Haiku at 11:58 PM
there’s blood in this soil
yet flowers still bloom as if
love is sunlit hope
I need something
telling of these times to write down
or maybe hold in my hands,
smear across the veil of reality and
reveal its parts, layer upon layers of lies.
A secret to save us all from ourselves
when we look in the mirror and
think everyone else is whispering
our worst fears
while forests fall around us
the echoes of histories written between rings
made into nothing more then myths.
Psst Psst
I see live poets
Yay Hot Sauce
On that verse, Oh
Yay, Hot Sauce
On that verse, Oh
See though
any line ninja,
they a
see through
Word spoke,
shout snap exclaim
yell, hiss, rhyme,
Sis
Bail a ninja
outta jail,
she talks out loud
like Warsan
Which one
of these monkey-ass
ninjas tryna
see Louisville
Literati
Dislikes me
freak-em all
and their agents
You got so so
many choices.
How many do I
really got?
I’m about to
Spit on diss
like Kendrick
Lamar
Whup dat ass
side eye it
like I didn’t
do it
Sometimes
You gotta show
and blow out
gingers
Bonafide
Conjure woman
I be the one
to one up them
Talk them down,
we all know they
got someone black
in them
Dance on them
Rap, rhyme, talk shit
Fight, jail time
on them
Yo, Them,
I see you like
‘em brown
I better never
Catch em in
Harlem
To all my
sisters in
love lust
you better run
Take a second
Look
before you
leave the hood
Yaw just like us,
Yaw just like us,
Yaw just like us,
Yaw just like us
That classic Temple of Doom move
When Harrison was sick
that was the way
he got it over quick
Leather and Japanese
Levi’s denim aesthetic
captured impeccably
by Danny Lyons’ 1968
Photo book
Harley Davidson the
Outsiders and black boots
Racing, bikes, and
Brotherhood
Never Abandon Your Friends
A connection
a finger bent back
No chapters, he said. We are people
in a town who know each other.
Drawn to the road
we live by a code
inspired by Brando;
“What are you rebelling against?”
“What you got?”
Fists or knives?
Gather up the men
I’ll take care of you
I got ’em under control
But we both know
I can’t tell that boy nothing
He’s What all the other boys wanna be
FREE
Racing back roads like the Kentucky Kid
Who’d rather die than slow down
A prayer and a bottle
aflame on the ends
Good old boys having fun
I recognize those streets
Ill emblazoned on an Illinois outline
The lightest Curls of smile
Big Baby Blue Eyes
Won’t take off my COLORS for no one
The father son bond no one had
returning to the womb where
I’ll be myself and eat bugs
We’re a club
I’ll take care of you
It was too much power for one guy to have
A roaring swarm of lethal lions
A crackling wolf pack of lightning
A battle of hearts
on a razors edge
there was this moment
when I wanted to know
more about the world
that older high schoolers
rolled dice and shouted
but I didn’t know the word lore
and the internet was still
the Wild West
so I went to their house
saw the books
scattered
on a pool table
none of which
they were interested
in letting me read
so I went home
empty handed
and reminded
to not be so eager
in front of people
they confused it
for desperation
to fit in
to a group
that didn’t fit in
after Diane Seuss
Frankly, Brooklyn, you’re too damn much. Elaborate
cardamom bun and a cappuccino that too easily
deflates. I was thrifting, now retreating to a couch
where I feel I must chat up the couple next to me.
It has to do with Kierkegaard and, of course,
over-extracts from there. The one, a philosopher.
The other, a poet. Oh, you too? And have you read
Diane Seuss as he pulls this gem from his bag.
Stark, double-spaced sonnets march in royal defiance
of titles across 130 nonchalant pages. Each ending
a slap somewhere—the thigh, my heart, often the
face. Oh, Diane—you crack of black pepper! Such
serendipities in this unpredictable life of mine. My
existence, my finishing sugar—you so raw and fine.
I sit in silence.
my atoms remember the reverberation of music and conversation.
I wait on the couch
for internal permission to go to bed.
the balloons will deflate in the corner over the course of several weeks.
I taste the strange prospect of no longer lying
to collect a check.
Anything is possible with a typewriter or guitar
in my hands, and yet I’m stalled
at the intersection of different languages,
looking into wild nowhere
through half-open doors.
Of course flying and falling are different things,
but are they, though?
I’m a tourist everywhere I go.
