your pencil is only an eraser.

It's impossible.

I envy the people who can leave their homes.
Then return to find out that they have grown apart from everyone they love

What is to be said about the ones who stay and watch it happen?

The again - today could have just been a bad day.
 Bad days are not indicative of bad lives.

You are not defined by the people who walk out on yours.

On a good day, I can drown out the Bad Noise.
But you are only covering up the sound of him sharpening his spear,
waiting for his next opportunity to ambush.

Bring You Back (So I Can be Your Spine)

The poem I want to write.
Will not bend God to His knees
To wash the feet of ephemeral men.
The poem I want to write.
Will not grind mountain down to sand.
It will not heat the desert to glass.
The poem I want to write.
Will not dry the oceans.
Or incite their undulating fury.
The poem I want to write.
Will not keep you warm.
It will not remind you of the empty spaces
Vibrating to fill the empty spaces of another.
It will not fish for compliments.
It will not drink whiskey
and eat steak with chili peppers.
It will remember.
And in remembering, look forward.
And in looking forward, look backward.
The paradox of wanting something you've already had.
Looking two different directions at the same time.
That's the poem I want to write.
The paradoxical encomium.
The ode to empty spaces longing to be filled.
The redemption party God was too busy to show up to
The poem that forget that pen is not bone.
Ink is not blood.
Skin is not flesh.
And in its forgetting.
Inserts itself as your spine.
Transducts potential into action.
Looking forward.
Walking backward.
The poem I want to write.
Is the poem that brings you back to me.

Microagression (Black Capability)

You do not know what he is capable of.
When you walk on the sidewalk hold purse closer to self.
Cross street to different side.
Stay alert at all times.
You do not know what he is capable of.
He is brimming with racial vengeance in a post-racial world.
Keep your children safe.
Lock  your doors.
Do not be caught in the wrong neighborhood.
At the wrong time of night.
You do not know what he is capable of.
When I was four years old.
There was this girl named Sarah.
She told me if I brought the Disney movie Anastasia
Every day for an entire week to watch during after school.
She would be my girlfriend.
My four old body.
Wanted a girlfriend.
And all the ostensible glory one could bring.
I brought Anastasia every day for  week.
And sure enough on the last day.
She said, I will be your girlfriend.
And I saw it was good.
So we held hands.
And blew kisses.
And I made her a house out of building blocks.
Because that's what four year old men do to provide for their families.
Her mother, sweet black haired future warning that she was.
Told me, I think it's cute that you guys are playing grown up.
But sweet baby, black boys and white girls don't belong together.
My four year old brain accepted this as a fact of life.
Told her I would do the chivalrous thing and break up with her.
I told my mom what had happened.
I had never seen her so angry before.
Even today, they are capable of this, she said.
I said, capable of what, mom.
She said, capable of something far older than you.
My friend told me.
You are not like most black people that I know.
I said, what are most black people like.
She said, have you ever seen BET.
I said, shut the fuck up.
She said.
With you.
I do not feel like I have to hold my purse closer to myself.
I do not feel like I have to walk to the other side of the street.
I'm not sure if you know what your kind is capable of.
I said.
My kind is capable of people like Benjamin Banneker
who measured the dimensions of the seat of your President.
My kind is capable of Garret Morgan, who created a gas mask
to protect us from the weapons your kind is capable of.
My kind is capable of Daniel Williams
Who learned how to mend a broken heart
Something poets have been trying to do since the beginning of time.
My kind is capable of great things.
What you have reduced us to.
 Well, that sounds like a personal problem.
I said my kind is capable of people like --
She said.
You're so sensitive.
I said.
You're so micro-aggressive.
She said I didn't mean to be offensive.
I just meant to say it seems like you've had privileges other people
of your particular persuasion haven't had.
I said that's good to hear.
I said, there's one more privilege I'm waiting for.
The privilege of not having to worry.
The privilege of knowing that if I'm walking down the street.
Someone doesn't have to feel like they have to clutch purse closer to self.
Clutch children closer to parent.
Clutch weapon in preparation of threat.
Clutch bias.
Clutch prejudice.
Clutch the casualty.
You do not know what we are capable of.
You have no fucking clue.