Social Justice Prayer
On this day, at this moment with this breath.
En este dia, en este momento, con este respiro.
We evoke the communal spirit of justice.
Nosotros evocamos el spirito de comunidad y justicia.
We break bread with our neighbors, we extend our hand to our enemies and we pray for global justice.
Nostros partimos el pan con nuestros vecinos, estendemos nuestras manos al enemigo y pedimos por justicia universal.
We feed our souls with the courage of those who have dared to break the silence of oppression.
Nostros le damos de comer a nuestras almas con el valor de aquellos que tuvieron el coraje de romper el silencio de la oppression.
We honor the holy places of protests, the streets, the marches, the public halls, the seat on the segregated bus, the brown hand who refused to pick the grape, the power to love in spite of hatred and shame, and we are strengthened by the conviction of those who dared to spit in the master’s soup.
Nosotros honoramos los lugares santos de protesta, las calles y desfiles, los pasillos politicos, el asiento en la guagua segregada, la mano mora que no recogio la uva, el amor que ama envuelto en verguenza y recibimos fuerza en la convicion de aquellos que escupireron en la sopa del patron.
On this day, on this moment with this breath.
En este dia, en este momento, y con este respiro.
We promise to bring water and hope to the thirsty immigrant.
Nosotros prometemios traer agua y esperanza al imigrante con sed.
We demand access for the less abled bodied amongst us.
Nostros demandamos acceso a los que el cuerpo no les funcionan bien.
We rejoice in the inherent goodness of all people.
Nosotros regosamos en la inherente bondad de todas las personas.
We worship in all names given to the holy ones and we pray:
Nosotros resamos en todos los nombres de dios y pedimos.
For the marriage of compassion to power.
Por el matrimonio de compasion y poder.
For the abundance of the earth to feed the mouths of hungry.
Por darles de comer a las bocas hambrientas con la abundancia de la tierra.
On this day at this moment with this breath we pray.
En este dia, en este momento con este suspiro rezamos.
We pray that our men and boys claim their true masculinity and bring their hearts to their genitals.
Resamos por nuestros hombres y ninos, pedimos que ellos reclamen la verdadera masculinidad y que unan sus corazones con su sexualidad.
We pray that our women and girls grow strong, safe, and free.
Pedimos que nuestras mujeres y ninas crescan seguras, fuertes y libres.
And we pray for us the justice workers, that we may have a circle of family and friends to come home to and for a lover who is willing to wash our aching feet.
Por un circulo de familia y amigos en nuestras casa y por un amante que nos labe nuestros adolorides pies.
Namaste, Amen
Mama Outsider: Reminder Notes to a Dancing Girl
The weekend before my white-ish roommate kicks me and my daughter out of her house, she tries to kiss me at a drag show. This, after I told her about my brain. The crippling effects of cortisol. The way I need safety before I can think of any of that other shit. The way even thinking about being romantic with a person with whom I am communal is destabilizing. All the ways you can say “no” without being offensive, without being a Black bitch, without barking like the other dogs she rescues as community service.
It is the weekend Beyoncé releases her “Formation” single and a bad queen has just performed it without breaking a sweat. I am watching the queen and learning that the way not to sweat is to move so little that every move seems like drma. I’ve got the not moving part down, which is how I am here at a club with a roommate whose friends want to meet the Black girl she let live in her house.
Slightly tipsy, I yell, “Yes!!!” a little too loudly for present company as soon as I hear the first few measures of “Formation.” My roommate and her friends laugh, thinking it alcohol and not Black girl magic rising up in me, calling out to my wished-for cousins in the room. I spot one cousin across the way, locs swinging as she and her girls cheer the queen on. Where their hips are free, mine are locked in place between two friendly-enough people I won’t get to know. In fifteen minutes, one will destabilize my life with her advances and the other will start crying. I focus on these would-be cousins, wishing to be with them. Wishing to be winding in the company of friends. Wishing for dance ciphers and yelling, “Yes!” and “Get it!” and “Okay!” and “I see you!” and “Do your thang!” and “Werk!”
