the rhythm of music—blues, jazz—played in my house,

  or the joy eye heard hearing people singing gospel

  in black churches all day sundays, with hand-clapping

  syncopation jack-legged preachers brought down

  the house with shouting, raised the rooftops,

  seducing, implanting into their holy-ghost sermons—

  all of it infused a new hip dip into my fresh slick stride,

  wicked, carrying uncertainty eye flew into a future echoing

  with slippery meaning embedded into shiny words

  politicians delivered—though they seemed elliptical,

  elusive at the time of what the promised future would bring—

  & as eye grew most people would become illusions,

  like those wavy figures my fingers tried to touch

  when eye was a toddler, were so elusive,

  easy to see, plain as day—they were paradoxes, seducing

  as they undulated widely through my life, like those shadows—

  mysterious riddles, constantly flummoxing my eyeballs

  SOON TO BE GHOST VOICES PLUNGING THROUGH THE SKY

  what was she thinking, the beautiful young dutch

  scientist spiraling down through ukranian space,

  what were her last thoughts looking around,

  smoke rising in plumes from an already scorched earth

  beneath her, where rockets had exploded leaving deep holes

  where homes used to be, now full of mangled bodies

  blown apart, like the plane she was flying in

  on her way home to australia

    from amsterdam,

  where she planned to be an astronaut,

   wanting to do something good for the world,

  now she was flying to meet her maker,

  like others who resembled small birds in the sky around her,

  strapped in seats, secure as she was in hers, their wide-open

  mouths sucking holes for air—like hers—screaming, perhaps, silent,

  maybe, in dread—like hers—already sealed, with a muteness

  embracing death, maybe not, though winds swirling

  around them were whirlpools in a tidal wave of air screaming

  louder as they plunged through space so high up in the light

  burning from the sun, perhaps scorched them in a sky so blue

  & clear it resembled a rare diamond, though the shining

  metal shards of the plane—sharp as razors—falling

  like glowing comets—flaming guillotines—all around them

  sliced through birds before hitting the ground hard, exploding,

  as their bodies did smashing into earth from such a great height

  when everything—bodies, metal, dreams, engines full of flames—

  hit the earth, fire was suddenly everywhere, then billowing

  smoke rose in plumes, turned into dark curling clouds,

  corkscrewing when the heartbreaking, terrified, anguished screams

  evaporated, then everything became an eerie, smoldering stillness

  in this scorched field, over where birds now flew, chirping,

  as if nothing evil had happened here, though a once blue sky

  suddenly turned gray in this moment filled with acrid smoke

  eye think again now of the horror the passengers went through

  & the young, beautiful dutch scientist, who wished to be

  an astronaut, seduced by seeing herself flying through space

  as she did in her dreams,

  though not in the way she saw herself now soaring

  before this horrific end to her moonbeaming ambitions

  what were her last thoughts

  before her screams evaporated so quickly

  in the blink of an eye, in a sacred place

  she longed to be in, high up in her cherished sky

  GHOST WAVES

  all around the north shore of hilo, hawaii, ghost waves

  rise up scary from the bottom floor of the pacific

  shaped like finger-tongues they snatch people sitting

  unaware on cliffs, dreaming, kissing, living in the moment

  then drag them down screaming into foaming ghost waves

  drop their bodies into the raging deep blue water

  some are never seen again, others are still there raging

  their voices raised up in prayer, treaded through ether

  breathing words, sentences, construct a memory of these

  lost faces survivors throw back & forth across dinner tables

  if the lost could speak of those now inside this poem,

  how would they describe the terror suddenly upon them

  premonitions all of us think of but never expect to see

  MERCY

  mercy for broken wing birds

  young or old, sitting alone

  pathetic on frozen ground,

  looking, longing to fly up,

  sing in green trees, warm blue skies

  mercy for homeless people,

  scavenging like hungry dogs

  through garbage, sleeping on streets

