There was no first person
Or third world
We was singular
No distinction between
The air and our lungs
A tree and our legs
Our hearts and the sun
All we were
Could be plucked from a vine
Plunge our paws into Earth
To remind ourselves that
Our beginnings and endings
Were one
Seeds were passed out at town meetings
We planted them and they became our children
We became their grandchildren
Night was the songs that nursed our dreams
Day the lady who enticed us to
Make the most of eyes and fingers
In time
Out of time
We drifted from the source
Seduced by a vagrant among us
Who charmed us with fibs
About sacrificing now for a sweeter hereafter
Mongrels from unwanted parts of ourselves
Invaded our siestas with ghosts
That buried death in our laps
As if death were a thing
Flocks of swindlers
Plucked us from our mothers
Spliced our genes
Encased our memories in test tubes
Erected statues of strangers
Walls
Ideas made of concrete and fiberglass
To keep our knuckles
Away from our mother's caress
Bells rang every 45 minutes precisely
Excising our commitment to the unseen
We kidnapped ourselves
Sent to detention
Convinced our cell blocks
Were built for our own protection
At present
We occupy our timelessness
Clinging to the roof of our cage
Reaching between the bars for mirages
Mirroring the women and men we divorced
On our birthday
At present
We visit ourselves
In zoological preserves
Wave to the prisoners inside us
Hurling treats at our reflections
Capturing the moment with
Almost snapshots resembling
The miracles were we
Before we were
Who we are
Live game
Restrained for our own well being
Innoculated
Subjugated
And put on private public display
For $10 a visit
Post-post-colonial Zoology
Person If I
My chalkboard scribbles love notes for you
My subway car cheats on a math test
My shoes watch old movies in a nursing home
My insecurity begs on the corner for spare compliments
My windows prepare a sandwich for a blind man's lunch
My bank turns itself into the authorities
My bed takes karate lessons on the weekends
My toilet moonlights as a security guard at the local mall
My clock teaches sociology at a community college
My fatigue hitchhikes to the equator
My grocery store gives candy to the neighborhood kids
(And it isn't even Halloween)
My impatience runs for town mayor
My salamander runs an illegal casino on 9th street
My judgment joins the peace corps.
My telephone is searching for its inner child
My museum has developed alzheimer's disease
My wine glass swims to jupiter
My textbook tours the world with a rock band
My filie cabinet rewrites Nordic myths in its spare time
They all take their vacation at Club You
Riffs
Baby please Fela my Kuti
But don't Jimmy your Smith
Let me just Wes your Montgomery
Lord why can't I ever Ornette my Coleman
Don't you ever Donald my Byrd
If only we could Pharaoh this Sanders
Girl I can't never Bobbi your Humphrey
Why you wanna Chico my Hamilton
Everybody got to Shuggie this Otis
Promise I'll always Fontella your Bass
Listen up while I Mongo your Santamaria
Man I need to Grant some Green
Don't think that I won't Manu your Dibango
Why does everybody always Eugene my Blacknell
C'mon C'mon and Herbie your Hancock
I'm begging you to let me Don your Cherry
I know you want to Sly this Johnson
Without you I just Oscar my Peterson
Brothers never Fred your Wesley
Momma don't ask me to Marlena my Shaw
Sometimes life just Freddie's your Hubbard
People keep on and Matthew your Shipp
And if you Arthur your Russell
I'll Arthur your Verocai
Somebody is always trying to Abbey your Lincoln
But together we can Oliver this Lake
Sister go on and Oscar your Brown
Before you Pete someone's Cosey
And never ever Chucho a Valdez
Don't let anyone Hugh your Maskela
So get up and Bootsy your Collins
Larry your Coryell
And Maceo some Parker
Don't stop til you Orlando some Julius
In the end if we just Cal this Tjader
Then we can forever Eric our Dolphy
Without somebody to Jimmy our McGriff
Palpitations
The officer folds his newspaper in half
Shaking ten million galaxies from its surface
When he crosses his legs
He does not cross them on another plane
Our history is fiction inked by ancestors
Fending off the consequence of eternity
Two little girls braid time into a liquid metropolis
And also their hair
We are our own counterparts
A cement mixer brewing subversive philosophies
