my desire
is stronger
my resolve
full of love,
blossoming
in head
heart
hands
feet
souls
lips
tongue.
.
..my fire is smiling
like sun
to be
and become
Trust the blank things
we don’t speak
the black be-ings
we make,
destroy
and
become.
me looking back at you,
today
trying to make my peace
with the contention
that how i feel
for you
is a mere invention
of how
i want others
like yourself
to feel bout
me.
my own wayward
belief
in
..showing love
is like
being loved
and
being loved
is like
being in
love,
yesterday.
so i exhale, my dark ass face
whinging..
air
in lungs
my kingdoms come
.. done gone,
ive lost it all
gained my own
dignity..though
the nitty gritty of an atom,
under the microscope
for inspection
my own heart
empty and full
of it all.
the residue on my skin
in heart and sou.. moving on..
i know ill never walk alone..
their voices saying..
i love you’s in quiet chorus..
..so im in the middle way..
gods own alien glory
a ship over my city
..
im swimming i say
for that peaceful
shore brotha..
i swimming pass that bwoy
that place of rage
that space
of confusion
trying at best to understand
the struggle to find rest..
ps.1. it is done,
im done gone
di-vorced
17years of life
lost..
finally..
i tell you, brother—are you listening?—you are
high-up, up-high, and, just now, up-tight, but, there
are sharp flowers growing low near water, little
blazes flashing where the green grass gives-up
suddenly to dry black stones plowed-up in a seemingly
random anger by a relentless sea, jigging in the wind,
october, color-catch of the sky before night,
they speak
in you
curling
feet burning on each war-mapped ground
‘will this be my end?’
‘Is this where I am?’
they keep
an ember
as the world goes cold, jaw-slacked,
weird triumph of night—
you are the holy fucking fight!
* * * *
happy birthday, i stared at a river today
(your mother’s hospital behind me) & thought steadily
of you. (what life have you had away from water?) we
are two children of square cakes, molasses, hens
running, buckling loud, songs inside books, sweat of
impossible summer trees, and tales of christ; the
hard, gnarled hands of our grandfathers find some
relief in our efforts to say something simple, maybe
beautiful, true, before we’re old.
happy birthday, brother.
the psychotic bushman
..so i watch
the ships go by
pink hands waving
the distant cloud moving
slowly
over the river..
my own moment of reckoning
has come and gone
i feel my son’s
small hands on my shoulder
smell his breath
breathing
on my neck
i hear him
saying
i love you
quietly in my ear.
..the sun is setting
now
sky darkening
to pitch
blackness..
i remember
the story of my own
weary arrival to
this place..
my gaze
my tears
rolling
down
my cheeks
big and warm..
setting me adrift
..why am i here like this
i have ask again
why have i come to
this place
by the riverside
where my burden
is heavy
my heart full
am i really
counting
signs
as if it were courage..
tell me brother.
..my own reading of you
was not clear
my own heart beat
of you
was not steady,
i was distracted
with all
dem voices
swirling around
on the plain.
the cars
the birds
the street
walkers,
the whole environment
seemed alive.
i was sitting too
close to them
they felt hollow
and empty,
all the deep dark things
i wanted to confess to you
remained stuck
in my throat
trying at best
to get out..
scream out.
.. i said your name while we did it.
we kissed,
foreplayed, fondled.
you were animal-like
for a moment.
a beast in you..
of desire.
you slapped me
when i asked you,
turning up the sting
with each blow.
you licked
my vertebrae.
you said
say it..
say it
.. i wanted to.
we danced in bed,
in sex,
in writhing.
your hand floated
above my body
then came.
i liked it.
your shoulder..
a moment
of peace..
you are no longer
in love
..i know.
if you were at one point,
i am honoured.
you are
beautiful
i write this from dreams.
i am sleeping..
goodnight.
innervoicing..
all day silence
..talking
in my head
wanted to reach
out
touch
you
speak
to you.
my silence
is
consent
or admitting
to some
strange
fall from
the grazing
grace of
a
razor’s edge
truth’s
trust,
thrust
.. i am naive
thinking
that by
offering more
than
my sun flowered flesh
that i would be healing
instead
only revealing
my own vulnerable
self
caught out there
before the jaws of
un truths sung well
come biting
to a fetished
ending.
