I was brought up on Queen’s English
                           Damn if I Sound Like Gorilla           

I was brought up on Queen’s English damn if I sound like gorilla

Black jive I was cursed ‘cause I couldn’t hang with Black American jive

Copped a British accent when I was outed as a European Afro Negro
Chump change chimpanzee mocking “the” language Elizabeth built

I had never heard of Shakespeare. Under what circumstance did I hold court?

Escape artist. Black Houdini. Turning over metaphors. Flowers in Autumn

Poem I wrote about Falklands War jocks with paper in hand read out loud

Words I had written for them it was music Chaupin from an African muse

Glory be the Puerto Rican Latina graceful dark haired mamita waist high

Mustachioed breasts bulging from Catholic uniform back facing beauty

Mother Mary silhouette counting Rosary beads weary of bloody knives

Cutting into meat Kitchen Contessa - Oh dear brother neighborhood gangs
Waging war baseball bats in hand collapsing on basketball courts dieing   

In stairwells they gathered flashed blades compared fists took charge

The girls how they ogled - The girls how they popped pink bubble gum

Hid in corners talking sweet – Giggled to themselves the boys they’d meet

Young Guapitos gigolos at the age of fourteen called upon themselves

To service housewives nookie in the afternoon inside housing projects

Girl Gang Three - Spanglo American chicas Italian American princess

Dominatrix of the courtyard where virgins skipped rope played dodge ball
Who were they then these sluts pinching asses gossiped during classes
Followed me home one day scattered along the streets enraged laughing

Oh darling molested – was it mother who raped your mind from sexuality

Did Daddy Darling protect you warn you watching cable television porn

On that veranda I stuck an Ever Ready battery in Regina’s underwear

Playing house in that moment I was doctor delivering baby battery baby
Ever was a moment I did recall why I became this – this animal it was that

Delusion – Oh bother me with your life drug polluted air planes leaving

From the backyard I watched never knowing I would sit among mayhem
White girl – Destroyer – I play philosophy for pussy – watch me work

An afterglow black boy surrounded by white flesh blonde hair blue eyes

Smell of skin purer than yolk – scented sweat possessing my every breath

Who was I to these ghetto Pre Raphaelites – oh black brother with no sister
Black girls in their hip hugging jeans mocked you dared call you strange
Poor puppet of God what face do you show them now – art intellectual

Come of age among crack whores prostitutes – the future is what you saw

World where drug addicts home-made gangstas become friend and foe

For it was Park Avenue doctors Las Vegas psychiatrists Harlem nurses

When the sky opened earth collapsed –

For it was Teachers at the art schools English Professors literary bimbos

When mother was my little purple pill –

Black Botticelli girls from villages afar came to town called you prince
On overturned sunny pavements bathed you before grandmother figure
With middleweight fingers it was love – Lux soap seeped skin it was love
Here boroughs become cities - these ebony girls throw pity on my shadow
A world within where nuance is a white girl reading Barthes on the subway
What becomes of a black philosopher – I rule with words! I paint with words!     
Need I kill my ghost shed blood prove my heritage – I come from Kings!

Neurotic – this perverted thinker seduced by pale faced Eastern Europeans

Androgyny – white boys come calling suave in their wife beaters and shorts
Accompany dear sons daughters of Klimt Kokoschka I am not wanted here
Greenpoint where the Polish girls serve coffee wait their turn at Chelsea bars
Art stars on Van Gogh evening she glared at the sight – what sorrow are you
It was me that terrible tear – she knew that dark light recognizable as love
Brought down from a tower golden blossom an axe taken to trees in autumn

As the gorillas go so do I – walk the miles from Brooklyn to the Bronx Zoo

Behind cages we watch worlds go by – fortunate balloons that reach the sky
White men in white suits inject us with serum – listening as we enunciate
Speaking the white man’s English – that street vernacular becomes me now
My inner walls have housed many brawls opened themselves for inspection
If I did murder language of Elizabeth throw me back among wolves of night
Along some dark streets a word is never spoken it is the mind that wounds

