letter to a fugitive sistuh

i wanted to call you

but i was dishonest

so lacking sanctuary

in the clear river of an infant democracy

i wrote poems about spain

clouds drawing dreams

and the multitude of invitations

to cry all morning long

 

the high spiderless panes of downtown sky

moved clouds across morning

and under the marquee of the theater

in a wind hinting rain in the eyes

my muddled reflection released me

let me move unencumbered by shadow to canaan

 

i am ok

if you need to know

somewhere traveling across your moonlit face

this astronaut you love glinting in the galaxy

somewhere where you don't admit it

small interstellar fire

you care love

i am just sad

but sadness is no sickness

no ripeness or shine

no moon leaning against the universe

not naples with beautiful boats in transit

it's just the condition of the world on tuesday

 

i loved you

like finding meaning in kenya

measuring myself in clay

rising from a month of prayer

fluent and citizen in mombasa

and dar es salaam

i was

i rose

i loved you in a new language

wandered a ripe continent healing people

my blackness declared at every border

new night following me across the mudstone country

the limpopo steering lumber through night

moon siren spilled on the river night

 

my new africa

its infant pan faced diplomats

their heartfelt constitutions

their hopeful words

your love making people believe

and the freedom the triumph we felt

as we passed into tanzania singing

where the people were voting

at the marrow of africa

the drone of your kiss in my chest

 

this year

the children are older

november was especially hard

because of their faces

all their faces like drops of oil

fingertip bright faces

you would be proud of the students

we send them

the starling

the children each cool morning

 

and some mornings

i could not see your face

and sat looking east back into memory

and was ashamed

i panicked

waiting for you to move from darkness

to call with your politics

to form against my ready mouth

yet with all the windows open

no you ever ever

no you ever no you

 

war blooms on the windows

like when we traveled at the edge of a monsoon

and caught the fringe rain

all the african sky behind us suddenly heavy coal

dark mozambique exhaling and flooding

threatening the caravan of peace workers

and the soldiers draped in plastic

who did everything at gunpoint

could be brought with american cigarettes

its like that here love

in this america i am trying to change

this arrogant bantu homeland

this sky i am trying to stay ahead of

the policemen with guns

 

we have missed the islamic sudan

and the women come wandering in somalia

covered appropriate cultural and lean

grinning like fruit

like so  many young girls there come to learn

last year we planned to empower women there

your sisters needed you

and i was going with you on a slow egyptian freighter

it was to be our time between continents

drifting in blue love

informally without speeches

 

but that was to be last year

trekking through chad disguised as muslims

now the students are my africa

each an infant democracy

i tell them about you

this woman who came to me from an international urgency

they pronounce your name and smile

they are beautiful errors in the autumn sky

our little freedom fighters

i have taught them african freedom songs

i sing to you on the way home in swahili

though a hemisphere voices a million concerns between us

 

i see them each day on my commute

countless men and women who can toil no further

something is afoot here

each day a machine aches to a stop

each day a worker changes his mind

there will be freedom coming here too

our work will begin in watts

my fugitive

my secret flower

my love

letter from upstate

letter from upstate

 

you once fought

over five dollars

beside the train tracks

you carried that scar

on your cheek forever

crescent moon in the

universe of your black skin

a thing on your face

that wouldn't smile

 

and when he went to stick you

foolish as i was loving you

i got it deep in my shoulder

 

i missed that season

and was useless for a winter

 

i tell the new cats about you

those who squat in the clock tower's shadow

but they move on

....no heart

keep it

keep it

 

keep it

if you need it

if it fits you well

and some sistuh smiles at you

 

and eat it

if you are hungry

you've come a long way here

 

curse it

if it keeps you

from making a mistake

out there

 

name it

if you want it

aint got no money

just heart

 

cry  it out

i aint gonna tell anyone

blue is a working man's color

i miss louis too

 

thank you

thank you

(to my homegirls)