  in cold, remorseless cities,

  with no love in their future

  mercy for those killed in wars

  for rich old men at death’s door,

  their young wives wearing jewelry,

  bemused looks on their faces,

  waiting for money to drop

  mercy for cold assassins

  killing for religion, gold,

  dogma, beliefs of others

  who walk around in shadows,

  give orders to spineless men

  mercy for plants, animals,

  fish in seas suffocating

  because of the greed of men,

  their willful blindness to death

  piling up all around them

  mercy to sick predators

  hunting young children, women

  singled out for rape, murder,

  who hate all without blue eyes,

  people who don’t think like them

  mercy for those who refuse

  to believe art is healing,

  whether poetry, music,

  dance, visual images,

  the bonds of sweet human-hood

  mercy for those who refuse

  too know beauty is soothing

  as love is pure energy,

  beautiful beyond glory,

  liberating hearts & souls

  when it—love—is alchemy,

  a driving force fusing me

  & you—our bodies as one

  another, heat rising hot,

  aretha’s echoing voice

  is mercy, mercy, mercy

  STRANGE INCIDENTS

  eye read on yahoo one day of a very large bengal tiger,

  somewhere in india, leaping out of a river,

  after it had stealthily swam through towards a prey—

  a fisherman quietly sitting there, fishing on the river

  with his two children looking on—the big cat clamped

  its jaws around the neck of the man, snatched him from the seat

  of his boat, then dragged the kicking man screaming into bushes,

  where eye guess it had him for lunch, or perhaps, dinner later,

  depending what time of day the tiger wanted to eat

  strange things are happening all over the world all the time

  these days, you just got to be looking out for them,

  like black people in mississippi voting republican for one

  old white racist man over a younger white racist republican,

  or weird clarence thomas might rule on the supreme court

  for something—anything—to help poor black & white people—

  though this possibility really stretches the imagination far out,

  ‘cause it definitely won’t happen any time soon for the reason

  “tom ass clarence” hates himself too much to pull that trigger

  did you hear about those innocent people going to watch

  an action movie in a mall, then catching real bullets

  in their own heads, at the precise moment they were cheering

  for someone shooting somebody else in the film, think about it

  for a second, because that’s probably all the time you got

  before something very weird will happen to you

  like the fisherman in india in that river being snatched

  out of his boat by a hungry tiger to fill its own stomach,

  when he—the poor fisherman—was trying to catch a fish

  to beat back his own hunger & wound up

  being eaten for the exact same reason himself

  strange, weird shit happening all over the world today,

  all you have to do is step out of your own front door

  & bam, thank you ma’am, it’s right there in front of you

  STRANGE HARLEM ENCOUNTER: A PORTRAIT

  on 116th street & adam clayton powell jr. boulevard, in harlem,

  eye encountered a strange young black man

  blowing soap bubbles with a straw from a green can

  he was doing a herky-jerky shuffle dance,

  then he winked at me after he noticed a middle aged white man

  wearing a white straw hat, then he said to me, ”this ain’t the south,

  nobody’s picking cotton up here, so why he got on that white hat?”

  eye looked at him & said, “hey man that white hat is just a style

  statement, you know, he’s just trying to be hip on a sunny day”

  the young black man looked at me

  “naw, man, he just crazy, maybe he drunk, or high off something

  we don’t know nothing about,” eye looked at him flummoxed,

  shook my head, started walking in the other direction,

  but he broke out laughing, stopped me in my tracks,

  “now it’s you who must be crazy, you better go get your head examined,”

  then he laughed some more, kept blowing bubbles that rose

  in the air, then popped, dissipated like black people’s faith

  in this country

  the young black man continued his herky-jerky shuffle

  dance, that’s when eye looked at him & said, “did you know

  thomas jefferson had a book that said the earth was oblong

  instead of round, did you know that, bubble blowing man?”