when all this shit burns down,
and all the last liars eat the glass,
glue & plastic of their mirrors,
i’ll be right there with you—
we’ll want to laugh,
but will probably be
mute with pity.
fuck you
and
your wayward
analogy
of
equality
we are
not
equal
that
sequel
left in
the
red
charge
over
that
there
hill
of lies
and
deceit
so..
in this here
journey
im just going
to let it
all ride
like the waves
of the surf
i am going to brace
myself
and ride it
out
hoping that the
seas
are kind enough
to me
who knows
do you want me
as i want
you ..
i ask that face
looking back
at me
looking at you
there
somewhere
black bodies
entwined
eyes
flaming.
god has been gracious has given me a life
that i am proud of
despite the details
their folly
the volley of the blows
slapping me like
some pimp
from hell’s mouth
i am attuned to the rise and fall of the sun
and her own hands
eyes and soul
in my children,
the cosmos in us
we in the cosmos ..
of our own galaxy…
the fancy feel of them folks calling us
heathen
but then again feeding on our
flesh soul and chorus
of experience,
cus no thing comes
easy..
they speak of freedom
beating us with
their grave expectations..
directors
in the making
artists emerging..
i’ve always taken my own way
invented the works
words to feed me
when others
did not.
..
..strength to the lovers of light
the drama of this beautiful
disaster
called life..
may we live to see it
beaten
with more joy in
our tears.
my progression is
transgression
against the sky
of the
negative
now positive,
father
less
mother
less
now father
full
of otherness
and the blessed
awakening
of being ready
and always
dreaming this and that anew.
we would not
be anything
without love
overstanding
and
dem
babies
of ours
our total
light to
the future
no matter what we are
or become..
they are the gems
and the shining lightness
of weight
of the heavy duty ..
king again
come to renew
the light
again.
i try this outside
outlook
on things,
from the composite
sketches
of my broken
eye..
singing a new song
“All your goodies are gone…”
-George Clinton, ‘The Golden Goose,’ (1974).
Ten years(!), mon frere, since you be digging-out the waterline & bagging
the clay. Then, roosting in the A.C. in the trailer—dreaming of the those great tits
down by the sea?
Fucking tumbleweeds biting-at the headlights on that string of road.
Don’t smoke in the car.
Everybody’s armed.
Somebody didn’t scrub the oven.
The apocalypse never came; the compound remains.
Fourteen songs stillborn in the sun.
the psychotic bushman
when she told me of her father’s death
i realized that she was now
an orphan,
her mother long dead
killed at the hands
of her father
repeatedly
stabbed..
her own beauty
defined
by bloodstained
madness..
she said
she saw death
crawl
through his veins,
the days and nights
up north
far away
from her island
home.
“we sang songs,
in papimento
rocked what was
left
of his cancer riddled
body
to sleep..
till at long
last
he gave up
his ghost
departing
relieving me
of my
pain
.. leaving
me here
alone
..being sweet clementines.
the times changed
and left you choking
in your coat
of fatigue
with your conscience
on your sleeve
bleeding through
your thin
lipped mouth
like
the vicious
variety
of dem
there wasps
They all arrived singing and smoking corn pipes and cussing. They had
come in droves to cut the big cedar tree down in back. The night
before found me pissing over the pale in the other room, the floor
cracking in the wake of my footsteps. In the dark, the pail shimmered
and made loud sounds as my piss swooshed and settled.
The night time noises rose in my ears as the snoring of my granpa and granma
increased with every retreating step back to my bed..
Later that night i was to be awakened to a loud thump, a crashing
sound and a scream. As it turned out my brother went straight through
the floor while pissing, landing square into the nest of our dog and
her new puppies.
You could hear them squealing and the dog barking at my half naked brother,
with his pants still at his ankles.he had gone through the termite eaten floor.
underbreath granpa cussed and said that tomorrow he would have to
cut down the cedar tree to make new floor planks for the backroom.
Daybreak and the dogs barking loud is made even louder by the workmen
singing and surrounding the tree with ropes and large giant saws.