 

today
where morning is vast
and the ground cool beneath my
bare feet and i dare run again
                 and breath

a beautiful heaviness like life
that takes the shoulders
tilts the head
filling the face with sun
here where the knees are fine
and saturday unfolds it canopies
calling working men outside into
the sweep and song of a morning beautiful
and blossom filled everywhere
        i want to thank you
just like that
as simple as saying red is red
or you are very beautiful
                thank you
in the plainest print
in a clarity so lucid
that even untruth is truth
                thank you
in a place sudden as children smiling
as honestly as a quiet kiss
i want to thank you
for companionship for comfort
for recognizing me among the millions
of people seeking someone in the stillness
of their long lives
                thank you
before i forget
before this quiet moment passes
before i am confused and mix the metaphors
and lose what i am able to voice
before the tears come and i cannot say it
oh, thank you

                     thank you

                                     thank you

here behind the heart
where memory catalogues loss
and regret is a loneliness wandering an
empty country
                          thank you

today in the bright pools of water
and the thousand mile sky
in a freedom laughing out loud
in as explicit a joy as sleeping late
in as easy an elation as greeting a
friend or wearing new shoes
thank you

            thank you

                        thank you

                                    thank you
simple as that
                     thank you so much
honestly

where we stand today
like exclaiming to the world

              i am alive
and on my way
                        thank you

leaving long beach

leaving long beach

 

i am leaving today

my place is full of boxes

the mornings have come full circle

the dishes given away

i kept all the blue things

abstract paintings

poems

the beads and beautiful glasses

strange statues

i am leaving the futon here

like love

 

there is sunlight everywhere

the blinds are in disarray

here on the second floor

where i spent a year watching the city

breathe clouds against still nights

each evening in from the shore dreaming

among the tall buildings downtown

this is my final day among the people i have never met

a year on the faces of school children whose

youth is so beautiful and sad

and the men

who live in the alley shooting heroin

the students

in the infancy of their politics

praising fanon

 

amid the morning sounds

the yelping of blue dogs and the

clear hush of women falling back into sleep

a final honesty

on this earth after the early rush

this secret business of disappearing in increments

out to the truck

the lonely blue subtraction

and the earth one less heavy

very green and vacant

 

and i know this ritual of leaving

of counting down days

preparing one day to come again here

and not belong

i know the corners whose

inheritance and lottery i forfeit

beautiful sleep in the humming afternoons

narrow streets with names like stanley

and orizaba

blue dawns and blue alleys

roses pressing into chain link fences

longing to be noticed

even the ports in the 7 am fog

unhinging and echoing out to bay

clocks shadows

and the elongated dreaming body

before the wet busses begin their early changes

 

even the distilled conjecture of my neighbors

who never had a phone

who fought everyone

and cursed one another from the second floor railing

they will mourn my vacancy

for he will come

she will have latched the top lock

and turned up the TV to a blare

at the end he’ll think of me 

the placid place in the calamity

i am always the last kind face

and lean against my door

insistent as rent

 

i leave this key in this silence

the scheduled noises come

each day offering its small sorrows

synchronized sky and the 11 am etch of sun

the nothingness of clouds

in concaved noon through

the empty belly of sky

i was the early business of god

languishing in the quiet window of the catholic parrish

half turned away from me

to record the pulse and drone of the 405

to admire the faith and duty of tugboats

and to count the washes of city sparrows

 

 

stay all morning

stay all morning

stay all morning
in the first light fretting
miles it's eye open and clear
raises the day
the obligation to come and
juxtapose the starling blue
and scatter starling to the waking world

but stay past that incipient light
beyond the unhinging morning
after concrete settles
long past instinct

after  clocks have stopped screaming
in the clear hour past transit
stay

in the small cool fire hush
secret and  loved in my arms
move back against me
find your place in shadow
on my easy earth

for hours changing positions
like the clockhand change finds a new number
chimes in joy the hour come like birth
on the wall loving in strict language
or the morning doorway rotates its view
we'll find each other each minute
shifting carelessly far away from the planet

and your breasts
casual in their gait
you offer them
you walk with them
introduce them….
lay with me naked singing
until i want you

and your eyes
what can be said?
you belong to me here
are requisite as breath

and needed
my marrow churns
sun burns bright in the floating window

big strong brotha like me says yes
to everything the morning suggests

sistuh furiously
if you can lean
if you possibly can
sistuh sistuh sistuh
stay

but the man things fall away
this poem not from my chest
but is from the smallness in my belly
but is from the longing in my honest hands

no war today

and the torrent of morning
disheveled in the cool bed
your errant hand breathing in bed
an ellipse of air and rhythm
your beautiful damp thumb
a small brown bird
a snow of sheets around you
your crazy hair the residue night
beautiful early citizen…..

