Boys from the Congo a Go Go

Ghetto trucks pick up boys at corner of Intervale dropped of at art galleries
Into Williamsburg they come, in the dark their teeth white, their eyes bright
It’s not as if prison was a destination but with grit they are stone, muscular
With very little knowledge of oil pastel, chalk marks of dead bodies seen
Spray paint on neighborhood walls, Hello my name is Monk from Zanzibar
I have meditated on a book of Allah, fasted for months, chanted days on end
This vehicle chugs along pathways and drive ways, drive byes gone away
Blood shed, bodies buried six feet deep, in harmony songs are sung, a cheer
Emerging, sidewalks change from gangs to couples, stylish, white fashion
Bodegas merge into supermarkets, groups of people under translucent light
Clothes they wear fall far from city stores, washed up along river shores
Dark corners, different languages collide, Hasidic, barrage of street hustlers
Soundtrack to a Wes Anderson film, these night battles rage on, star studded
Headlights dim, garbage strong, no license, parking among filth they arrive
Inside the art mongers mate under cleverness, what creatures among them
Who and what is cool, slaves, celebrate this thing called art, show mercy
Let there be sparks, they are men on parole, walk them through decadence
Men of color, allow yourselves this fancy, follow each and everyone around
Where do the men go, Mark Rothkos sipping white wine, call it the Congo
Call it a session in hell, mark of thieves thieving, at all hours speculating
Magdalena make music with me, I am black, not one here beats a drum
We come from the Congo, Mark Rothko, Mark Rothko, we have come
For the head of Robert Longo, The Cities, what man made this, remarkable
All the while the movie reel, images revolve on a screen, fall upon your face
You are black mystic misunderstood, you are a dream revealing, paint it
Paint a poster, place it here, now, call it Congolese, indeed a masterpiece
When the night watch men drift, another truck arrives, this Congo a Go Go
The boys packed in at corner of Bedford, dropped off at Intervale Avenue

Black No. 5

Night’s light, darkness loom, through these windows, a faulted bulb
God’s great sky empty at last, no victories won, tonight we die slowly
Vacate this space but where do we go, the streets are violence purple
Rottweiler barely visible froths at the mouth, at the corners it creeps
Walk don’t run, if fear overcomes, chime the bells in your heart then
We are wanting, desire calls, where do we go, taking turns at gossip
Who do you know, I sat with David Bowie, I kissed Shalom Harlow
To this I give a dollar for your pain, let’s fight, let blood come soon
Test these fingers into a knuckle; pick up a nickel for all that we are
This evening will never pass; let us share in brokenness misfortunes
Seated at the cusp of death, in breathing words are invisible, no sound
Pure shock, with eyes that quiver, mouths that tremble, reminiscing
An artist’s past, Chagall in Russia, bring us romance, bring us fame
Let these walls warp, time out of mind, now quiet, awaiting trouble
What soldier would walk in here, without a gun, what would he want
What lives would he take, what thieves carry out a crime for a dime
Fear brings us close, on these grounds we quake, staircase by staircase
Slow motion, fingers rub over plastered walls, sweat at the tip, bruise
Make your way into this outside world welcoming no strangers, run
Fear for your life, be prepared, suffocate from grey, there is no room
What charms these men who run backwards, not fearing lamp posts
Cruise of cars crash, buildings stand emptied, rush for stolen goods
Family’s wake, gathered hands in groups, centuries’ ghosts crawling
Pathways take, groan of love, stranger’s embrace, if lust should last
Lives brought into this world, a future perhaps, but there is no future
Not when fire burns, electric poles ignite flames, hope is a step away
City lit by candles, gather as they march, requiem, what god overlooks
A horror as this, what life emerges from a nightmare as this, embark
Roam as the river of people roam, let your mind’s eye see, everything
For there is nothing, other worlds miles away are green, busy roads
Rhythm of life, curtain’s call, repetition after repetition, life goes on
Here the water’s well run dry, gutters stench, people fall to fall again
Ascend this time, by torch light make your way, up a stairwell you go
Kingdom awaits, place of hope and home, without the enemy’s touch
Ignite an inner light, a steam that keeps you warm, away from benches
Parked outside, where other’s lament, in sleep they keep, death to come

Martin Luther King, look at what Andy Warhol
Done to my Skin

My generation didn’t come from civil rights, we never marched a million
Martin Luther King was to Lincoln Memorial, what we were to Studio 54
Andy Warhol robbed us of our skin, most of us survived through graffiti
Painted these walls and subway cars with poetry, hip hop was our culture
Some of us fell by the way side, white washed by European intellectualism
In the books we read, we saw potential, cursing the roots of Nat Turner
A history we once were, enslaved, kept hidden from that wondrous light
Our conscience polluted in the world of art, thinking Picasso was a god
For he saw in the masks of Africa, what became Demoiselles D’Avignon
As prostitutes are women of the streets, mother figure is an African woman
Kingdom of discos, music playing, we danced a dance of sex and drugs
There were no police men with clubs beating down on our flesh, we sexed
In bathroom stalls, sniffed cocaine from finger nails, crashed birthday orgies
Where was our Selma, Where was Mississippi, New York, New York City
Punk suicides on the Bowery, mob lynchings late at night, who were we
Defined by decades, from clothes we wore, music that made us, we died
Overdoses, burning churches, serial killer, murdered children, we passed
Let the king be Basquiat, we followed him through the galleries of Soho
But there is only one Martin Luther whose freedom of speech we sing
Call up the artisans, black painters from Brooklyn to Harlem, let it be told
Beauty is in our native tongue, comes from within our bodies onto our skin
Brown colored mud, Burnt Sienna, I choose in painting mother and child,
What is this Neo Expressionism, I do not understand, a life made so white
Be it Titanium and Cadmium red, pink ballerinas in tutus, Manet or Monet
Where are my tribal dances, ones I did in Accra, there were my romances
Origin of the muse, school girls climbing staircases, how could I ever refuse
For these orange skinned women, I paint with yellow and rouge, I digress
From the essence of woman kind, braided dark skinned women walking
Marching for our soul’s salvation, a time when the word “colored” was in
A fight we fought so far from sin, but it was peace charging from within
Our hearts bound by glory, a walk of freedom, if for a time worlds apart
We sat at different counters, rained on different parades, it was a bright sun
Under which we prayed, black skin in white shirts, pale faces in white hoods
Basquiat was king, Warhol messiah, freedom was sound, gathered around
Night clubs and Danceterias, painted faces, pink pastel, what a nightmare
To be black in a transparent world, made invisible under a thousand bulbs

