everywhere, here, changing faces at high noon, say,

  on 42nd street & 8th claustrophobic

  heat-drenching crowds packed in, in august, locks in on flesh cold

  as a triple life sentences served out at comstock—

  people here switching up gears, trying to sidestep panic

  in the middle of slapstick dreams

     in the center of it all

  a con man who looks like a swifty lazar, the late hollywood agent,

  tools around inside a white rolls royce car, peddling gimmicks for

    false tooth legends

  who look so bizarre in public, devoid of heavy makeup—

  comic, even—outside their dream machines, illusions—

  tattered memorabilia the coon man peddles at some tacky bazaar

  inside a rundown building in a cobwebbed room where he hawks

    fading photographs of

  zsa zsa gabor, back in her prime, before she started breaking down

  in front of our eyes, wearing all that weird graphic white

  pancake makeup over her ever-changing face-lifts, masking the dreams

  we wear ourselves, inside our switching, ballistic imaginations

  bewitching us here as we move through times square

  popping with the charge of electrical currents

  energy eye imagined this poem having when eye first started writing it

  then having to deal with how it slowed down midway through

  when eye hit that part about gloster, a third of the way down

  & tried to avoid all those zigzagging mosquitoes

  dive-bombing in for fresh blood-kills—

  my direction moving all over the place after that, changing up the focus,

  the rhythm, the way my dipstick lines started composing themselves—

  at that point in time, they began making it all up

  as they went along, as if they were different musicians improvising

  this poem—like the swifty lazar look-alike peddling old hollywood

  wonders before the fall, before they became toothless legends,

  before they became zsa zsa gabor

  this sputnik verbal drumstick—a thing to be eaten

  after all—promises way more than it could ever deliver

  traveling at the speed of complete bullshit, as it were—

  a technicolored times-square attitude, without rhyme,

  riding in on a broomstick, heartsick & caustic

  homesick for that good old big-apple charge

  SLIPPIN’ & SLIDIN’ OVER SYLLABLES FOR FUN

  WITH SOME POLITICS THROWN IN ON THE SIDE

  slippin’ up on syllables, digital flipflops

  on the masterblaster waves, ridin’ hip hop rays

  spacin’ through miles’s deebop grown up from bebop

  underneath echoes of who popped that lyin’ brotha

  up side his head on a way out trippin’ chronic

  skyride, movin’ against the tide

  of soul sista number one—whoever that is

  these days, though for me it’s always been aretha

  by a ton of mouth—so hiphop hooray for days

  after scottie pippen sank all them treys

  in that 1994 all-star game, frontin’ off the media blitz

  of shaq o’neal’s put-the-funk-on-the-nasty dunk attack

  yo, so get back, brotha, with that ton of gold hanging

  around yo linebacker’s neck, gold rings stranglin’ all yo fingers

  gold cappin’ all the front teeth in your cartoon character’s mouth

  eye mean, you look like some kind of new age monster grinnin’