quiet things

quiet things

 

 

momma at night

is a quiet thing

in her room reading scriptures

and closing her eyes

 

and the empty house

is a quiet thing

not even asleep

just vacant as

shoes in half light

on the clean wooden floor

 

the city at 3 am

is a quiet thing

rotating the meaning of the moon

the message less stars

accruing in the scheduled

squares of night sky

 

and me tonight

one eye closed and gold

a quiet faceless thing

ferried in the slow stars

among other moonlit stones

 

i brought what he said he liked

i brought what he said he liked

(for brenda garcia)

 

i brought what he said he liked

cereal, chocolates

lactaid milk for his damned belly

i made sure the juice was cold

and the apartment clean

i placed my smells in the corners

so everywhere he went he would rediscover me

then after a long pearl bath

among my personal stars

the memory of the day

after chanting my daily affirmations

and repeating his promises with

every step in the light rain

i went to sleep happy

 

he made me grin inside

not loudly

just something slowly churning beneath

my heart that hums throughout the day

something at every stoplight lifting my chin to his kiss

the subtle pleasure rolling down the

small of my back then between my hips

his call always the calm before sleep

my hands on my breasts were his hands

the weight of my coat 

the darkness of his embrace

thumbed a rodding cadence in my belly

and now and then

in the light rain

amid the traffic

a wet tongue across my cheek

 

he had to see his son

i implored him to spend more time with his son

he agreed

but he would come to me afterward

tomorrow overnight

yes, tomorrow

and we would make love before breathing

still in our clothes in the hallway

and there would be all the time we ever wanted

a wonderful smallness rolling from my mouth to his

tomorrow morning at eight before work

i would be his woman the way he wants me

 

when i awoke in the new world of the new day

i wandered naked thinking how he would see me

how i would present my love to him as

he lay among my covers

how i would let him touch me and

be ready to receive him deep and slow

and how lost we would be pushing into one another

i was lost in his promises

his voice soft across my shoulders

my hands preparing my thighs for his

 

8am came like a stranger who does not stop at your door

and takes his flowers and smile down the bright morning street

he did not call

he did not come at 8am or at 8:30 or 8:45

i went to work

drowning in the cathedral of my new eastern blues

my silent aloneness became a quiet doorless vacancy

i stayed near the phone

then went home after a while

fighting off sickness

the disintegration of my cells

my age and weight loud among the loss

there was a message

“overslept”

and nothing more

a single thing

and all the empty universe to follow

i moved into blues so dark that my skin was bright

i sat silent in the evening wells of a northern countryside

i became a small stone behind other mysterious things

i called but no answer

still thinking he may come

i called all day

in the sky the rain came and went

and the next day

and the next

and no answer

 

this is the story of us

me and a man in new york who

told me he dreamed of long rides in the country

and ice cream on sundays

a man whose whispers fingerprint my blue memory like

a twilight windowpane discovered to hold a child’s handprint

who said among the many things he said that

whirled me across the city in a dizzy autumn waltz

that he was desperate for me and

only longed to be near me

 

sometimes i see women rushing on the downtown trains

glancing at their rings

so others will know how they come

claimed in the morning

sometimes they tell me about a man they met

who writes them poems and spreads his kisses

over them like moonlight through trees

and i know that all things being equal

when bliss turns to absence

it is foolish to love a man so

to declare him a god before he performs any miracles

report from the riot

report from the riot

(the los angeles insurrection 1992)

(warren wilson reporting for channel 5)

 

