Musings

Today I heard a gunshot in the alley under my window
I am not wise to the makes and sizes of guns

I am a poet
an artist
a mother

Three shots to be precise
not just me
somebody else hadta heard it too

We are up in arms
when white cops kill black boys
while we rape our women
on the way to the rally

Where are the waves fists behind this

It is three in the afternoon
A sunny day
June

These are the things that riot my headspace
when I endeavor to write about
Grandmothers
Garvey
Drums

Rallies
Relationships
Relevance

My poems are little now
Perhaps someones life has ended
No one has missed a beat

At the liquor store
Crazy Melvin is begging for change
Rolanda the crackhead is selling pussy

In unit B Demarco is smoking pcp
The couple downstairs is making love
I am listening because it is beautiful

I imagine she lies
face downward
grips the headboard tightfisted

While he is stroking inside of her
long
thick

The cushion of her backside is
Christmas
Merlot
Rent paid

The fucking is good

I am never short of stories on
Buckingham Rd
And elegant name for a street with such drama
Even more ironic that it intersects King

Yesterday someone pissed in the hallway
The ice cream truck comes by after dark
Pushing weed, swishers and Philly blunts

Trent Allen was shot in the head for his 280z
Zuri Williams shot
Jerome Richardson shot
Myra Carmichael eleventh grade
Shot in the face by her boyfriend
who said if he couldn't have her
then no one would

There were no rallies

Last October
brothas set off fireworks
for two and a half hours
starting at 1 in the am

A boy jumped off a building because his classmates
harrassed him for being gay
And so what
With all of us looking for love
we should be celebrated for finding it at all

I would like to blame this on the white man
It is 11pm
I am up writing

While I am grilled stuft burrito
1 in 8 go to bed hungry in the U.S. alone
who knows the numbers on who don't
have a bed to go to at all

I am in search of the who of who I am
on the Saturday night in Los Angeles

Where someone is being asked to dance
Bishop Collins is preparing his message
Maybe tomorrow he wil not just shout it from the pulpit
but explain how one just
gives it to Jesus

And Good Times don't come on local networks no more
Maybe Michael was too black too strong for TV
Thelma to gorgeous to be nappy and brownskinned

I surmise they killed off James because
white America couldn't handle a black man
sticking with his family through
bad times

I am writing

The musings and prophecies just come
Like Wednesday before last
the children were out front playing

Two boys and a girl on one side
Three boys to the other
A volley ball type game

Except there was one boy in the middle
In my day
I am old enough to have a day

We called it keep away
Now, monkey in the middle

This I will find a way to blame on the white man

But life in the hood aint always bad
On Fridays Hank the dealer buys books and balloons
and toys for the children who don't have much

The grandmamas and granddaddies
are ma'am and sir
The peace and sage sistas are Miss Ladies

Lil Andre carries the groceries for Mama Jerome
when her boy aint around

But the splendor of moments like these and more
is shadowed by my neighbor Claire
getting the fuck beat out of her by her boyfriend

I don't know his name
But every kick follows a
Stupid bitch this
every slap a silly muthafucka that

I am so sorry I cannot make her have a better life

Where are the rallies for this

It is Saturday night in the Jungle and
I am just
writing