  bodacious as some of those cold mean doorags useta look

  back in them way-gone days before time changed them up

  into a zillion handkerchief-head clarence thomases—

  or as amiri baraka once said, “tom ass clarence”—radiating

  themselves in the microwave oven of the good old conservative

  u s of a, grinnin’ & skinnin’ like old chalk-lip stanley grouch

  sweatin’ & scratchin’ with the heat turned way up under his ass

  playing “hanging judge” on black progressives for right-wing zealots

  helpin’ to blow out the lights in a lot of young brothas’ brains—

  whose murders, too, are as fractricidal as crack in pipes—

  while blow-dried hair clones reading running teleprompters—

  copy for network commercials—crack down

  hard over tv air waves on misogynistic gangsta rap,

  which is ok, if they’d just do the same thing to good old corny arnie

  schwartzenegger, bruce willis or sylvester stallone—all wrapped up

  in the flag as they tell us they are—

  & don’t even mention steven segal for uzi-ing all them white policemen—

  for real deep-sixed up there on them big silver screens & rakin’ in tons

  of fresh lettuce greenbacks to stash away in numbered swiss bank accounts—

  so, say, yo, what’ve all you boot-lickin’ house knee-grows gotta show

  for all that ass-scratchin’ liver-lipped talk you shamin’ on everyone—

  your gas-swollen bellies hanging down over your hangman belts

  like blown-up balloons—you torpedo-mouth brigades—

  neo-negro conservative correct nests—you are, at best

  panting jack-in-the-box pop ups, clowns appearing in murder

  mouthing black pathology talk-show soap operas—

  so crank it up high as a crack attack on a coon coppin’ a plea

  bustin’ a nut plea on tv, cut it loose, juice, & pump up for new word

  neologists of death mac attacks, new-jack hip slidin’ from the mouths

  of homeboys sportin’ short nappy dreads, cropped on top & shaved around

  edges—a lone pigtail drooping down backs—& they look like drooping snakes

  atop side-trimmed california Mexican fan palm trees & bounce up like giggles

  when they walk, like mac daddies scammin’ on fly hoochies

  clockin’ dead presidents, while some were laid back, kickin’ it up

  gaffled by a one-time okie, from knee-jerk muskogee—

  “cut me loose,” someone screams—a blue-suited badge

  messin’ with the low-ridin’ jean-wearin’ cross-cultural homey

  with his quack-quack cap turned backward, unlaced

  black nike, reebok, hightops, shufflin as they dipped & jiggled def

  chillin, some lean, gliding moonwalk, clean for the shake down

  walkin tough with their syndicates while the five-o’s cruise by

  in the hood, slamdunkin high fivin jack, mind fuckin the words

  is what their macks are all about jimmying the groves of cadences

  is what this poem is all about, slippin & slidin over syllables

  for fun, break dancin with verbs & nouns this poem’s on the run

  from juba to mozart, from beebop to hiphop, this poem’s

  on the run, slippin & slidin on syllables & digital flipflops

  this poem’s on the run, on the run, on the run, these words

  slippin’ & slidin’, runnin’ off new jack, from the mouth

  A POEM FOR “MAGIC”

  for Earvin “Magic” Johnson, Donnell Reid and Richard Franklin

  take it to the hoop, “magic” Johnson,

  take the ball dazzling down the open lane

  herk & jerk & raise your six feet nine inch

  frame into air sweating screams of your neon name

  “magic” johnson, nicknamed “windex” way back in high school

  ’cause you wiped glass backboards so clean

  where you first juked & shook

  wiled your way to glory

  a new style fusion of shake & bake energy

  using everything possible you created your own space

  to fly through—any moment now, we expect your wings

  to spread feathers for that spooky take-off of yours

  then shake & glide till you hammer home

  a clotheslining deuce off glass

  now, come back down with a reverse hoodoo gem

  off the spin & stick it in sweet, popping nets

  clean from twenty feet right-side

  put the ball on the floor, “magic”

  slide the dribble behind your back, ease it deftly

  between your bony stork legs, head bobbing everwhichaway

  up & down, you see everything on the court off the high

  yo-yo patter, stop & go dribble, you shoot

  a threading needle rope pass sweet home to kareem

  cutting through the lane, his skyhook pops cords

  now lead the fast-break, hit jamaal on the fly

  now blindside a behind the back pinpointpass for two more

  off the fake, looking the other way

  you raise off balance into tense space

  sweating chants of your name, turn, 360 degrees

  on the move your legs scissoring space like a swimmer’s

  yo-yoing motion in deep water, stretching out now

  toward free flight, you double pump through human trees

  hang in place, slip the ball into your left hand

  then deal it like a las vegas card dealer off squared glass

  into nets living up to your singular nickname, so “bad”

  you cartwheel the crowd towards frenzy

  wearing now your electric smile, neon as your name

  in victory we suddenly sense your glorious uplift

  your urgent need to be champion

  & so we cheer, rejoicing with you for this quicksilver, quicksilver, quicksilver

  moment of fame, so put the ball on the floor again, “magic”