“the whole day was dark dusk

and smoke

a marscape of fire and sirens

we had gone down slauson

past the swap meet

toward crenshaw

where bands of wild brothas

who had been all night without sleep

ran beltless and shirtless

some sitting spellbound

in the infancy of their politics

 

cloudless evening of horrified helicopters

zagging transmitting faces in the blue clock sky

normandy lay bludgeoned face down

glass everywhere its eyes pierced

budlong, a strip of places to hide and plan

it confused the starling

the heartbeat air in the city’s wild throat

open buildings agape with sirens

debris resting where it landed

we ignored the traffic lights

we drove on the wrong side of the streets

 

a policeman was crying

in the flight of law and order

plumes of smoke

blocking the vision of god

it was war

war the policeman’s father had sat silent about

late at night war that made him smoke

and court cancer

the ports were still

the authorities left the blacks to destroy the city

leave los angeles

leave han noi

the policeman in the shadow

in the 37th hour of his shift

his radio a shrill lauguageless haze

let his memory stop recording

turned his gun on himself

 

and the kids

restless listening to the tumult

had waited since the womb for fire

fathers in prison calling chanting

“this is it this is it this is it”

implored their ragged sons to riot

“fire is free

gasoline siphoned

make the summer cauldron

and remember me”

they raked against the prison bars

participated how they could

refused to eat while the city burned

screamed in ecstasy from cell to cell

 

other boys were lean by attrition

their mothers

half endorsed by welfare

manning the windows at each

apartment building like beautiful sentries

saw their sons ignore the citywide bans

it was mutual disrespect

curfews and riots negotiating over history

new language saying there is no proper way to speak

to ignite the city

it said shoot back and burn first

take take take take take take take

you blueblackboys

electric in the wide avenues

 

in phoenix

los angeles was an allegation

a rumor of inconveniences ahead

an eerie silence in the beautiful desert motif malls

the television stations there implored the citizens

to shop to work to write poems to conserve water to pretend

 

long beach lay at the edge of fire

the blue projects like small prisons

in direct half moon

the word came down atlantic like night

a population of faceless blacks

needing direction

compton line smoldering

the muslim mayor biding his time

the phone company cut his service

would not allow him access to his soldiers

too many blacks near freeway onramps

everyone greasing themselves for the frenzy

the black nationalists in full recruit

in broken swahili saying

“here is a better way

  we warned tom bradley and the world

  niggas will be heard motherfuckerrrrrrr

  each colonized negro tonight

  make your bitterness count”

 

the affluent inglewood was an allegory

a sudden slang tore its trimmed westside

going west out the 405 toward LAX

then landing in the palm of that black city

the blacks along the manchester thoroughfare

heavy brothas with quick hands

moving from their small clean homes

the thousands of bus stops at every glance

their eyes looked back searching each motorist

litter drifted waiting torun

darkness fell full fluid with the streetlights shot out

 

“throw fire”

he told his son

“remember the smell”

one kid hurls a gasoline bomb

flames vine out of the store windows

they flower gold and red

he curses the koreans and the whites

flexes his muscles

spins in the delirium

how easy it was for him to belong that night

hurl a brick then sprint everywhere in endless energy

shirtless, holding their pants up

hundreds came mocking the sirens

block to block all speed looting the ralphs supermarket

 

27 hours now of brusque movement

dr. karenga’s message was in the streets like a rumor

multiculturalism and egalitarianism after war

reparations and revenge

demonstrate the distance

it wasblack and white and in flagrant disagreement

there was a crude understanding hid

in each brotha’s pocket like a knife

dr. cress welsing said  “think well then act

consult the pan africanist soothsayers who

computer prophesy from 5th floor faculty offices”

prof. amen ra shrugged his 6 ft 8inch shoulders

said “i told you so” and cancelled his night classes

all the street linguists caucused and rapped their intent

 

“we go together like in uganda”

 exclaimed dr. bede ssensalo

“we are the fire that burns the land”

chad nkansa assured

“ghana is in it too

  the middleweights come at you!

  let’s legislate an omen

  aiyyeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”

 

shadows of murderous negros panting

playing hide and seek

someone in an impala shoots off a flare

a thousand run and destroy the chevron station

a battalion of preachers stood in the advance screaming

“god is not dead!

  god is not dead!

  he is watching everyone of you”

and the riot went on

 