Ghetto Girls be Tick Tocking Out of Time
While You Glamorizing in your Faux Fur

Laid my eyes on an African model, why the white man wash you so clean
Made your hair out so straight, put you up on the cover of a magazine
Walking the runway like a soldier, never smiling, arms collected at the side
Have you no pride, little sister, tell me, is it money you putting out for
Was it your daddy that made you this way, done married a white woman
Or is it the high yella you come from, Southern girls sure do look fine
Somebody impregnated your mind, could have been a French photographer
Tell me young girl, why your body so thin, sitting there looking like a boy
Tomorrow, it’s Italy, next week Paris, don’t you get tired of putting up face
Wearing them outfits, ain’t no black woman ever wore her that, damn no
Poor girl, what you think you white, where you think that color comes from
Comes from a black man, he made you who you are, can’t hide from truth
Sure enough them white boys come looking for honey, taste of black sugar
Sitting around in clubs and bars getting high and wasted, would you put out
Would you raise your leg for a white man, or does he drug it out of you
Out in ghettos black girls know where it’s at, they sure do shake their money
Watch them hang a corner, talking girl talk, what their man done this time
Up late, getting done, what they ain’t got they get some, they be ticking
Like a bomb, got enough trouble on their mind, now they walking a fine line
What don’t they know about their baby daddy, he’s out there in the streets
Pushing, shoving, out of love, out of luck, one foot at home, one foot in jail
They got skin, they got color on their skin, black as gun powder, black faces
White teeth, they shake their bottoms in blue jeans, read up on magazines
African model with your hair so straight, watch them walk, watch them talk
They tick tocking out of time, while you glamorizing in your faux furs

Black Mother, White Child

Mama Trinidad, push white baby boy so slow, ride the bus along 5th Avenue
Blonde, blue eyes watching, wondering where his mama at, where she be

They look on, faces like Pablo Picasso, three eyes and two crooked noses
But you got them devil eyes, looked upon a snake outside a Baptist church

Oh Mama, don’t feel the pressure, no rain, the sun sure looks pretty today
Come a time when you make his bed, set your eyes deep on all you see

You come from a black world, did with hands and you did with your mind
But you molded, what you never learned in school, became a golden rule

Love more than your kind, raise a child, find so many reasons in this world
What makes him a boy or girl, is it a dress she wears, or does he shoot a gun

I was brought up by young women with stoned skin, washed me in a bin
Soap and water, they cleaned me of dirt, dried me off with a white towel

How they came into the city, looking for the white man’s education, but no
There was none, instead they cooked through out the day, made little money

Washing pots and pans, sweeping mats and floors, polishing off doors
Closing them behind, sleeping, a room with mosquitoes and mice, a sacrifice

Tell me stories about when you sat with your grandma, making sense
This cruel world, where they walked miles to fetch water, fire made of wood

Served white men in white suits, trouble it took, for all the days spent
She was not like the other girls, married off, scented candles and pearls

Taken away by money men, lived in houses abroad, raised yellow children
For them you hold no spite, they shined in a different light, faces of love

Beautiful, cream colored, eyes that saw into night, white lies, blonde tresses
Iron these clothes ever so slow, try them on with your mind, let not worry

Paint a dirty picture, her husband gives you money, it comes from love
What you provide for them, could never come from a girl who lives above

Never rode me a Horse in The Appalachian Hills

Never rode me a horse in the Appalachian Hills, never roped me cattle
Never sat with Johnny Cash at Folsom prison, never loved me June
But I listened to the radio, heard me some Hank and the honky tonk
Sang along to “Hey Good Lookin’,” “He Stopped Loving Her Today”

Had me the blues, but I never bothered to sing, instead I cried and cried
Sat on my bed and told myself lies, like Howling Wolf with a guitar
Born so blue couldn’t tell the difference between rain water and tears
Walked the earth alone for years and years, never a care for the world

Never loved me a Big Mama Thorton, she came to me in an Italian girl
What I would have loved in an Odetta, came in a whore from Kentucky
These were the lies I told, that love was a country girl, some Loretta Lyn
Drinking with me at a bar, looking her over, crying onto my shoulder

Country came to the Big Apple, cow girls by their lonesome in subway cars
People watching them over with spite, Dottie Wests in pretty flower dresses
Cowboy boots and lipstick, jonesing the George Joneses in cowboy hats
Doing a two-step at Denim and Diamonds, drinking up on Budweiser beer

It was the year when white guys sat in watering holes, drinking dollar drafts
Listening to Merle Haggard, talking about things that made them itch
A woman that had come and gone, so beautifully turned into a country song
So I sat there, white folk all around me, never a cuss or a fight to be had

They called me the African Cow Heck, sure loved me some rock and roll
White ass music played by city slickers, music we used to call our very own
Given a twitch, some back beat bitchin’ blues, sung by long haired men
In their dirty jeans they stood like trees, I scratched from Cobain’s disease

On some street corners the black boys were beating drums, stick to finger
Beat that box all day long; it was the blues they were crying, dying inside
From baby mama trouble, looking to make money, begging for some love
Somehow they all disappeared, like they had been put to sleep by death

But they were birthed many a moon ago in neighborhoods like the Bronx
Where gang members took to the dirty streets with their break dancing
Hip hop was born; I grew to love Sugar Hill Gang’s Rapper’s Delight
UTFO and Houdini, female rappers like Roxanne Shante and MC Lyte

