517 Social commentaries poems

Netflix the Green Man and any screen becomes a vineyard. Episodes cluster and climb, trellis narrative. Between the corn and lichen, creepers muster nine lives. They grow, divide, and splice, steal scenes by running fox grape, bittersweet, return on any handheld device as moonseed, woodbine, dodder, buckwheat — false buckwheat — note, though star- and heart-shaped. He trucks some mascot for our kids, glad-hands a sidekick dressed to burrow, root, and take them through their lessons rattling dad’s bouzouki nerves, mom’s percussive bones. Return, that ritual button, pressed like wine in HD, when end credits jolt. Stop time, we’re keyed up. Eternal return? Eternal jones.

I said Folk was dressed in Blues but hairier and hemped. After "We acoustic banjo disciples!" Jebediah said, "When and whereforth shall the bucolic blacks with good tempers come to see us pluck as Elizabeth Cotton intended?" We stole my Uncle Windchime's minivan, penned a simple ballad about the drag of lovelessness and drove the end of the chitlin' circuit to a joint skinny as a walk-in temple where our new folk was not that new, but strengthened by our twelve bar conviction. A month later, in pulled a parade of well meaning alabaster post adolescents. We noticed the sand-tanned and braless ones piled in the ladder-backed front row with their boyfriends first because beneath our twangor slept what I'll call a hunger for the outlawable. One night J asked me when sisters like Chapman would arrive. I shook my chin wool then, and placed my hand over the guitar string's wind- ow til it stilled. "When the moon's black," I said. "Be faithful."

Looks to me like you’ve been disinherited, mute-chanting     while sirens scatter the will into a dull blade that can be attached to the muzzle of a rifle like a shadow     or   braid joke.    Stray dreadlock at the bus stop/ black stranded on blue/ and grape flavored bayonet that’s the word, French, daisy-hued lemon enunciation of when. I heard you were leaving this country     and     you tried   holding Rockefeller to daddy’s     promise     in the corridor of  being reasonable     and that he who could not sing should be made to sing     and the crow   pecking at synthetic kinky reggae would stow ’way home     If we   start thinking about the things   that keep us   in   a   place     we know we shouldn’t be in      and as the gates swing   open   jump rope like boxers training in velour short-shorts   and spitfire   just to keep brides in the jungle     sequestered /  the sore lavender nipples of the dairy cows add a rude dimension to the tasting menu   but that’s   what feeds you this sour mold juice, like the tiny yelling hands that piece together these machines   american dolls   and   darn that     charming cardigan made in Stanley Cowell’s   incantatory   shroud of a   winter power outage  ,  every shimmering object settles   in cold blood but I will not be interrupted of it .I’m sending you two black babies the greeting card reads     the wood of the reed splits     like the chief’s prophecy/ mask ,     Ma     remembers     the one that sold   her first was   it her father     what is   a   father   bath on   netted   lots .  of stray turtle doves   in this tribe,   ruler and thundering     Bula gnawing on the missing leg     of a queen’s   stool, hers, m aa fa s nursing trumpet was   she her father     I will not be interrupted   even to be my own father   watching me   dance   and earn him   a village .  even by Black Christ of the Tropics   begging to learn his name   in silver verses     I will not be interrupted     I     will   not   be interrupted

congas          congas             congas congas          congas             congas desperate hands need a fix from the healthy skin of the congas congas the biggest threat to heroin congas make junkies hands healthier las venas se curan ligero con las congas conguito congas congueros salsa de guarapo melao azucarero congas on summer months take the place of the winter fire that the wino congregation seeks, the fire . . . que calienta los tecatos muertos de frío en el seno de un verano congas gather around con un rumboncito caliente . . . y ahí vienen los morenos a gozar con sus flautas y su soul jazz congas           congas tecata's milk gets warmed broken veins leave misery hypodermic needles melt from the voodoo curse of the conga madness the congas clean the gasses in the air, the congas burn out everything not natural to our people congas strong cuchifrito juice giving air condition to faces unmolested by the winds and the hot jungles of loisaida streets chévere, rumbones, me afectó me afectó, me afectó, me afectó chévere     rumbones     me afectó

News from a foreign country came, As if my treasures and my joys lay there; So much it did my heart inflame, ’Twas wont to call my soul into mine ear; Which thither went to meet Th’ approaching sweet, And on the threshold stood To entertain the secret good; It hover’d there As if ’twould leave mine ear, And was so eager to embrace Th’ expected tidings as they came, That it could change its dwelling place To meet the voice of fame. As if new tidings were the things Which did comprise my wished unknown treasure, Or else did bear them on their wings, With so much joy they came, with so much pleasure, My soul stood at the gate To recreate Itself with bliss, and woo Its speedier approach; a fuller view It fain would take, Yet journeys back would make Unto my heart, as if ’twould fain Go out to meet, yet stay within, Fitting a place to entertain And bring the tidings in. What sacred instinct did inspire My soul in childhood with an hope so strong? What secret force mov’d my desire T’ expect my joys beyond the seas, so young? Felicity I knew Was out of view; And being left alone, I thought all happiness was gone From earth; for this I long’d for absent bliss, Deeming that sure beyond the seas, Or else in something near at hand Which I knew not, since nought did please I knew, my bliss did stand. But little did the infant dream That all the treasures of the world were by, And that himself was so the cream And crown of all which round about did lie. Yet thus it was! The gem, The diadem, The ring enclosing all That stood upon this earthen ball; The heav’nly eye, Much wider than the sky, Wherein they all included were; The love, the soul, that was the king Made to possess them, did appear A very little thing.