Dear one, you do not know that you are already dancing. That you are perfecting the dip you learned so long ago. That even when you are low-low, your core holds you up. You will wind slowly until you stand again. Your girls are screaming, “Yes!”
I am fifteen and my friend’s mother has thrown her a backyard party. The boys stand on the periphery of our dancing circles because they know where they are. There are mamas and aunties and grandmas and big cousins standing around. This is different than dancing in the absence of adults, in the teen parties where some boys think that winding is an invitation for them to lean their hips in (sometimes with their boys holding them up from behind) while some girl works them into a frenzy. There is no negotiation of sexuality going on at this party, which is one reason the gods send in Big Cousin to teach us another kind of lesson.
Big cousin is probably 19 and she is 1997 Louisville fine, which is a roller wrap, lip gloss with the brown line, and white eyeliner on the eyelids. She is teeshirt tucked in tight jeans fine and she has come through loudly with her girls. I know to take note. I know my life is about to change. I know there is something these young women will teach me about being grown, so I’m taking notes in the socially awkward way of writers that most interpret as staring to the point of disrespect. I’ve learned to hide the camcorders of my eyes to avoid confrontation so I disappear into the background of the party. And then her song comes on. Cousin drops it low, her butt nearly to the ground, then brings it up slowly, hips rotating to the beat. These are four of the longest measures I’ve ever heard. The song escapes memory, but Cousin does not. She is laughing at herself when she gets back up, says something like, “Y’all ain’t ready,” before bouncing off to the next relative, some grown auntie shaking her head and saying “That girl’s too much,” in a way that is the highest compliment to black girls, in that way that black women learn to mix pride and worry and arrive at hope. Proud that she’s “too much.” Worried that the world will try to take her down to size, fit her into its tropes no matter what limbs must be cut off to do so. Hope that “too much” will be enough to resist, to wreck that shit.
I am forever changed. This dip becomes my signature move and I will practice it in mirrors until I master it. And I know I have mastered it when I feel my body moving with my memory. The integration, embodiment. I practice and in practicing find freedom to be wild. To be too much. I learn to listen for the code in the base, to hear rhythms telling my hips what to do. I dance wild. I dance freaky. For the next few years, someone taps me on the shoulder to pull me away from the spectacle I am making of myself. Soon, I will be grown enough for nobody to care.
Dear one, it is because you are grown that everyone cares. You destabilize world order with your womb, your winding, your wild ways. Ignore the tapping and take the floor. Find water when you are thirsty then return. Should your dancing bring unwelcome attention, your real girls will fuck somebody up before they try to sit you down. You are fine.
After the drag show it will take a while to remember just how fine I am. Homelessness requires re-memory for all the disses. Displacement, dis-ease, the disaster of living with someone who no longer wants you in their space. It clings to you like grime, like that which makes people avert their eyes. You forget to put on your fine, to perform it until it is real again. And then the gods send Cousin Patricia to your Facebook inbox, Patron Saint of Black Girl Fine. She’s the first one who taught you that fine is not the stuff you were born with or even the stuff other people put on you. That stuff is just baggage you root around in until you find your mascara.
“You never put on mascara before?” Patricia asked in shock, bopping her head to the beat of JJ Fad’s “Supersonic.” I am six and on my first road trip without my nuclear family. I am in route to my godmother’s house, a big girl trip, and Patricia’s house is a stop along the way. I am six and in awe of teenage girls. The mingling of grown-up and child in bodies are like mile markers pointing me to my “one-day-soon.” I put spritzed bangs, popped collars, and mascara on my list of all the ways I will learn how to be fine when I get to be her age.
Patricia also knew how to pick up the needle so as not to scratch the vinyl when she started our song again. By the third repeat, I forgot that I was lonely and I learned to say, “Eenie meenie disaleenie oo wop bop aleenie…” I learned what it means to be something else—a member of this free floating kinship that is humanity and full of cousins you didn’t even know you had. It means mascara and the latest dance, Supersonic on repeat and lipsyncing in the mirror. Feeling ourselves, feeling flyy, feeling baaaad and too good to be worried about what they say outside safe doors.