But Country came to the Big Apple, that year when cowgirls were singing
From “Ways to be Wicked” to “Passionate Kisses,” I bought my records
At Bleecker Bob's Records; paid cash for albums like Pontiac, Guitar Town
Sang along to “Guitars and Cadillacs” “She’s no lady, She’s my wife,”

It was the year when white guys sat in watering holes drinking dollar drafts
Listening to Merle Haggard, talking about things that made them itch
A woman that had come and gone, so beautifully turned into a country song
So I sat there, white folk all around me, never a cuss or a fight to be had

They called me the African Cow Heck, sure loved me some rock and roll
White ass music played by city slickers, music we used to call our very own
Given a twitch, some back beat bitchin’ blues, sung by long haired men
In their dirty jeans they stood like trees, I scratched from Cobain’s disease

In a Café Called Heaven, I dreamt of White Girls

Way back when, heart of Mississippi I’d be dating a nappy haired girl
But I’m living in the city, where the girls come from all over the world

Couldn’t tell you how I got to be this way, but I looked at an Irish girl
The most fragile thing I’d ever seen, sitting before me like a sick bird

It was something I didn’t know then, that a blonde chile had me illing
Turned my back on the afro do’s on big boned girls, who were willing

They saw me as a brown boy from Africa, swung on trees in the jungle
I never did cuddle or mingle, a boy named Terrence called me monkey

Grew up on honky tonk, drinking beer at the bars, sitting with white boys
Listening to Steve Earle and Dwight Yoakem, country in the Big Apple

We was heavy metal, we was grunge, Kurt Cobain killed himself with a gun
Grew up on Africa Bambaataa and RUN DMC, schooled me some EPMD

But the brothas were never around, it was always the Latinos and Chicanos
Learned about sex from an Italian girl, not a Bronx girl from underground

They were getting jumped in Brooklyn, bringing white girls to Bensonhurst
I sat in cafes drinking coffee with women from Belgium, un petit peu

The Little Prince, she promised me a love letter if I read The Little Prince
Comment ca va? Ate fast food with French girls, art films with Israeli divas

In a world so white I never saw a black person, Benetton was the exception
Came about some black models from the United Nations, ebony sensation

Gorgeous black girls who did fashion, running away with the kente cloth
They were getting it on with business men, I was too rock and roll then

Wearing Doc Martins, listening to Einsturzende Neubauten, going to Heaven
Sat smoking herb with kids from Portland, Oregon, the trend had begun

High school girls with cigarettes, sipping chocolate mochas with palookas
Old men with wrinkled faces, put in place to sit and gawk, watch them talk

Like the blonde Irish girl named Siobhan, not one black girl to be found
I seduced one into singing for me, a Jewish high school Liza Minelli

She had a thing or two for the black boys, made them out to be vampires
Kept a book of poetry and paintings, had her thinking we were lovers

It was a love of song and creation, waking up to snow, listening to Billy Joel
I wouldn’t have survived Mississippi or that night in Howard Beach

When black boys were beaten bad for the color of their skin, call it sin
But the white world show me the way, when I was rejected, left in a bin

Shut out from the world, not a friend to my name, into my life they came
One after the other, from German boys to Swedish hustlers, we were friends

Met their Spanish mamitas who were into European men, I was lonely then
It was a time of Public Enemy and Do the Right Thing, hip hop songs

Where were the black boys who played Brand Nubian all night long
To this I say I had a black brother who rhymed with the best of them

Took his troubles to a Harlem roof top, fell a thousand miles down
It was time for change, call back ghosts of lynchings, burning churches

Changed my white name to my birth name, called up the spirit of Nkrumah
Father figure of my mother land, I hadn’t it in me to be a white man

To them I was colored, but they had taught me how to act, in their schools
And uniforms, played the fool, but what for, shed tears many times before

To be black and alone wouldn’t be the worse thing, sitting at a café
Taking it all in, the white boys drinking, the white girls talking about men

Crack Whore Blues

A woman loved me, she didn’t love me like that, she was a crack whore
But I lived with a man who loved her, she be skeezin’, when he went out
She come around, wanting to bake bread, in a cup so small, she made bread

Ain’t never found a brown skinned woman who loved me, I’m outrageous
Black folk think I’m contagious, gots the mind of a fool, some rock and roll
Some rock and roll got in my soul, made me think I’m a white man, sucker

I keep a collection of The Rolling Stones, and Bob Marley and the Wailers
White boys think I’m Bob Marley, they think I wanna get high, dunno why
I write like genius, got that Albert Einstein in me, got literature in my blood

So why she coming onto me, black ladies never give me the time of day
They think I’m crazy, like their cousin, Tarell, who high on some dope
Ain’t never had a job, probably got AIDS or something, messing around

But I ain’t sick like that, just don’t got my screws screwed on tight, shit
I can talk, I can have a conversation with a white man and turn around
Talk to a thug bout bullshit, some say I’m fucked up, but they like my shit

I’m an artist, I paint women, white women, they come in from all places
From Queens to Brooklyn, they come knock on my door, paint them naked
I don’t fuck ‘em, I can’t, it’s a job, gots my oil paint, canvas and everything

I set ‘em up in a studio, they sit and pose, I put up some light, they look fine
Their bodies naked, sometimes I put a cloth in back, something with colors
Stand back with my easel and start, I look over their body, never their eyes

It’s like love but it ain’t love, we be fucking and kissing in our minds
But we be working, when we done I give ‘em some loot, they go on out
I pop pills, been popping pills for thirty years, not that kind, it’s for my mind

See, when I was a boy, I tried to kill myself, mama brought me to a doc
Mother fucker said I was crazy, there was something wrong with my head
He had me taking pills, had seizures, been put up in a nut tank, almost died

So many times, been out with a woman with one good leg, others who said
“Sure do love the way you walk, I love the way you strut brother man,”
But they were whores, whores on the street, I’m whacked out like that

I can go for years without fucking, lesbians like me, I can talk to young girls
They ain’t scared of me, young white girls talking to a grown black man
Where in the world, so this crack whore would sit with me, her face fucked