They measured and made lines on the trunk and went back and forth to the kitchen
to get chocolate tea.
The sun slowly came up over the gully and the men spat and laughed and
pointed..
one even found a puppy crushed under some wood. Sunken skull and eyes bulging ..
“poor ting they said,”him didnt know what hit him”
I stood above the crushed floor,looking through a big hole .. watching
them manouvre the broken ox stained floor planks to the kitchen for
fire wood.Granma cussed too, said she knew it was coming but didnt
realize it was so soon.
It was festive and lively in the yard. unlike the other time when my
aunt had died and we had to cut down another tree and spent the day
singing death songs, the men drinking rum and sawing back and forth
till the tree collapsed in the gully rolling like thunder to the foot
of the hill.
Today though, there were children watching and shouting and asking
what was the rush and what was i doing there amidst so many large saws.
The saws were big,with large teeth.It took three men on each side to
lay it down and another three to hold it and push and pull at the root
of the cedar tree.
The other dogs barked and growled at the men, they were annoyed by
their presence.
mosquitoes gathered at their ears and the fire flies fluttered about.
The hens clucked in their nested canopies. I laughed and pointed at the flames
in the kitchen rising from the sweet smelling cedar wood.
Cooking food for the men’s lunch and dinner.
On the otherside by the grave yard, the woodpeckers drilled holes in
the pimento tree.
The other birds swooped down to feed on ripe jack fruits fallen and
being dragged off by red ants..
In the gully the hummingbirds floated in midair around banana
blossoms and in the distance other dogs howled and howled away
occupied by the loud sounds of men singing and sawing.
In the kitchen granma was singing some hym and talking to herself
whilst pushing the broken wood under the dutchie pot.. of food.. She
said it was going to be a long long week, “far dem haf fi cut de tree
down and den the wood haf fi dry and den treated and before it go inna
de house fi de floor.”
she said then de floor haf fi, den be cleaned and then dyed an stained.
She looked at me and said,”ahh mi pickni mi glad dat it was not you,
dat went through de floor, far if it was you, so frail, we might have
been making a coffin and dat we dont want fi do..
I laughed nervously eyeing my brother watching them and holding his
back and staring on at the yonder grave yard full of birds and
insects.
The day would pass with the men doing their best to move fast cutting
through the trunk of the tree.
Granpa was at the head counting and pushing back and forth,the saw
making swooshing sounds as flecks of wood fell onto the ground.
When the tree fell it was loud and rumbling. The men had attached
ropes to it,it snapped right into place for them to hoist it above the
ground.They built a platform around the root, raising the fallen
tree, like a carcass far above the ground. It reminded me of the time
i saw tem all bury the bloated cow years before..
My cousin explained that after sawing down the tree, that they would
then cut the cedar in slices to make planks. some would be stored for
making coffins and others would be stored
for building roofs and walls. the cedar had a sweet smell.
I Iingered long enough to take long wiffs of the shavings on the
ground and in the air.. granma laughed watching me running about
smelling and smelling again the dust.
By the weekend, the whole thing had been done. there was a big hole
where the root of the tree was. there was a hole in one of our
bedrooms where the floor was. There was sawdust everywhere and the
smell of cedar filling the air. There was the platform where the
remaining piece of wood was left to be sliced up.
I was still astonished as to how quickly the tree was brought down
and how quickly granpa had cut the wood into floor planks.
Granma kept telling me that it was normal to use our own tree and our
own wood for the house and that we have been doing it for generations.
My own memory of the whole thing was filled with joy and anxiety at
seeing my brother fall through the floor and hearing the dogs yelping
so loudly.
Our house on the edge of the gully was again built anew and our own
bedroom would later have new floor planks our own memory of it all
would pass and our own tree would be replaced by other roots growing
from the soil.
i was decieved
concieved
baptized in
guilt stains
of my
own life.
the lies
rise
fall
like
fog
darkness
of dawn’s
early light..
who are you to question me
about my integrity,
actually
who am i
to refute
twist myself
up in knots..
cus i so wanna
be perfectly
whole.
..like the rest
a dem an you..
reading dis,
telling me
to sing
another
song..
