Posts for June 6, 2018 (page 7)

work experience:

i am spirit-machine; 3 centuries of soapstone and cowrie shell and 
post-modern mythical technology. mine’s is a digital rasp; i’m a son 
of shango and not a son of shaft nor the mr. bojangles iphone app
many of you want me to be.

7 generations removed, i am an ashanti king-wannabe in dada sneakers
shooting dice for ramens money between the black muslims’ mosque
and the used bookstore that was once a whites-only museum.

only my tongue is temple. a collection plate of black consciousness;
séance as equally sacred as science.

according to a long-lost voodoo calendar
i was borne in the year of the zombie.

i am spirit-machine…

machine-gun-runner-supreme; there is afro-sheen in my circuitry;
my nano-sciences glow and they gleam; my motherboard teems 
with songs-to-honor-the-dead-by… the shoes of the fisherman’s wife
is some jive ass slippers is my theme-song / the entire junior kimbrough
discography is a rotating ringtone, and elegba beatboxes in my voicemail. 

i’m forever rhyming under rubble, squeezing blood from the blues
(and when lucky, its titties). i live on and on; the living loop sample 
for the ancestors. but even Don Cornelius ages… and i have yet to have 
The Sons and Daughters of Nat Turner follow back when i heart-thingie 
their posts on instagram, i’m really distraught over it. i may need therapy.

or in the very least, a sincere hug… or a good cry over black coffee.

i am spirit-machine. a ghost of malcolm x-mas past. egungun ex machina.

but i work well with others and need zero supervision to complete a task.

things about myself i can improve:

i harbor a grudge. and would like to remove
the elmer fudd tramp stamp tattooed on my back… 
and brussels sprouts – i’d like to eat a fuckin’ brussel,
just once, like a goddamn adult. and hotwire a police car
after robbing a bank. maybe die cinematically in a hail of gunfire
after kidnapping the banker’s daughter and maybe not be
bludgeoned to death for eating a bag of skittles. 
be remembered as a poet. another black assed fuckin’ poet.
and marry for good credit instead of all this tiring love.

**trigger warning,  ED**

I once knew a girl 
Who became a snake 
Once every 30 days. 
She first experienced this 
Dreaded phenomenon 
Around age 13. 
I knew a girl 
Who fell into a state of possession 
Once every 21 days 
And it was after leaving this state,  
One night, unexpectedly 
She told me 
Possession was her one true act 
Of free will.  

I know a girl 
Who starved 
Until she couldn’t move,
Until 
Her fingernails came off
Until her teeth grew soft 
She kept and made 
Small nests beside her bed 
From her own hair
Until she turned to a 
Weightless blameless statue 

My grip is loosening

Reality is slipping

I bit down hard just to make sure I could still feel

Every breath is another piece of glass that I swallowed on purpose

My vision is blurring

(Why does losing everything feel so good?)

Will I crave steady ground, if given the opportunity?

Maybe I’ll just close my eyes and slip into whiskey scented psychosis

Halfhive mind, dripping in honeythoughts and bittersuites, buzzing with decadence.
Halfhive mind, torn asunder and structurally inadequate.
I’ve never learned the words rabbits whisper which way when wracked with grief, and Bueys already explained his pictures, so I cradle dead hare in silence.
I stumble forth empty mouthed, gold headed, and bearing a different little death; quicker heart stilled.
Rot overcomes all but metals in an alchemy no less sacred or profane, so I slather honeygold over rose tint and pray.

I know a girl who makes kissing friends out of old ones

with a simple, okay

who I can tell, sometimes thinks of herself as a toothpick

even though she is obviously the trunk of a tree

unyielding, her very own stump from which to speak her mind.

This girl sent me a poem about a box full of darkness 

which reminded me of a poem about the bread we eat in dreams

I think we will spend many hours exploring our boxes

together, finding little gifts

I think tonight I will eat bread with her in my dream

and begin the work of unpacking.

a thousand people are saying
they think they know at last where we came from.
the wounded womb of earth—it’s the east, the south, out of birds spilling feathered bellies for our future, sands that coat through our nails to our bones, the shapes we wove onto our scarves, the kings we named.
they think now they’ve learned the root of our tongues,
that those names had something to hold, to mean,
           as though there were any other way to say, ‘our king is our god! let him preserve us

for centuries!’
 
I am looking into the future in those bleeding bellies.
(the smell erases everything, the sight of blood erases everything)
and centuries from now, a thousand of people are saying
they know
          us
but wish they could remember what our people named ourselves before our king went to flames and ash, earth and air
and took our centuries away through the gates of the last queen’s realms, down in the heart of the mountains we once loved.

the difference

between

  what we 

FEAR

and what we

WANT

   Isn’t that far