Looked like a mask, when she spoke it was like she had food in her moth
Dark skin girl, stone wicked, giving up the skunk late at night, I heard them
In the morning they be fighting, I raised hell, got in the middle and cussed

What a bitch like that want from me, what I’d do to her, would I kiss her
Would I touch a crack whore, make love while her man was out begging
We would sit and talk, I told her bout my problems, what was on my mind

She sat there and listened, gave me her fucked up breath, she never let me on
But would she do me if I came on to her, sat in my bed late at night thinking
Wondering, dreaming, what it’d be like if this girl and I ever made romance,

It made me sick in the mouth, ain’t never had a problem with women, never
But I wondered what a crack whore would find in me, what would she want
Didn’t take me long to realize, in my heart, I would have given her the world

Sitting in Jail, Thinking of Snow

Why the snow gots to be so white when I’m feeling so black and blue
Ain’t nobody warned me about the weather today, I’ve been sleeping
Closing my eyes and dreaming, black listing every white mother fucka
See, I know no white person who ever loved a brotha, real talk son
We the garbage collectors, we the ones who pick up after white folk
Clean their toilets of dirt, but I’ve been sleeping, dreaming, my eyes shut
Holed up in this here room, where I can see the snow coming down fast

Ain’t eaten for days, once in a while they stick a plate underneath the door
It’s never something I want, fried pork and beans, I go hungry, I go hungry
Hungry to be in the arms of a woman, a baddass woman with big arms
To hold me, squeeze the flesh that falls from her body, turn her upside down
But I ain’t done nothing wrong, would never hurt a woman, not in this life
Or any other life, would I ever touch a woman the wrong way, I couldn’t
I know love, I know the love of my grandmamma, she the one who raise me

Bought me books, sat with me and read, stories about white folk, their world
How not to be when I came across white folk, been this way ever since
But it was a night I surely wanna forget, when I picked up a white woman
Sure was fine, had the curves of a black girl, all that hair, straight black hair
Sat with me by the bar, I was sitting she was standing, turned her back
Faced me with her side, then she turn around facing the bar, always smiling
With her eyes, with her mouth, sipping her drink, I put my hand around her

Stood up, got a bit closer, talked right into her about getting the hell out
Leaving that bar with all the colored lights, we was leaving, we was feening
But I never touched her, never put a hand on her, we was on my bed
Talking up some shit, she was next to me all perfect and fine, I make a move
She slap my hand away, it was like that through the night, we slept together
On my bed, with all our clothes on, I make a move she slap my hand away
Somehow I kept to myself, a man like me, a girl like that, where were we at

I got so mad, I damn near kicked her out, I lay there breathing, thinking
What in the world do I do with this woman, bitch didn’t wanna give it up
Our bodies curled up on that bed, in our clothes, no words were said
Woke up in the morning she wanted cappuccino, we had gotten into a fight
Didn’t take long before police were on my shit, fucking bitch cried rape
Blamed my ass for everything, getting her drugs and fucking her
Maybe I got her the drugs, maybe I fucked her, but I didn’t kill her

So why am I here, in this room, sitting in the dark, why am I here
When out there it’s snowing, snowing white powder, kind I used to sell
She was a ho, wanted to get high, now she got my ass in trouble doing time
All that for no nookie, but you know when you gots a victim it’s like sex
It feels like sex, you hand over the smack, look her in the eye, she wants it
She wants it more than cock, never figured her for a crack ho but she was
When it rains, it pours, when it snows, I gets high, thinking of white folk

King of Mixed Tapes

In an art class she schooled me on acid jazz, that high grade funk
She painted like it was the last night on earth, sure had imagination
Couldn’t tell if it was Matisse or a midnight summer’s dream, but oh
How she stood facing the wall with all that brown paper, she stood
On a ladder, stroke by stroke, painted with colors, blue, black, yellow
Red splotches, all aglow, then she would come down from her tower
Look over what she had done, you pretty little thing, you deserve it all
You belong some where else, where girls run free, paint on their faces
Up and down stair cases, chasing French boys, smoking skinny cigars

Call me the master of mixed tapes, I put a handle on you with my voice
Spitting words, Romeo, Romeo, Black Romeo, courting European girls
She was French American, her mother was French, she spoke American
I came on like an African, not like the ghetto boys working up a sweat
I spoke her language, like I’ve been to Paris, France, who was I kidding
My ass never left New York, but I picked up on it watching French movies
So like I made her a tape, put some shit on it like a d.j., I talked smack
Made it sound really nice, like ice, tape recorded some boogie music
Latin, Japanese, African, made it like it was something special she’d keep

So she makes me a mixed tape, talks up some shit about how it made her day
Got home with a bottle and wine glasses, sat there to listen to my mixed tape
Listening to her speak, she sounded like a white girl, winy and shit, but oh
Girl had class, she was French, her mother was French, she spoke American
She started off her tape with Latino music because I started mine with Latino
It was Eddie Palmieri singing Café, Tostao y Colao, I was chilling for real
She recorded some music then said some shit in that winy white girl voice
She had class, she was French, her mother was French, she spoke American
I read her poetry so she read me poetry, ended the tape with a salute to ho’s

I wouldn’t have called ‘em ho’s but I was dating a ho, whip bone ass
She had money in a stash, met her at my mother’s fiftieth birthday party
Swore she would have loved me right there on that carpet with all the elders
Trick was she wanted my Pappa, couldn’t have him so she came after me
Took a while but one night she had me at a hotel, it had been a long time
She lived with her man, could not get rid of him, so I would come over
Saturday nights she made a spread of ham, cheese and crackers, I’d walk in
As he was leaving we talked hockey, the Rangers were doing well then
We’d eat on up, then get into her bedroom and lose it, I mean lose it all night