  the young man looked at me puzzled, without laughing, you know

  i’ll run for president, with you as my vice-president & we will win,

  show the world what real crazy can be,” then he danced away,

  shaking his head from side to side, still blowing soapsuds,

  laughing furiously as the spreading bubbles he was blowing

  scattered, before popping in the hot, humid air, unmoored

  as the skittering words the young black man was speaking

  evaporated now, like the words he blew as he boogied away

  HIGH NOON SHADOW

  eye looked in wonder as my shadow inked concrete

  behind me, it softened, then hardened its black shape

  as if it were an amoeba trailing my footsteps

  through the hot summer day filled with gaggles of people

  at high noon in manhattan, eye listened to a sprinkling

  of voices ricocheting around, airing intentions

  murderous as mamba snakes, they troubled me deep down

  inside my secret dreams, where eye often feel isolated

  as my shadow snaking behind me, wavering over concrete

  TWO NEW SEVEN-ELEVENS IN RHYME

  SEVEN

  train wheels spin over steel

  tracks in voices of moaning deep blues wailing

  through the air, you think you feel

  paths of history as bad news carrying

  tales of skulls crunched under heels,

  when humans refuse to see greed as warning,

  war is clues too kill with zeal

  ELEVEN

  In new york during winter, blanketing white

  snow is transformed to dirt black

  sorrow, when days carry blues into singing

  plaintive through people who track

  voices, like wheels spinning on ice are grinding

  syllabic whine of rat packs

  clawing nights through garbage cans, close air freezing

  above it all, a man hacks,

  spits out a trumpet blast from somewhere, cooing

  sounds of love birds, in the sack

  up in harlem, wind is a razor, slashing

  QUESTION

  an empty black shoe

  left there on the sidewalk, where

  did the lost foot go

  looking for a replacement,

  what does it wear now

  A DIRGE FOR MICHAEL BROWN, TAMIR RICE & TRAYVON MARTIN

  where does life-force of breath go after flesh falls away from bone,

  does it rest in the womb of memory, raise up its spirit inside

  ghost voices recognized once as bodies carrying names of michael,

  tamir, trayvon, so many other young black boys & girls with bright eyes, looking

  into a future of dreams before being cut down by spitting lead,

  fired into their spirits carrying their names in ferguson, cleveland,

  chicago, florida, where do their spirits go after breath leaves them

  suddenly beyond hearing love from their mother’s & father’s voices,

  brothers & sisters too quaking grief, close friends

  do they hear music now, a trumpet lick sweet as a sad kiss,

  wailing over piano keys tickling lyrical disbelief, rain falling

  on days when mallet drum beats echo footsteps soft as memory

  when a trumpet voice hauntingly pierces flights of mourning’s

  gloomy light, bird wings slicing through sadness of the day,

  bass strings echoing echos, beneath dark aching words of a poet’s voice raising up

  names of so many robbed of futures by spitting bullets stamped with their names, spitting bullets

  shrieking like hornets, stamped with their names,

  where will all this death take us beyond tears, weeping music, poetry

  moaning words of a st. louie woman, how long will memory remember this fear,

  these lost names stamped on faces of paper posters

  nailed to trees, walls in soiled rooms splattered with blood

  inside mourning houses for years carrying memories of young black faces with

  sweet smiles, eyes bright as suns staring into a future

  once possible with dreams, lost in an instant after death

  fired from demons walking still amongst us now enter their brains,

  how long will we keep these spirits warm with love inside our hearts, before

  amnesia’s modern embrace obliterates time entombing

  so many celebrated as martyrs now, yes, black lives do matter,

  have always mattered here & now, each & every day,

  every second, minute, every hour, yes, black lives do matter, alive

  have always mattered, breathing, magical, beautiful, alive,

  living does matter for those who know meaning lives here

  when lungs take in breath, makes us whole, creative, does matter

  when air is sweet beneath the sun, wondrous, magical as music, poetry,

  yes, black lives do matter, all life matters every day light rises

  with the sun, when we welcome the moon, shadows

  wavering like wind-breath singing through leaves of trees swelling

  with symphonies, voices, beautiful, powerful as choruses of blues tonguing

  insinuation aching with puns, humor drawn

  from black lives, inside songs, yes, black lives do matter

  each day the sun blooms a trumpet voice within the coal skin of night,

  where the moon shines in the eyes & mouth of a black child smiling

  every moment in a trumpet voice piercing as the sun & moon

  rising, breathing inside lungs inhaling, exhaling, the miracle

  that is life, rising, falling, like pitches of music swelling with breath,

  with beauty, black people breathing in the here & now every second,

  every day, yes black lives do matter, living in a trumpet’s voice,

  will always matter, singing in the air, will always matter

  beautiful as we are, will always matter, breathing in this life

  will always matter, yes, always, always, always

  II.

  FRAGMENT

  for Aretha Franklin

  the pulsating bass beat threading through

  the queen of soul’s “rock steady”

  remains wicked, scintillating, throbbing

  aretha’s voice right there in the mix

  warms the heart, forces the feet to dance,

  moves the body as it remembers old time

  religion, when music was language, words

  informing the pulse of our hearts with meaning

  after we heard rhythms as one movement,

  emanating from a single source, though mixing

  in a jambalaya stew of impulses over time

  moving people across geographic zones,

  it is a wonder how memory secures, holds

  cultural roots planted deep inside communities,

  where seeds grow mighty baobab trees, sequoias

  full of blooming flowers dazzling in their assortment,

  colors when we hear the dazzling, clear, cutting-edge

  voice aretha bellows, it reminds our ears

  to listen to the power of nature’s elastic breath,

  its powerful thunder throbbing “rock steady,”

  threading its bass song through leaves every day,

  so is it any wonder “the queen of soul” refuses

  to suffer fools when they enter her presence—aretha

  knows she’s the real deal, has always had it going on

  JAZZ IMPROVISATION AS BLUEPRINT FOR LIVING

  eye listen to jazz musicians improvising

  road maps to living, blueprints, solos,

  perhaps, lead to adjusting in a moment

  to take flight to a space beyond sight, nuance,

  quickly, in an instant, everything might change