Poetry / Paper

No, Clare, I will not lend you a
sheet of paper.
I will, however give you
one
to keep
and taint.
I would want you to keep that
paper
and never give it back
because the abuse you would
inflict on it
with your asinine aspirations of
pom-poms and prom
are things
I can hardly endure.
Take it in that well manicured
hand, hold it to your
hoisted breast-
that spandex cotton poly-blend
cup that runneth over-
& smother that damnable
embroidered moose!
Let it reach past to
skin infused orange-
almost certainly malignant
in the pursuit of
beauty-
and feel where I can
reach,
where I have ne’er
dared to dream.
You, so wretched in your
falsehood
glaringly ivory teeth and sunny
golden hair-
so precious on anything else
but on you so vile-
that I could not
help but to
sit here immobile,
shackled by my own
awkward exterior-
horn rimmed spectacles
that would make even Buddy Holly
cringe and a haircut by my mother-
trying to see past the
deceptive fan of
clumpy lashes
to the blue of your eye
holding either
the provocative depth of the ocean,
airy kindness of the sky
or a pool so shallow
I would swear to have seen
spit deeper.
Now, presented with an opportunity
to know
once and for all,
I am reluctant to look.
So just take the damn paper
and turn around.
Cause me no more dilemma
or doubt…Yea, sure
you can have a pen too.
When Harlem was Mecca
when people, other people’s people
not ‘my’ people,
move from
field to factory,
when Langston smiled like
the man sitting cross-legged under the
Bodhi tree,
struck by enlightenment-
didn’t he transcend?
Cast off
to sea
and set himself to Africa?

(draft seven?)

If he can do it,
why not me?
Because I’m not black
and am tethered to
Northern Virginia
by a father
as unblack as me
who is also drawn to
Africa,
and may reach her before
yet I do.
And a mother
who has left romance in her
early 30s
and would rather manufacture
rubber stoppers
in the Orient,
place of her ancestry.

But if Langston could go,
I could too
because we have a common understanding,
though it may now be cliche,
that a dream
deferred, that
runs, festered and hangs
will inevitably
Explode.

But
this isn’t Harlem-
the music is overproducted
soulless
stagnant-
I often wonder if
remaining here
would cause the same
fruitlessness
in me.

Your Little China Girl (draft two)

He had traffic court Friday
which would be the hundred and first thing he had neglected to
tell me in the last week and a half.
By Saturday, forget it, I was through.
I had found 4 outbound calls on his phone
to some skank in Maryland,
directions to a skeezy club in DC
and a webcam girl named Mindy
another kinky slut who just loved loved loved to
take it all off.
Oh, and she was Asian too.

Officer Morten called this morning-
has been the past three days.
Says ‘we’re going to charge you with home invasion and destruction of property’
Whose home, whose property? I practically lived there!
So who did it hurt when I broke all the mirrors in the house?
I was the only one who used them.
Blew out the flat screen with a stick of bamboo,
totaled the thousand dollar antique grandfather clock.
I guess I was never one for the patriarchy, you know?

But now…Now we’re buddies.
He called last night…Phone sex ensued.
Now, I know you’re thinking
and maybe you’re right.
Maybe I only lowered my voice and said I was jimming something I wasn’t
just to get him to say ‘Baby, I love you’
Doesn’t matter, I guess…He took it back a minute after he finished.
‘oh, you know what you do to me Baby,
the way you do that
thing you do.’
Well yes I do
but that doesn’t make him love me any less.

So I guess he continues to frequent Mindy the Korean cum-dumpster
but he can’t watch Discovery in HD.
There’s some kind of justice in the world…
Well, if that’s true, why do I feel so lonely?

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