I had the French girl come over for dinner, I was good at making her dinner
My ho, I came over Saturday nights, made her dinner, then we balled on up
Wasn’t sure why I wanted the French girl over for dinner, I wasn’t into her
She had class, she was French, her mother was French, she spoke American
My lover was going to a party at the United Nations, she wanted me to come
But I told her I was expecting the French girl, she left us by our lonesome
I played good, didn’t do nothing funny, just danced that white ass off some
She was so happy to be there, look on her face was like joy, dancing oh yeah
My lover’s man had left for good, I brought her into his room, like what for
Sure didn’t know what for, we were smoking some cigarettes, I pull up close
She backs me the fuck back, my lady gets home and she walks into her room

So it was the night of dinner I bought some shit to cook, she sat there quiet
I make everything good, French girl walks in with flowers, smiling and shit
That day she gave me a card “I’m looking forward to a legendary night”
We sat at the table, champagne, my lover liked champagne, glass after glass,
Dinner is ready, we sitting there eating plantains, okra and plantains, but oh
She was French, never could tell, she loved it, wrapped her lips over the fork
When it was over I put on some music, she wanted to dance, I wanted to
My lover wasn’t hearing it, she walked into her bedroom, I danced with her
The French girl and I were dancing, she was so happy to be there, dancing
I walked her out came back, my lover was like you wanted to fuck her
She had class, she was French, her mother was French, she spoke American

Sat with a Refugee Talking Books

Who’s your daddy! Who burns up the gas some!
Drives you from your momma’s house to the ball park
Your daddy ain’t home, he left day you were born
Walked out with the stomach pains, unpaid bills

Now where do you turn when you wanna talk ball
Who do you toss the ball to on the basketball court
Your daddy must’ve known you were gonna be a boy
He picked up on his skills drove right down the lane

What am I to you, do you take me for an older brother
Not a brother from the same mother but a trigger fella’
Beating up her ass some, giving him the middle finger
Politicking with the ballers bout the next black President

I come from a list of men who sat with my father drinking
He breathed his gin tonic like I breathed my first martini
In our modest African home they would come thirsty
Thirsty for soup, hungry for conversations about politics

I called them uncles, not brothers of my father’s family tree
They were home and by being home they were family
From the professor to the ambassador, they were gentlemen
Sat in groups, drinks in hand, making sense of black struggle

I called him uncle, he drove past my father day I was born
Overwhelmed and overjoyed, my father said, “I’m a father”
He was like my father, kind and cold with a sailor’s charm
But we spoke, unlike my father, he and I took time to speak

Where were you when the word Negro was the word for blacks
Did you read Invisible Man or Confessions of Nat Turner
He spoke against his country, wrote about it in a memoir
Oh Ghana did I ever know you as a woman in kente cloth

I have lost touch with all the girls at the Royal Preparatory
In an American country I dream of philosophy and love
Sit with a woman talk Charles Bukowski then make love
Would she come, extensions in her hair, black as night

I am envisioning an Afro Punk who pays homage to Bjork
In a voice so mellifluous she sings about black beauty
On a white cloud she braids her hair, paints her lips purple
Would he understand, my uncle, my friend, my father’s other

He recommended Tony Morisson’s Beloved, The Bluest Eye
He taught me how to play white when the world turned
Be able to honor my black pride as the son of a father figure
We were warm, our words were warm, like flat Heineken beer

He was to American music what my father was to mathematics
If Marvin Gaye could spin a web I’d be Wittgenstein with a chalk
Who are the soldiers traveling through the forest of my father’s mind
It’s a dead world, I feel no life, it’s a dead world, nothing but strife

Whether we sat in the company of the many, father looked unimpressed
Watching me go on about adventures in the words I had published
Books I had read, Martin and Kingsley Amis, my uncle knew of them
I listened as his words added to the music, African flavored pop

So go look for your daddy, tell him why you want him in your life
For the nights before you go to bed, he can read you a book
For some of us our black fathers cried the day we were born
Others saw it as a death sentence, living to build license plates

Listening to the Commodores
With my Baby banging on my Door

Sister She devil, we ain’t making it like it’s Saturday night, honey boo
Don’t come a knocking, I mo’ put up a fight, don’t want your ass round here
Sitting here by myself, don’t feel nothing, got a Budweiser beer in my hand
I will make a stand, if you ever get the nerve to call me, I promise you
I promise you, I won’t pick up the phone, go on, leave a message, go on
Talk on up about this that and the other thing, we ain’t in love, we make love
Come bang on my door, stand there and shout, I mo’ call the police station
So don’t bother coming round here, sitting here with my beer watching t.v.
Tyrone wants me over his house, the boys are playing dice, but I ain’t going
Your sorry ass is either behind my door, or you waiting by the street corner
What is this here thing you call love, all you do is shout, you break my heart
Sometimes I feel like moving to Montenegro, don’t know where in hell
Just some place where nobody knows me, I can drink alone by my lonesome
If I ever felt like it, I would walk out of my hotel, go on down find a whore
She do me right, I know, don’t want nothing to do with a white woman
But I know, she bend her ass for me, suck my dick for me, I do her well
Where they at, ain’t seen ‘em round here, girls be hustling, taking my money
I work hard for my money, we had a child now he’s all grown up and gone
Ain’t seen that boy for God knows how long, he calls up when he needs me
Needs me to bail his ass outta jail, but where in hell is he at, where is he at
When his mama needs a run to the store, when his daddy wants more wine
I know it’s Saturday night, got some young ones I’m balling, ain’t telling
No, I ain’t telling, now I know you know, that’s why you waiting out there
Waiting to let me have it, yeah I know you can handle a gun, been to war
But I ain’t scared of you, I been to war myself, shot a few right in the eye
Man, I earned a purple heart, can’t you see, can’t you see I got PTSD
What more you want from me, what in hell do you want me to do, we shop
I take you out shopping, I buy you fur, gold, diamond rings, ain’t it enough
Why you wanna mess with me, you can’t sit there and have a simple talk
Always gotta be something, always gotta be I hurt you, I fucked with you
We ain’t doing it like we used to, our bed ain’t rocking no more, it ain’t
I hump these girls ‘cause they give me what I want, they know for sure
So stand out there, bang the door if you want, I mo’ put on some soul music
Kick back, listen to The Commodores, Brick House, letting it all hang out