Stuck to the bottom of our shoe
What we create creates us
That goldfish bowl is emptied into a bathtub
Plastic coral is subsequently selected president
Effects and causes
Causing delirious affectations
The circus unravels into a meeting at city hall
Legislature votes on the virtue of a children's book
The illustrations of armless pools of gas
Folk dancing to the sound of quantum theories
Emitting from the iPhone of a nervous teen
Text messaging her best friend to meet her
For a milkshake on mount Fuji
The professor erases the blackboard
Corrects the students spelling through means of
Public humiliation
Chalk mingles with philandering antigens
Retreating into a plastic dustbin
Is remade nine hundred times into a musical
Performed in reverse
On a stage constructed from rocks
That will calcify in an unknowable yestermorrow
A pregnancy
An ice cream cone
A Rocking chair on a strangers front porch
The squalor of state examinations
Contemplated by a pilates instructor
Assassinating herself in a municipal parking lot
That will never be built due to lack of
Proper permits signed by the county clerk
And his Zebra
Manifesto
I want to read poets
I want to read poets that have LIVED
Who have starved and suffered losses
Who have crawled their way out of a snakepit of oppression
Who have fallen down and fallen down
Then rose to smell the roses in a cesspool
Who still remembered their people after receiving awards and applause
Poets who have forgotten the world's lies
Who had to surrender their shoes for a pen to write with
And their shirt for a page to write on
Who have stared at the sun until they have gone blind
Leaving only their inner vision to guide them
As they wondered and wandered around mountainsides
And ghettos to recover their retinas
These are the poets I want to read
Poets without degrees or a driver's license
Poets who have learned to write by etching their pain
Onto a cave wall with a bleeding fingernail
Who have feasted with kings
While laughing at them with beggars
Who have forgotten the names of the Presidents
But have memorized the birthdays of all the world's children
I do not want to read sestinas about nothing
Scripted by the children of monarchs
Don't care to listen to opaque dronings
Recited by men in suits
Who have never left the academy
Have never pulled the plow and hand washed their own clothes
Men whose only blisters come from holding a cocktail
I refuse to surrender my attention to pale men
Whose greatest tragedy has been
That they were never nominated for the Pushcart Prize
If your words are not your corpuscles
Do not waste my time
You are the peddler that you ignore on the avenue
I do not want to read about ancient Buddhist statues
You saw on your vacation in the East
Where you decided to change your name to Krishna
I am not interested in your reflections on
The innate melancholy of the Divi Divi tree
If you have not spent at least one evening
With the curb as your pillow
Do not try to amuse me with your
Masterful use of assonance
I do not want to read words from men
With their own booking agents and websites
Men who seek record and publishing deals
Instead of the truth
I want to read poets who have lived
Who have toiled and sacrificed
Who would rather see free housing for the poor
Than their own name in lights
Poets who have been left with two peas
And shared one with a stranger
Poets who know from experience
That to speak a word is to create a world
Poets who seek community
Not amenities
I want to read poets who can say
"I was wrong" and mean it
Who can laugh at themselves
Who have had a seven day work week
Who strive for transformation over
Ego affirmation
Poets who don't write in their spare time
Because they have no spare time
Poets who see god in a 3rd graders rhyme
I want to read poets
Who know that words are the medium
Not their means to an end
Who use language to include
Rather than exclude
I want to read poets
Poets who have gone without
Who have been deprived
Who have overcome
Who have sacrificed
Who have been overlooked
Who have been courteous to the cockroach
And kind to the barracuda
Who bow humbly to the wind
Who sleep to dream
Who practive AND Preach
Poets who have gambled everything
For one glimpse at the limitless
Who pushed the boundaries of possibility
I want to read poets who have loved
Another and all worlds unconditionally