So today, yet another Guyanese will try to run the border dressed in a dead housewife’s hair—all they’ve recovered since her disappearance in a downtown shopping mall. An “incident,” the paper says. Another “routine occurrence”— wresting my trust from the publicans assigned to keeping us safe, whole. Rather: vow to stay vigilant against the maiming that waits in each landscape, even in this mundane procession of muddy spring days. To see the tenacity of rooted hair for what it is: an illusion as fleeting as courage. To keep the meat between one’s ribs from being torn, to keep the hard marble of the cranium covered with its own skin. To stay vigilant. To watch the signs of violence stirring even in one's own machine. To keep both breasts attached and undiseased. To keep the womb empty; and yet to keep the organs living there from shriveling like uneaten fruit, from turning black and dropping. And not to mistake the danger for a simple matter of whether to put the body on the streets, of walking or of staying home—; there are household cleansers that can scar a woman deeper than a blade or dumdum bullets. The kitchen drawers are full of tools that lie unchaperoned. Even with the doors and windows bolted, in the safety of my bed, I am haunted by the sound of him (her, it, them) stalking the hallway, his long tongue already primed with Pavlovian drool. Or him waiting in the urine-soaked garages of this city's leading department stores, waiting to deliver up the kiss of a gunshot, the blunted kiss of a simple length of pipe. But of course I mean a larger fear: the kiss of amputation, the therapeutic kiss of cobalt. The kiss of a deformed child. Of briefcase efficiency and the forty-hour workweek. Of the tract home: the kiss of automatic garage-door openers that despite the dropped eyelid of their descent do nothing to bar a terror needing no window for entry: it resides within. And where do we turn for protection from our selves? My mother, for example, recommends marriage— to a physician or some other wealthy healer. Of course it’s him, leering from his station behind her shoulder, who’s making her say such things: the witch doctor, headhunter, the corporate shaman, his scalpel drawn & ready, my scalp his ticket out.

To a Venetian coin, the first Gazetta For its generic title became debtor. Whither excursive Fancy tends thy Flight? Like Eastern Caliph masking thee at night, By Vezier memory attended still, Thou pertly pryest in each domicil. Woe! to the Caitiff then who in his cups, Unconscious with sublimity he sups, Shall vow in Bacchanalian truth or fun Thou art not kindred to the glorious sun! I fear thee not, clandestine ambulator! Thou most sophistical and specious traitor To Truth and Reason, those imperial twins Whose Empire with thy Martyrdom begins. What is thy drift in brandishing a flag, Whose motto is a metamorphosed rag! As by those motley streaks of white and jet, I trace that aboriginal Gazette, The British prototype of ’65 From which all modern journals we derive. At first confined to faction’s revelations, Mere politics, or plodding speculations. Now to a semi-cyclopedia risen Which the assembled arts, delight to dizen. Its grand mosaic ground work ever graced With polished gems of miscellaneous taste. Philosophy his portico regains In columns where profoundest science reigns. While in relief a neighboring sphere discloses Clio’s with Nature’s kind exotic roses. A curious melange of mental food In fragments thus promiscuously strewed; Rising Aeronauts, and sinking funds, Fearful phenomena of stars or suns. Men in the stocks, uneasy as old Kent, Others appalled by fluctuating rent. New ministers to preach, and spirit lamps, Foreign intelligence from Courts and Camps Don-Pedro – and a fresh supply of leeches A ball that blackens, and a wash that bleaches, Here, Hymen’s herald to the world declares When Love triumphant at his shrine appears. There, tenderness bereaved, its tribute brings And Hope’s crushed odours on Death’s altar flings. Advertisements of various commodities, And anecdotes of Irish whims and oddities. Bills of mortality, and Board of Health, A fine green turtle – and a miser’s wealth. The prices current – a cheap hasty pudding, Detected fallacies – and falcon-hooding, Arrivals and departures – births and deaths, A dreadful Storm – and artificial wreaths, One fugitive forsakes the Cotton pod, In terror of the Supervisor’s rod. Another dreading critic castigation, Flies from the fields of rich imagination. Thus from discordant interests Genius hurled The elements that form this typic world.

They don’t play loud music. They don’t have a dog. I think they’re both mimes.

for Hsing Hui A thing as delicious as turning the last sound I heard into a word it cannot be or calling your hidden wish out into the broad space of the public to make you touch me instead of asking that I go naked, a thing as delicious as any of that would not be as safe as a dumb silence. I am resting my back with a cushion against the chair, sitting inside the ache when I soaked myself in a balm the way women went to the river and held things down until they were as wet as Jesus hanging in the rain, his pain the invocation of roars destroying the temple. The things I know are not the things you wish to know, or they are and I cannot give them to you until I see what you think of contracts, of what binds the mornings to unkind sunlight, what takes a hawk and lets it know there are things less grand than flying, things that crave.

for Lily Mae The job was easy: I tucked them in, kicked off my shoes, listened for the floor to go quiet. Everyone slept except one: outside her door, she paced, she hummed, holding the edge of her torn nightgown. Pointing, I told her: to bed.Your bed. But she would not stay there. She was old, older than my mother: manic, caught up in gibberish, determined to sleep on my cot— At first it was just to quiet her. I could only sleep if she slept, and I needed relief from myself. That is how she became a body next to mine whether or not I wanted there to be a body. She climbed into my bed. I let her sleep hot and damp against my spine. All night she rocked, she turned, she poked her spastic elbows into my calves and slurred her broken noises in the dark. All the old fans went round in clicks those summer nights—and she rolled in bed and kicked me in the head and I was happy. No words, no tricks, I just didn't love my loneliness. My mind felt cooler with her there. Beside her, I could have been anyone. She had no word for me and not the kind of mind to keep one. And if she kicked me, some nights, just for the fun of it—who was I to disappoint my one? Sometimes I imagine I was someone she won at a fair as the wheel spun under the floating, unfaltering sun and clicked each lucky one and one until I was happily undone.