Waking Lucifer at Church of Good Shepherd

Messing with the muse, sipping yolk from the egg shell, raw, reign on
I make blood magic, watch me possess these beautiful specks of light
Animals, stage birds, flocking to their dress rehearsals, hit your mark
Dance, the ballerina stance, fall into the arms of Horatio, street slut
Take me through the drugs, disco diva, petite amie, bi polar Deneuve
All the world’s thieves, at night they romp, Christina Christman allure
White turmoil, tears from Karen Black, mascara runs down her cheeks
Marionette, marionette, Play Misty for Me, I’m your Midnight Cowboy
Tell it to the mountains, waking Lucifer from Church of Good Shepherd
On these steps I curse Lolita, theater school girl with a long neck rifle
On these steps I see the naked bottom of Lulu, schizophrenic Nubian
They gather like sheep, marching them through a voluptuous horror
All eyes on me, I claim authority, I play the role of king in a lion’s den
Carcass, Magdalena, in memoriam, fading actress, lover, wife, Jessica
Lie on this table mattress, shake, rattle and roll, vulvalaria, water demon
Kitchen goddesses listen while you maim me, beast, afternoon delight
March the extras into the basement, lead actor, supporting role, heavy
These are the words you speak, say it with color, deliver them onto me
These are the girls who play the part, cuddle them until they blossom
Taking turns playing hero, action, walk us through your monologue
Breath the breath of Julius Caesar, keep us under your spell, now cut
Watch as your reading partner poses, she stretches her arms to and fro
Bends over until she touches the floor, grits her teeth, widens her yes
Refrain, come, let us gather our thoughts, I’m hanging on to surrender
Refresh your minds as to why we are here, we are catching luminescence
Like soldiers we embark on a journey, on this stage, far apart and separate
Closely bound, reformed, this is our Greek theater, we know no boundaries
When it’s all said and done, they carry our bodies one by one to grave

These Words I said to a Woman,
Hair as Silk, Skin White as Powder

If I were to tell you that I open up my mouth and speak to God,
You’d probably say I needed medicine, put up in a straight jacket
Hold up in a tank, where the wild ones bow down call to Allah
Look me in the eye, I’m a brown skin man who has sat with God
Rested on his shoulder, felt his kingdom wash me down like water
You’d probably never understand, how mother held my hand
A child, in a wide open space we sat, a roof high above protected
Money they collected, but did I know we gave as much as received
Lover of light behold me, I’ve been among the stars, lover of light
Spirit angel, come guide me, take me as far as the sun, oh spirit angel
For it was a woman, hair as silk, skin of skin, white as powder
These words I said, that it is a God from which I come, will return
She listened, carefully spoke, told me I sounded like a hip hop song,
How can I call her friend, will she ever know I need a conscience
That God is a black ghetto super star, Black Skin Head Jesus Christ
Would take a bullet from a gun, shield me from a slayer’s knife
I’ve never shed blood, but my skin has known the whip, bending
From a headmaster, who was he, not my god, nothing but a pig
To this day I give a face, blessed is the man who worships in kind
Knows of a conscience greater than his, to this I call a God send
A knowing friend who walks with me, builds a strong second skin
Come, let us go away to find him, we need not get to Bethlehem
Sit with me, have a drink, discover, let these words pour from me
Collect them as they fill the air, in this space we build our kingdom
Knowing of a holier person, the unique reason we have come together
My reflection in the mirror is a face, a face like mine, my eyes I close
Head I bow, to lift my eyes I look up to praise, with words I wonder
This house is a garden, a place of love, when I sleep, I am one with God

Black Sugar melts in my Mouth

Honey sister chile, jerry curled, sleeping, wearing a shower cap
Lying next to you is your true blooded sister, young, oh so fine
But it is you I look at, it is you I have found something I want
Something that could keep them art girls from cussing at me
Left to think the world was white, that love was a white girl
Sitting with oil paint on her blue jeans, blond hair, lips so thin
What else would a Southern Kentucky whore want from a brotha
Waiting, wet in her palm, wet in her eyes, wet between her thighs

I saw you honey sister chile, I looked in the mirror and I said
Why not you, why not free myself from evil, that white world
So we began that long distance, a love affair over the phone
How we spent nights wishing we were closer, wanting to touch
You came back again to my mother’s home, to fit your prom dress
We went to see a movie, a white man’s movie about a Thief and a Cook
I held your body then, kissing you while two white girls were watching
Ten years went by, we never spoke, we never touched, we never called

Mama told me you had moved to the Bronx, living on Grand Concourse
You came by in a car, we drove around until we stopped at the MET
Parked and isolated in the dark, we kissed, I had your lips full on mine
So I would come over, in your car we would drive, I would wait for you
OBGYN, you brought babies into this world, but honey sister girl
No man had ever opened you up, made love last a long time
Virgin before my eyes, when we first made love, you cried for God
Your body like a truck, I hit it, had my finger prints on it, damn

I taught you the white man’s love, tied your legs to the bed
You fed me the white man’s love, bound my eyes, made me taste red

When you moved to another apartment, I had gotten on as a star
People paid money to come see me work, I was a man of the stage
So I didn’t love you the way I could, I didn’t touch you when you wanted
Driving up the FDR, we fought, spinning the wheel, damn near crashing
We fought, why for ten years, we never bothered to call, not even a letter

Last I heard you had died, my only black lover, died of a brain aneurysm
The white girls are virtual now, behind computers they keep to themselves
Send me waves over the world wide internet, fall for me on Facebook
It took ten years for us to find love, been forever since I new black love
Looking over pictures of black women, naked, in their beauty clothed
Their breasts, blossoming, thick, oh yes they are, mouths so full
Shades of black, from coffee to caramel, I look over these pictures
Like a social experiment, seeping into my conscience the black woman

For all that the European man did for me he took away my sight
Through his white lenses I saw skinny bones and freckles, green eyes
Now I look over these pictures on line and I know what I have missed
I’ve come from a white man’s disease of what is love, what is beauty
Now I see the black woman, I am possessed by the earth, I am man
I own up to my inside, that world I come from, made white by professors