Dear one, be something else. Be Louisville fine and dropping low to bring it up. Be bringing wreck to parties and when they ain’t ready, just laugh. Be Supersonic—they cannot steal your voice. Be cousin and connected. Be always holding someone’s hand. Sooner than you know, you will be home.
Initiation
for Rachel Eliza
Your friend has entered the tribe
of those who’ve buried their mothers,
and she is different—more of herself
than ever, but a new layer, the affect
of one unable to shake the sounds
of leaving, to unsee profound rising
preceding her own, waiting. What day
is it, does it matter? Where am I,
the keys? Inducted into a society
of hurried truces and anointing
that becomes a steady hum
in the music of all things.
The full, gray sky held its water
as she rained and rained, a rain
that will never dissipate, her legs
forgetting for a spell why they were made,
her husband’s arms remembering
what they’re for. Shining, gorgeous grief—
death’s anchor a terrible salvation to a family
adrift. The sob and tremble of gone,
gone coursing through clasped hands.
The duty of firstborn daughters,
how it lengthens the spine and hollows
the cheeks as she holds the widower’s hand.
Her crowded face in the mirror,
the morning walk with the “grand-dog”
ambushed with epiphany (oh, the babies
she won’t meet!) At any hour, snippets
of speech, sensation and memory surge—
stranding former selves as starfish and conchs
strewn on some remote beach. The thought
of calling, of being called stopped
in its tracks No—the ground opened
and we gave her back,
shut down the interstate and
stood without falling among
all of those stones.
When mothers are lowered, daughters
break out of boxes, unbossed by
the minutia that comes with breathing.
You saw it happen, see it in your friend’s
furrowed brow, the revised way she leans
in a doorway, across a kitchen counter.
Her mother has gone there, dragging her
into a new here and her gait has changed.
This missing flares. Gone is the banter
of carefree homegirls; a deeper cadence reigns—
that grown alto, mama heavy
on her tongue, loud and loving
in her mind, lucid dreams.
Heiress to her mother’s wellspring and might,
she finally gets what hmph really means.
daughters begin a furious blooming.
127 Notebooks
for Nikky Finney
Back to your 14th year of living—
eagle eye, iambic breath—
127 spines numbered to the birth
of your recording, textual soundtrack.
I imagine 14-year-old Lynn Carol Finney
is light years more profound
than that number normally allows,
how fallen leaves dance through your pages,
play possum for others. How the carloads of books
your father bought, brought home,
were treasure, your lens growing
ever wider in the listening. Back to the sugar
of South Carolina sun, the way
the day boils & cools, leaves night
for the reckoning: the butterfly
you find dried on your windowsill,
wings as maps, traces of future
to follow. These precious thoughts
wrapped between the covers, held
with both arms to your heart.
The things
you know,
girl. The poem
in the year of journal #17. The spines,
the spines. Back, back, sweet history,
The oddity & odd number
of 127, never awkward
in the ear’s turntable.
How the story
always finds its way.
Answer the Call
“I need you. I need y’all’s help. I can’t do this by myself”
—Sandra Bland
Can you hear it? A faint whisper at first
trickling in from the ether. A cool hush
against your heart. Be still. Listen
to the words flicker, I need you. You,
not some other doer busy with the living.
You, of heart and spirit, can you hear
Sandy speak? It’s louder now, burrowing
through your spine. Can you feel it
pull you to your feet, feet to pavement
from Illinois to New York, from Waller County
to Austin, Texas? This work, this woman.
You’ve seen her in the market, on the street.
She is your sister, your friend, your reflection
pinned against the mirror. A crack across
the glass meant for you to swallow. Spit
back. Answer the call. Say her name.
Carry it forward into a new world.
A Study in Sound and Silence
after “Rehearsal” by John Bankston
Sometimes I mouth the words to hymns,
No sound coming from my throat.
Call it lazy?
Call it memory lapse?
Call it a simple show? No.
Call it faith in the voice of the audience,
A belief in an other’s
Ability to fill in the blanks.
Call it rehearsal:
Visualizing the path in advance of my steps.
