New Poem

Kofii Fosu Forson

You are a house on fire words made of wire spoken for but you play

the field chasing house wives who go walking after hours to shop for a hit

Glass doves buying malt liquor hang by counters makeshift wino bars

At corner where mad men piss each other off night covers stench of day

Phipps Housing Project flames burn you refuse to jump reading a book

Parts of the book catch fire slowly burning a book called One Hundred

Years of Solitude another book The Unbearable Lightness of Being

So sit there read focus on these words as buttons to your shirt unbutton

Cologne smell takes on different smell blazer heats up skin grows warm

Sweat begins to form crackling sound in the corner television turns red

There is no smoke alarm fire station shut down due to lack of funding

So this burning house becomes source of light for people night walking

Women looking for love picking up men young Latinos black thugs wait

For fame spit clever rhymes dance hip hop style clutching gold chains

That was then you are diseased overcome by neurosis sex has no cure

Animal wolf howling beyond Bellevue East River hell over Brooklyn

Wards on Rikers remain still silence haunts subways trains maintain

Schedule people sit in cars face each other look away read newspapers

Thoughts of a man on 2nd Avenue burning disturbs their conscience

He stands twelve floors tall windows for eyes black simmering smoke

Pours from his roof flesh from his scalp slowly peels is it the end of us

Life as we know it other apartments people are sleeping restaurants open

To colored lights as well dressed men and women come to wine and dine

Sky is electric violet dark purple somewhere someone commits perfect

Crime you sit reading close your eyes now open them the house burns

down you walk off into the night where other houses burn brightly