So now I continue to look at these pictures of black women, honey chile
Sister girl, Baby cuz, lover girl, shorty, Coffee, brown skin love
I give of you my heart, forgive my mind, it’s Eurocentric, that’s my disease
See me as a black man who has seen more than most, I bring you wisdom
I bring you love from Africa, my knowledge is love, seeps into your skin
Bring me out from this social disease, bring me into a whole new world

A world where a black woman looks me in the eye, does not judge me
Sees me as a man, a modernist man, a gentle man:

How Black Is Whitehot

So we’ve been through this before, we did the dance, I saw you
Sure shot walking, dominating the field, big boss baller hopping
Jump as high as the sky, money talks when you come a coming
Playing the field, square jawed, taking punches from jabbers
Just outta school, what do they know, put ‘em up for adoption
Concoction, spoonful of purple to put ‘em to sleep, waste basket
Paper bag over your head, punch a hole in it so your eyes can see
Fee, for every dollar they make it’s their lives you take, white paper
White hot, can’t afford the printing press, so you dazzle ‘em on line
Fine, but who these scheezers who call you friend, where they be
Beating up them keys with their fingers, modernity, fraternity
Y’all hanging in them art stores thinking y’all gonna be Clemente
Where the party at, Williamsburg, got a lobster girl on my dick
Thick, quick, Bushwick, here we come again, we be photographing
Late night, we be charmers, cocktails in hand, marching like a band
The last waltz into Manhattan, take the L train into the East Village
Fuzz Glass, white nigga, great black hope, psycho drugs, psycho sexy
What guru are you, who you think you schooling, this ain’t Pearl Paint
Got my Cobalt Blue, ball point pen, gonna paint me a red hot hen
She be Brooklyn, Clockwork Eddie, balls to the wall, bad mama jamma
Coffee in a pot, she put the B in Avenue B, where Allen Ginsberg at
In this building where he lived, we spend the days making selfies
Waxing threads of poetry, she feeds me, she feeds me Long Island bass
While her man talks AC/DC, Hazy Fantazy, where them art school boys
They now hip, white boys with their white hair, you ain’t no Warhol
You ain’t no Schnabel, why you walking like you own a loft in Soho
Get outta my way, I’m on to something, what Henry did to Black Flag
I’m gonna do to you, put the heat on you, damn near stress you out
Had enough of the Nylons and Cosmopolitans, I want me a new vibe

So we’ve been through this before, we did the dance, I saw you
Black Harlem, Black Renaissance, with all the Monks and Mingus

Excuse me miss, I have come to apply for the position of gallery intern
In the years spent I hope to get your ass to the Liverpool Biennial
I hope to abide by the rules of not smoking on the terrace at night
I hope to help you attract new artists to this brand new establishment
Just don’t fetishize me, just don’t bring me to your office for a freebe
Don’t suck my leg off, I’ll need ‘em to walk my ass right outta here

Hollywood ain’t where it’s at

Raphael, Raphael, come down from your one bedroom apartment
Streets are talking, men are marching, much a do about nothing
Round the corner there’s a song being sung, looking for a gun
Out of work, panhandlers counting quarters, come into the cold

We are the survivors, hell bent, fisted, felt the grip of handcuffs
Cops crushing our heads against police cars, held up the local bars
Walking with our heads hung high, in groups, looking for trouble
We be animal to the core, we got high on haze, now we want more

Saturday night white flash, Johnny’s gonna spill some splash
Stiff the man his cash, chilling with the fellas, watching porno
Gonna get chewed out by the girls for too much touchy feely
We about it, gonna take our troubles clubbing, get down on it

Where they at, the winners, the takers, those who come a calling
We the champions of the show biz, got feelers in the marquee

Hollywood ain’t where it’s at, we ghetto super stars, we sick
Hollywood ain’t where it’s at, we ghetto super stars, we quick

Got high first thing in the morning, cut me up a line of coke
Went out about hustling, found myself sitting with the junkies
Spent the night at Bellevue homeless, we headed out round noon
Had my hand round Chico, washed up, beat up, dried up, burnt out

Talked smack into him, “I’m your God. I put you on this earth to suffer,”
“I’ll wash you from dirt. Put pieces on your skin. Get you a bus fare home”

Walk with me Raphael, see that dude with the man, they not lovers
They just got outta jail, back out, back in again, that’s how they do
Gotta make to spend, gotta make it to the top again, gotta make amends
See this here slit, I bit more than I could chew, got schooled pretty hard

Put in my place, like a dog without a face, barking out loud at nothing
No trace, just a sick mother fucker, bearing down on me, letting me have it
Had to get out outta there, nowhere to run, saw my reflection in a mirror
It was you Raphael that I saw, wanting to get out, needing a place to stay

Now we’re stuck in your one bedroom apartment, working up a monk
Who do you think you are, waiting for some one to come drag you out
Come taste the butter, the night wanting to make you, flesh to flesh
Through the dark light, you see yourself falling for some one new

Come, let me take you out, where the wild girls never quit talking
We go walking through the jungle of love, boys be baddass, girls too
Walk back into that jungle you came from, they waiting for you out there
Where the city meets the streets, you are one with me, we sick, we quick