Showing up
Despite my moments of disbelief,
Hanging the whole picture of me, all complete
And in progress
We Were Being Detained
before the thirty-six of us could bless the food, he called us out of the names
we resist leaving. quick to accuse, the room of rearranging, to kill him
when no one begged his fall. an impulse born in him, to drag us flat across
a floor we weren’t on and we embarrass quietly, laugh and throw pillows to save
necks from the corners of coffee tables. all the scared children, their urgent questions
we wish we could unfold for them, rattle us. i wanna vanish from this detainment.
leave only this body in the room, where the all-star pitcher, who “should’ve made it
to the league,” can’t control his saliva. none of this melts down before the wads
of stale entertainment. i say to my guest, “let’s just go fix our plates together.”
too hungry to let him finish! the lips in the room, too cold to be kissing! i wanted
him to stop what he wouldn’t stop so bad! i wanted to see the night zipped up
again, to kill what always happens to him, until what happens to him is cut out!
For Drunk Mike
you must have found jefferson davis
in the bottom of the flask you smuggled
into the house rupp built
your great great grandaddy must have
held his branding iron tight in his grave
& gleamed with pride as he watched you hurl
slurred lashes from whiskey lips past rows
of white faces until they landed onto brown
& black bodies awaiting their chance
to be bought & sold
you must have thought me Ralph Ellison’s
invisible so as we shared an armrest
I kindly ignored your elbow
rubbing mine while you unscrewed
another sip unleashing your ancestors
so they could watch too
my eyes searched the rafters for comfort
but instead read the names & years
frozen in time dangling above spectators
who know exactly how much
profit all those bodies made for free
what you really mean by
If I was coach cal
I’d whip them boys
into shape
Manifesto for Black Baseball Players
Persona—Josh Gibson
never forget the 42 reasons
baseball is best played color blind
steal bases like they
stole this country
break into record books
turn more than just they ink black
pretend the ball is named
jim crow
colonize
the hall of fame
remember we gave the game
lights helmets and color
never be controlled
by anything white
belt Lift Every Voice and Sing
during they national anthem
find you a Helen drop down on one knee
place a baseball field on her finger
The Piñata Boy
The police ask me again and again:
were you trying to seduce them?
My broken nose turns me into
living Greek statuary. Phillip lets
limber strangers beat him only if
they agree on a magic word for
stop: camera! It’s not one he’d
used by accident with a skinhead.
Mannequins in leather guard us
in Boystown against adulthood.
Bonnie visits with yet another
black eye for jewelry. She speaks
of true love as if a burden. One
cop leans forward: these are college
kids. Will you ruin their futures
by pressing charges? The rally
isn’t about anger, as it should be.
These are my streets too. Angel
says he’s never been gaybashed,
as if it’s my fault for my purpled
face. Todd gives soldiers blowjobs,
if they’re in uniform: the battle front
has always been at home. Another
cop shakes his head: why didn’t
you fight back? Because my two
fists weren’t enough against them,
because I want world peace. Glenn
writes a theater review: What if
Cabaret was updated with neo-Nazis?
My students see I’m human at last.
My face heals as the attackers are
given probation: boys will be boys.
Father would wave his belt but
was unable to fix me. I’m not
broken, Papi, and I won’t break for
you. The S&M club screamed
when we dragged in two women
for drinks: NYC wasn’t ever Sodom.
The police make a press statement:
the victim should have known better.
Than to exit? Manuel, just out of jail,
shows a black tattoo of a fist clenching
a rose. It covers up a knife wound
and makes him handsome, winsome.
Sí, we refuse to become anyone’s
martyrs. Maybe the thugs were trying
to seduce me, the piñata boy of their
wet dreams. See, says Ann, no stars.