 

 

 

For a Mexican Girl in the Ox Blood Doc Martins

Red balloon, she holds a red balloon by a thread standing there
Not the world that revolves around her, it's the wind blowing every inch of hair
Swirling cartoon dress of rocket ships, lipstick, machine guns and alphabets

Blocking blistery sun rays from the eyes sets upon a miracle bird circulating
Love letter tucked at the beak disciplined resting it at her feet, ox blood docs
Bending over she pics it up, scent of ancient leaves, crisp, sharp at the finger

What is this masquerade, what fortune had she found, is this love descending
From what heavens fall, faith should find her standing at a bus stop laughing
Roads bending sidewinding avenues where couples, acrobats, sachet, curtsy

Magritte, I say this to you, for every one of these men they possess a girl
In their blazers and bowler hats rain on green gardens with black umbrellas
Bring flowers from bodegas to the Mexican girl in the ox blood doc martins

Of what words do you say, of what credit must she pay, love knows no tax
As she splits open the envelope, she dreams of countries close and far
Will fortune find her basking on a beach, catching caterpillars behind kiosks

Or is it lessons she will learn, sow seeds, build a tower with possible hands
A glove she will wear, velvet, cabaret dress, lounging at the after hours
Kissing in back of taxis, walking one bridge to another on a moonlit night

Tell it to the future for what she heard was music, to follow a lovely sound
Amazing to the ear, set her circling, freeing her self of the red balloon
Sending it high above the sky, a gift he will receive, for a gift begets another

Why then worry about the moisture in the air, if polluted or drenched with soot
She carries with her the letter she breathes from, pastes it on her cheeks
Adrift amidst revelers, home bound, a glass of wine, scent of a lover, unseen

For Laura # 2

Worry not the littlest thing I have found you whether it be for me or the world
Birthed thing where the loveliest angel lifts a wing falls onto the one she loves

Baby, mother loves you, she will warm your bed for you, go to sleep now
Should love lights dim don't shed a tear, she'll lift both arms to shoulder

Ways away rugged feet ponder the city grasses grow cemented pathways
Buses, cars, subways trails of future fortunes but it's not money we'll recover

Brilliance in detail, what words we share, thought out provocative, modernist
Language carries over across cities onto internet lines though we are one

Captivated by light birth right rock and roll magic shamanistic Joey Ramone
We are rebel we are free this is our philosophy this is our lament our secrecy

As the trolls recover from much violence shark weather there is sunshine
On a dark morning moon Monday drive, move these wise hours to school

Teach if with toys tell tales paint pictures call back the memory of Frida
This is the future we exist, these are our future comrades and soldiers

In a home secure and solemn is where I will find you captured by celluloid
Hollywood I bid you good evening, where is Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers

Looking at you I see l'amour, French for love, our language, a white dove
Tomorrow the world will begin again, carry over into a book of men women

Faces places where we hide, let it be known, we are ready, we are ready
Call upon us, we will come to take you from trouble, deliver you from under

We have been tested, in she and I is magic shamanistic you and me
Set the world afire aromatic, we sleep together on similar beds everlasting

Oh these sufferings they sway like a bird on a vine
But from these sufferings they say are songs to be song
Hallowed be words I paint the air with and with this voice I sing
Let it be known this nest of a thing is our mansion of twigs, feathers and leaves
We live here, we breed here, fly over customary things, barbaric wolves
It is love that brings us together, this our mariachi of Mexican hats and piñata
Dance with me, call off guards, if we wake thieves, please, please me
Hold my hand as they watch us revolve around sofas and chairs, dancing
Make merry with me, tap, tap parquet floors, open your heart's door
Let love lie there like a tortured ballerina with rosary beads around her neck
We dance the Betty Blue dance, butterfly wings and buttery feet
From her stories to his histories, this is the story of you and me
A future boy and girl, in this our vision we mother and father
Stories about centuries and cities, time passing, titillating