Black Emmanuelle

Black Emmanuelle come a wake my soul, Black Emmanuelle
Coming up the stairs on 125th and Lex, cold spin that mojo hex
Put a spell on the corner boys, kill ‘em dead in their tracks
Wax, woo you voodoo vinyl, making music with the wall
Bass, Rat a tat tat, lung fish in the Wu Tang Chicken shack
Shake them bottoms till your man Bocephus comes a calling
He done did polished the walker man’s shoe with grease
Bow tie Eddie will come, cigar mouthed cussing up a storm
Let him slide this time, he’s been spooning honey from a well
Sure do tell oh Black Emmanuelle, I’ll win you with dice
Peel the onion from your skin, water you down with Hennessey
Bessie, tell your sister to give up on her man, he’s doing time
Done killed a man for showing you the righter passage of love
He’ll be buried underneath the skies above, no rain, no sunshine
Standing in line wearing masks on a Monday, no crime, no pay
Oh Black Emmanuelle, can’t you tell, I’ll paint these walls with hell
Drop a dollar, make fifty back, let lose your troubles in a heart attack
Burn your bridges in Brooklyn, never will you find a Brownsville boy
I stand stacked, multi lingual, been to Africa , brought the mothership back
Oh Black Emmanuelle, what done the white man do to my poor soul
Ain’t never shot a man in a drive by, mama wanted the best for me
Boogie man wore an MC jacket polluted my mind with cow punk
Where them mamas with gargantuan nipples, black milk in my black coffee
Shoo Shoo them blue eyed girls away, they were born to stress
Born to make money of this here disease, the black man’s sugar pain
Cold cocking that thing into that there there, turn the other cheek
Sure do know what you missing, boogie down thick black sistas
They shake shake the cold concrete, black hot coal tar from the street
Up the stairs into a wino’s bin, up to no good, two girls on a mission
Getting down with the ho down, make him wish he was Big Daddy Kane
Where were you when the blonde Nazi devoured me at the Novotel
Death is a German woman in a black leather jacket walking a dog
She didn’t kill me but she wore my skin Afro American black panther
What do my words do for you now, they done lost all their sweets
Candy coated mama looker, come wake me from this sleepiness
Taste the salt on my skin, lift me up from the underground
Bury me among the sheets of a Harlem hooker’s bed

From the Euro Art Girl to the Viral Street Femme
Reinterpretation of the Conscience, Art and Woman

I love the European woman, lost my virginity to an Italian girl I met in an art class at the School of Visual Arts. She wasn't an artist, rather she was an obese woman, the kind you would find in a Fernando Botero painting.

My knowledge of the European sentiment was instituted in my mind during a semiotics course at SVA. It was a class taught by Bill Beckley, American artist and photographer. I was overwhelmed by texts from philosophers such as Roland Barthes, Umberto Eco and Georges Bataille. The books by Barthes with their yellow covering, Image, Music, Text and S/Z, left an imprint on my conscience. The books themselves, literally, were works of art and made for great collections. In this class we delved into interpreting Vladimir Nabakov's Lolita in literary terms, the study of signs and signifiers. This understanding permeated how we interpreted each and every text.

What it did for me was put into play the European ideology, much the same I learned at Hunter College in a a Negritude class of African philosophy. By chance I took the semiotics class twice and was made aware once again how I appreciated the beauty of language in Baudrillard's Seduction. It was love. The language implemented was love. There was a strong sense of music in each and every word. And as Barthes would suggest every work of art is up for interpretation.

The European woman was first ingrained in me at The Metropolitan Museum of Art where I participated in summmer classes for two years. I was intrigued when I saw and studied impressionist painters, modernist masters and to be in the overall company of great works of art. The notion of art was European. There was no other reason to doubt that, Manet, Monet, Picasso plus every other notion from the Rennaisance to Abstract art.

My foundation for art was Europeanized from the start. It was a philosophy my life was goverened, built a conscience in me separate from the notion of everyday life in family and friends. When one undertakes the role of artist much of the life experience is distinguishable in the art practice. If the artist is consumed by art, art is simply representative in everything. Seperating the human experience from that of art becomes almost impossible.

The human experience is made up of life and its trials and tribulations. Art is a conscience. Once the human comes to terms with his philosophy of life he builds the role of artist. The notion of love permeates his role.

What is the sexual pathology of the artist?

Almost every woman I have had an intimate experience was centered on the subject of art. There are artists who pathalogically prey on the opposite sex. They put extreme value on the actual act of sex. For some art is sex. The practice of making art is love. Many artists in time have been great lovers, carried over into their lives tremendous amount of lovers. The love life of an artist is an interesting one. Much is made about how they interact. For some artist don't make great lovers. They are too preoccupied with their art and their click. It is also presumed that an art romance does not last.

My brief romance with a Brooklyn artist proved me right as I also see fellow artists go from love interest to love interest. I met an artist at an opening. Our conversation was based on philosophy and gender. We had a sexual tryst that very night. After a first official date we became lovers. She gained an upper hand because she worked at a prestigious firm and she had a hand in my writing as a poet. Our love was built on our roles as artists, going to galleries, supporting other artists. But her ego was greater than mine. Once I found my own footing as an artist it created a problem.

This particular artist was American, distinctly different from my other relationships with European girls. European girls are acutely philosophic. Our exchanges are primarily based on art and philosophy. The artist click here in New York is ego based. Each sentiment surrounds hoopla or exaggeration. Honesty is difficult to attain. Most people interact in circles. And at openings especially Thursday night in Chelsea they run amuck like wolves in a pack.

I think about actresses from the French New Wave, Anna Karina in Vivre sa Vie, Brigitte Bardot in And God Created Woman, Catherine Deneuve in Repulsion and Jean Seberg in Breathless. These women give off impressions of art. They are of sex but in an articulate and an inoffensive manner. This is a basis I particularly refer to the notion of art in women.

The Black woman as African is mother of the Earth. She is rotund, motherly as in a 70's Pam Grier. But modern terms allow for the AfroPunk female or the New Wave black female. I have not been privy to know the black female in art. The depictions of black women in art are usually of mother and child. In music videos they are of women gyrating and twerking. And on the same topic, light skinned black women are most favorable in pop culture. I am open to exploring black feminism on the topic of art.

The European woman has set a precedent in my interactions with women. There is a natural dialogue. It revolves arround my conscience and instinct. And coming from my relationships with European women, there continues to be this hunger and a path leading to who and what is the female in a more pronouncedly virtual world.

But I am now discovering the black woman in a socio political manner. Instituting the image and shape of the black woman into my conscience. Currently it is removing my notion of women as white. But continuously the path has been set for me to appreciate the female from the young pornographized white female to the street wise black girl, I imbibe a newer generation of women and femininity into my conscience.

What once was based on the European art girl is now street, viral, virtual philosophy.