I Hate Crowds or Yippy Ki Yay Murica, FUCK YO COUCH!!!!
where is my filter? where is my leforge visor?
that can instantly shield my eyes from THIS this is
how is it that / buy now / that’s not factory equipment?
the capacity to filter out the #alllivesmatters
how is it that white folk don’t see the insult in telling me
all lives matter? did something somehow imprint upon your own genetic code
that reacts to anything nonwhite with code speak? i understand you
live in a world in which your likeness (to some degree) is the measuring stick
no matter how inaccurate. have you become bored with all of this?
your nose blindness is impressive if not terrifying / narcissism and insecurity IS
quite the cocktail you’ve sipped from the tit
after slipping from the womb swashbuckling and swinging from umbilical cords
you little cowboy you. probably got one of those 6 shooters with a holster
for a white christmas. bang bang!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! the sheriff says. you have a plastic badge
that has you believing you are a child of destiny
another imperfect form created in that archetype mold. are you
the next believer in manifest destiny?
the next john wilkes booth? fred phelps? joe mccarthy? james holms?
the next john wayne? clint eastwood? joe paul franklin? george zimmerman. you buckaroo
pop those caps child. no longer finger pointing a fake gun. you are well on your way to
capping
fell in love with that smell. not quite thermite. but love was still in the air
pop pop pop. Injuns, chinks, niggers. pop pop pop. It doesn’t matter who
as long as you ride off into the sunset
while the sun sets forever on the enemies you have
created, deceived, perceived, lynched.
i use to think that affluenza was the most coward defense one could make
the belief that wealth breeds the ignorance to get away with murder.
this is the foundation that is cracked but there. a white man that murders and walks is well
on its way. into becoming a birthright the stand your ground crowd
the lets build a wall crowd
the blue life crowds
the love it or leave it crowd
the i’m protecting my premises crowd
the i’m protecting my family crowds
the i’m protecting America crowd
the go back to where you came from crowd
the my family were real immigrants crowd
the i don’t want my taxes to pay for others healthcare crowd
the get a job crowd
the this country is turning into the third world crowd
the white man is oppressed crowd
the i have it made but hate my life crowd
the playing field is level crowd
the racism doesn’t exist anymore crowd
the they’re all lazy crowd
the if they had more guns this wouldn’t have happened crowd
the he’s a muslim crowd
the he wasn’t even born here crowd
the share law is taking over america crowd
the he founded isis crowd
the who cares if they have clean water to drink crowd
the they should have gotten into their suvs and left new orleans before katrina hit crowd
the blacks kill more whites than whites kill blacks crowd
the fox news parasite crowd
the my ancestors come from europe/not africa crowd
the we need more oil lets take theirs crowd
the we speak english here no matter where here is crowd
the my behavior and attitude is that of a sympathizer of hate crowd
the jesus was white crowd
the i don’t see color crowd
the i got a black joke promise you won’t get offended crowd
the you can’t take a joke crowd
the godchildren of imperialist actions crowd
the thank god that isn’t me crowd
the i shop at walmart because i love a deal before i love america crowd
the i will threaten the police with a gun and live to talk and laugh about it crowd
the i hate everything that doesn’t look like me unless it is entertaining me crowd
the they shouldn’t have been selling lose cigarettes crowd
the they shouldn’t have been selling cds crowd
the they don’t live in this neighborhood crowd
the they shouldn’t have moved into the neighborhood crowd
the they shouldn’t have taken the job crowd
the they must have stolen that car crowd
the they shouldn’t have been in the car obeying orders crowd
the they shouldn’t have been in the park with a toy crowd
the you surprised me with how well you read and write crowd
the they shouldn’t have been standing there crowd
the they shouldn’t have looked me in the eye crowd
the you don’t talk back to me crowd
the i will stand my ground crowd
the he looks suspicious crowd
the look at my new couch crowd
the my 2nd amendment trumps your life crowd
the he shouldn’t have been walking back from the store crowd
the i would have shot him too crowd
the i will run you down in the street with my truck crowd
the all lives matter crowd
the lets make america great again crowd
the lets make america white again crowd
and that is why i hate crowds
Is It Wrong
that I ignore the Witness @ my door, turn back
to the kitchen, pour
another cup of coffee, whisper
Mercy? I know
what you’ll say, no different
than the last visit, arms
full of Watchtowers, a Bible, always
in twos—some kind
of safety.
I can’t
blame you,
but if we aren’t talking
about bullets, I don’t
want to ponder
salvation. I don’t want
to ignore Altons & Philandos
on earth
did they get those marquee names?
Were their mothers
seers, did they know
their sons
would be #s, footnotes? If
I answer the doorbell that cuts
& drums the hollow
of this house, the blood
you raise in conversation
will not be Sandra’s or Rekia’s
& what’s the use, I think. Don’t ask
me about a kingdom,
don’t ask
if I’ve been saved.
