To A White Worry Wart

New target white non gay
plus gun to the habit at.
Proof forbidden read
nigger linger coke jokes.
Spare no river mud
slinger slides and coughing.
Think hotel window
smoke signal flag flier.
Remember knife jacker
prison whacker doll slayer.
Imprint fertilizer convertible
hat box nursery blood school.
Tooth loser tummy acher
red carpet ambulance chaser.
Execution style stoned
strangles decapitated
ectopic wife and babies
tabloid butcher fish paper.
She's got one in there now,
better settle down
and get up quicker
and what if she says
what if it isn't right
what if we call Shaneequa
what if for a while?

Adulteress
(True Story based on a Photograph at the Circus)
It must be those black losses,
real cries that carry a long time
on their broken backs, should it
be right or wrong then or now,
should it be at all? He laughed
at the picture, a trapeze artist
and clown out of focus, the light
on the heads of the people pure,
complete and inside of their
wistful noggins watching the show
not a thing going on, not a thing.
His trunk was full of shampoo
and cleansers. He was a neurologist
and at that time, I loved neurologists.
Any neurologist could squeeze
and obtain the whole burlesque
without even a handshake.
Brain surgeons too but not
the pulmonologists who are all
evil, very evil people. Why?
Oh, I don’t know
guess it’s just a totem
to call my own, we all have those
special foods and rules.
I found out later and perhaps
too late that this meant not a thing.
It is a black loss and revives itself
& every so often, smacks me around.
It is a savage regeneration
of old enemies who presented
as pals, left sweet notes and ransoms,
parcels full of purse and perfumes
that later on gagged me, tortured
me into telling and torturing another,
and another and another, a grievous
charge and perilous penance that
might cost it all, cost every last cent
and still, I am no longer handsome or smart
but all the same, the lack of hell
in their sentiments shortchanges
the folks we know, the folks like me.
Or, at least, it seems to as we lean
this way and that way between
our very own rights and wrongs,
the strangest blessings in the world
arise like lights to show us the way/
Who do you suppose called it adultery?
Who first invented the theft and clergy?

So Far So Good

To erase it all up and memorize
the gaps run through it as mis-spellings
truly rain. Body up and pretend
to know what it is you are doing
again, wash it up and thread
it with one eye closed as they used
to do this in borrowed tenses.
That was silence for it is
not remembered as much until
the last licked thread lingers
a great long time in the wrong mouth,
the bitten cheeks and punctual
lips pursed to help fingers
to sequal the camel through,
balance the angels,
squish out the remaining air,
the light, the light in the gaps.
The light is in the gaps now,
tire dish now, surer
tire dish now, please be speaking
on between sundowns. On after the overs
and he is gone now, those are his now.
This isn't ours or us anymore.
Some sentences tear apart and quick
convalescence, big peace, loads of hope.

To erase it all up and memorize the gaps run through it as misspellings truly rain. Body up and pretend to know what it is you are doing again, wash it up and thread it with one eye closed as they used to do in the borrowed tenses. That was silence for it is not remembered as much until the last licked thread lingers a great long time in the wrong mouths, the bitten cheeks and punctual lips pursed to help fingers squeeze the camel through, balance the angels, squish out the remaining air, the light, the light in the gaps.