…..no electricity

just an occasional person sprinting from dark to dark

word is a few blocks over there are snipers

we hear the bullets stutter then wait

that’s where we stand

near at least a dozen fires

on some corner where the streets signs have been stolen

weary and not knowing what is to come

nor how to get home from here”

i like the way you smile at me

i like the way you smile at me

(for elisa brown)

 

and i am in the november weather

stranger to strangers amid

the gauntlet of noise and traffic

yet your smile is bright

a new coin in the circulated money

a cello against the cacophony of afternoon or

a pool of clear water reflecting a circle of city sky

the epiphany of your face when the confusion grows

is a ripe planet in the universe vacancy

and lost and unclaimed

near the marquee of the theater

in a wind hinting rain in the eyes

i see you

my cells fall into unison

wild breath stirring the exclaiming palms

wilshire blvd.

all its traffic lights green ad infinitum

 

and the city is tall

hurling its height and clamor

metric agressive

accusing and regretting

gathering discarding

elemental and atomic

sometimes crying and contrite

the trees gather in fear

people race the lights that

collapse the country

in precise increments

 

then you smile

the stooping uncertainty stands erect

calloused corners harbor birds

young cats stir in the infancy of their politics 

someone gives something away

somebody is earnest as earth

 

your smile is

three grinning black faces

eager as early stars

framed in the open summer window

something that beautiful to wake to

sunlight and shadow

echos of gospel through verbiage of alabama pine

sunday cadillacs shined to a scream

red rain ditches running along our lives

smooth stones slanting further south

until your heart motors against the morning shine

 

and the city runs in all directions

buildings have hollow sad eyes

tired buses feign politeness

and the hour rotates rooms

each with a separate despair

 

but you smile

friends are gathering cooking singing

a grandmother lifts a wise eye

starts grinning

tells you to “come here, baby…sit”

a strolling someone blesses a

neighborhood with pomegranates

from a rooftop above an alley of roses

after rescuing the evening

a policeman is throwing kisses

a wind moves across the yards

billowing the white linen on the

clotheslines to sail and bloom

mariachis thumb into a ruckus and

disappear beneath their sombreros

the starling rise like a tint on

the mathematics of downtown windows

i am claimed

and i shine

 

send only smiles

send only smiles

(letter to pomona)

 

send only smiles

a small plaid happiness

plain packages with crisp numbers

lone yellow flower reaching

from morning in the frame of

fettered starling

and early eager bees

wink to let me know you are making it

your thimble of magic

fingernail full

clandestine super agent

taut as a mandela eye

a blue ant on mauve tile

inferred

 

remember me

i say

in a buoyant slang

an ocean clap

then the attendant tunnel vowels

droning up the coast

never turn our old corners

or rev your cadillac

never curse a red light

never drink and hear the brakes whince

come here saintly off the holy avenues

park the wide beautiful deville

settle high onto your shocks

 

or gallop lot to lot

handle a shapely sistuh

sharpen her ear with your tongue

refute a lie

hand up

eyes closed

and not remember me

 

say the best blue things

morning greetings

tall as beautiful brothas

earnest possibility

an 11 am brewing jazz

shrill clean skin

a noon of easy men

 

who have you seen?

quickwork dave with his  perm?

mr. moore whose hello

is a semi precious stone?

tootoo selling watches at ranch market

or my beautiful  judith,

still angry about her watch tower magazines?

tell her i love her

and always will

 

the world is endless

frescos of a turbaned malcolm

i want to show you

an iridescent dusk in nambia

pipe lines in god’s alaska

a chilean child’s ripe cheek

a rauckus ugandan band

 

have you been back to ganesha?

have you seen patrick’s sister who does yoruban dance?

how about our new karen?

 

make it simple

discriminate

a meridian

untaxable starched and white

tell me you will be there

a dutiful sentinel

i am always coming home

eye by eye

goodbye by good bye

 

i am what i am

a singer and a stranger

an expatriate lover

non-catholic roman in jeans

say you hold steady at home

say nothing will take you away

let it be a screen knocked upon

have your hello ready

let it be love and your parent’s cigarettes

a festival i can slip into

a tournament of kisses

new years in a hot crowded basement

a booth at tommys #12 seven brothas deep

and let me come

let me come

oh, let me come

and sleep