One eyed critics
3:30
In the morning
With not
A soul in sight
We sat
Four-deep at
A traffic light
Talking about how
Dumb and brainwashed
Some of our Brothers and Sisters are
While we waited
For a green light
To tell us
When to go.
Where Do People in Dreams Come From?
Have you ever wondered
Where people in dreams come from
Those colorful sacred busy people
Coming alive every night in our dreams
Sometimes complete strangers
Sometimes people we know
Deceased people
Especially our loved ones
Appearing as children or adults
Capable of instantly changing to someone else
Performing marvelous feats
Walking fastly backwards; flying without wings
Mostly friendly ordinary people
Making you feel wonderfully excited and extravagant
But sometimes mean evil scary people
Chasing you until they trap you in a corner
When you try to scream
No words come out of your mouth
As they reach to grab you
You miraculously escape by waking up
Where do those magical people in dreams come from
And do they continue to exist while we are awake
Waiting for us to fall asleep again?
Another Morning Blessed Be
Eggs over easy A man’s daily ritual perched Down the road, a woman Grinds her teeth on religion Brown as chewed tobacco Emptied from a rusty tin cup |
bacon and hash with toast under a dog eared morning swollen with milk offered to a southern God no one misses once used then left to crack and chip |
strong coffee to take the edge off paper that says no work today for sons born under the wrong sign turned ornery and deaf to prayers poured to the ground under a vexed summer sky |
Augury
“…and they were coming toward him
in rough ranks.
In seas. In windsweep. They were
black and loud”
—Gwendolyn Brooks—“Riot”
Soon enough. All day was filled with the floating dead
of clouds. Children,
throwing birds, guns for thumbs
and forefingers.
My heart is a mineshaft of canaries
and shells.
My smell is filled with flying
and what a sky this is.
Lying on my side,
looking where his eyes might be.
The Northern European still lifes
depicted so many flowers.
The dead teach us that kind of patience. Here I am
lying raccoon-like on the ground, the staccato line.
How different the drawings of a people must be
who have always this kind of time.
***
A brief history of rope:
some of us are brown
as starvation.
Happenstance is the color
of our eyes.
***
What happens when you stare into the sun?
A crow is born. From here, I think
about the image of God.
How He set jagged stars
in the square holes of us.
***
And what are groups of us called?
It is an unkindness
of ravens, for instance. For instance,
a dole (an offering)
of doves.
We’ve always been more glorious as a flock.
Groups of us are congregations.
What is more godlike than peace (other than insurgence),
than quiet, as of the breathing of evening
birds, the low warble of our people in the trees.
***
Sometimes a dream is a fist you grow into,
but more often, a routine, like watering a weed in your stomach.
***
We haven’t been made afraid of trees. Nor the bottoms of cars.
Windows, the gavel, the sea.
A feather is caught in the rapture of a fence,
keeps struggling—can’t come to terms—
cannot unthink that it’s a bird.
***
What gives the ground the right
to gravity? No building.
I want to widen the eyes
of God. Every amendment has followed through
against our bodies.
Icharus leapt. We will fly,
be black together in the sun.
Black Bone
I’ve heard tell
it’s part mountain root,
part wellspring.
Others say it’s dark matter
threaded through stars, hidden
even from the telescopic eye.
Maybe it’s a fossil—
some rare combination
of obsidian & onyx fused together,
excavated from a seam of coal
& conjured into day.
Or the words that drift
in & out of a swing-low dream
in the middle of the night.
What you find on a porch
between friends in summer
amid the moths & moonlight.
The bittersweet dredge
of a charred oak barrel
welded into spirits
from a wide-mouthed jar.
Maybe it’s what happens
when a cacophony of tongues rise
against so, so many bullets
destined for Black skin.
Or that you won’t recognize it
until it shows up unbidden,
a howling maelstrom on your
doorstep that you dare not turn away.
Maybe it’s all of these.
Whatever it is,
it’s a mystery—
you won’t ever know
until you break down & grow
your own.