  juke & dazzle, shaking & baking down the lane

  take the sucker to the hoop, “magic” Johnson

  recreate reverse hoodoo gems off the spin

  deal alley-oop-dunk-a-thon-magician passes, now

  double-pump, scissor, vamp through space, hang in place

  & put it all up in the sucker’s face, “magic” johnson

  & deal the roundball, like the juju man that you am

  like the sho-nuff shaman man that you am

  “magic’, like the sho-nuff spaceman you am

  & SYLLABLES GROW WINGS THERE

  a blackboard in my mind holds words eye dream—

  & blessed are the words that fly like birds into poetry—

  & syllables attach wings to breath & fly away there

  through music, my language springing round from where

  a bright polished sound, burnished as a new copper penny

  shines in the air like the quick, jabbing glint of a trumpet

  lick flicking images through voices there pulsating like strobe lights

  the partying dark understands, as heartbeats pumping rhythms hip-

  hopping through footsteps, tick-tocking like clocks with stop-gap

  measures of caesuras breaking breath, like california earth

  quakes trying to shake enjambed fault lines of mini-malls

  freeways & houses off their backs, rocks being pushed up there

  by edges of colliding plates, rivers sliding down through yawning

  cracks, pool underneath speech, where worlds collide & sound cuts

  deep fissures into language, underneath earth the mystery of it all,

  seeded within the voodoo magic of that secret place, at the center

  of boiling sound & is where poetry springs from now

  with its heat of eruption, carrying volcanic lava flows of word

  sound cadences, a sluiced up voice flowing into the poem’s

  mysterious tongue, like magic, or fingers of fire dancing

  gaseous stick figures curling off the sun’s back

  & is where sweet music comes from, too, to improvise

  like choirs of birds in springtime, when the wind’s breath

  turns warm & their voices riff off songs, a capella

  ONE FOR CHARLIE MINGUS

  into space time walks bass strings of charlie mingus

  jambalaya rhythms deepening our ears, hear

  voices springing from tongues of mingus riding sweet bass strings

  deep stepping through sound, through light & shadows of blood

  cut out into the leaping night walking music swings the wind

  as tongues of evening caress the flying darkness, there

  inside rhythms, tight embraces of sound-thump bass grooves

  lengthening the graceful flights of cadences shading chords of voodoo

  who doing who there, juicing mean watts boys sluicing, shimmy down

  mean streets of the city of angels, when mingus played a strange, disquieting

  beauty, turned it on, believed in whatever he thought he was back then

  played it all the way here, where eye am dreaming now, listening

  within this moment of musical amazement, walking in

  his voice riding in through vibrating strings thumping & humping

  like naked lovers inside musky hot steaming rumpled backwater bedrooms

  in the afterglow of undercover of damplight, in the nighttime of their dreams

  mingus skybreaking his bass through steep blue

  lifetimes of urban screams, who doing what to who here

  inside the city of lights, raining tears, raining blood & blue showers

  electrifying nights where mingus walked music through voodoo

  flying all the way home, thumping the rhythms, mingus stalks

  the music tone after magical tone, walks the mysterious

  music all the way home, tone after magisterial tone

  AVALANCHE

  for K. Curtis Lyle & the memory of Richard Wright

  within an avalanche of glory hallelujah skybreaks

  spraying syllables on the run, spreading

  sheets, waving holy sounds, solos sluicing african bound

  transformed here in america from voodoo into hoodoo

  inside tonguing blues, snaking horns, where juju grounds down sacred

  up in chords, up in the gritty foofoo

  magical, where fleet rounds of cadences whirlpool

  as in rivers, where memory spins down foaming into dances

  like storms swallowed here in a burst of suns

  up in the yeasting blue voodoo, holding

  the secret clues mum, inside the mystery, unfolding

  up in the caking dishrag of daybreak, miracles

  shaking out earthquakes of light

  like mojo hands luminous with spangling

  & are the vamping blood songs of call & response

  are the vamping blood songs of call & response

  as in the pulpit, when a preacher becomes his words

  his rhythms those of a sacred bluesman, dead outside his door

  his gospel intersecting with antiphonal guitars, a congregation of amens

  as in the slurred riffs blues strings run back echoing themselves

  answering the call, the voice cracked open like an egg, the yoke running out

  the lungs imitating collapsed drums & he

  is the rainbowing confluence of sacred tongues, the griot

  the devotion of rivers all up in his hands, all up in his fingers

  his call both invocation & quaking sermon

  running true & holy as drumming cadences

  brewed in black church choirs, glory hallelujah vowels

  spreading from their mouths like wolfman’s mojo

  all up in mahalia jackson’s lungs

  howling vowels rolled off hoodoo consonants, brewing

  magic all up in the preacher’s run, of muddy water

  strung all up in the form drenched with coltrane

  riffin’ all up in miles of lightning hopkins mojo songs

  blues yeasting lungs of bird

  when music is raised up as prayer & lives

  healing as june’s sun quilted into black babies

  tongues, sewn deep in their lungs as power

  & blueprinted here in breath of rappers

  & this is a poem in praise of continuity

  is a poem about blood coursing through tongues

  is a praise song for drowned voices lost in middle passage

  is a praise song for the slashed drums of obatala

  is a construct of orikis linking antiphonal bridges

  is a praise song tonguing deep in the mojo secrets of damballah

  in praise of the great god’s blessings of oshun

  in praise of healing songs sewn into tongues

  inflating sweet lungs into a cacaphony of singing

  praise songs tonguing deep mojo secrets

  & this poem is about music, when music is what it believes

  it is, holy, when voices harmonize, somersaulting colors

  in flight, & glory is the miracle poetry sings to in that great getting-up

  morning, within the vortex of wonder, confluencing rivers, light

  glory in the rainbows arching like eyebrows across suns

  glory in the moonlight staring from a one-eyed cat’s head

  & eye want to be glory & flow in that light

  want to be coltrane’s solos living in me

  want to become wonder of birds in flight of my lines

  want the glory of song healing in me as sunlight

  want it tongued through leaves

  metaphoring trees, transformed where they seed & stand up here

  as people, in this soil, everything rooted here in blood of mother’s flesh

  & is the poetry of god in deep forest time, singing & listening

  & the music there is green, as it also is purple

  as it also is orange brown & mind-blowing electric banana

  as it is red cinnamon & also again, green

  sound ground up against lavender

  beneath sunsets fusing crisp blue light

  & night here stitched with fireflies flicking

  gold up against bold midnight & once again, yes

  green, as shimmering caribbean palm fronds

  are green in the center of apocalyptic chaos

  & my poem here is reaching for that greeness

  is reaching for holy luminosity shimmering in gold-

  flecked light, where the mojo hand is seaming through

  high blue mornings, waving like a sequined glove up in the glory

  of hallelujahs, calling through the inner tube lips of the great god