I

a special program for special days

of revealed scripture

proving my god

ate your god’s liver for lunch

in a black tie cage match

four hour special

made available for download by

name your beast

bringing convicted money changers

back from hell since before the last

apocalypse

you know me/us

rubber red nose

wig fright

handing out the president

and his press releases

waving nuclear stock options

like a crucifix

gold for flesh to go

where there is nothing

more entertaining than lies

about death

II

the deadline for discounted forged passports

has come and gone

it’s down to old tools

sharpened to defend food scraps

horded in corners

away from the helicopter searchlights

we all clutch

something in our sleep

what we knew

when the lights worked

and the water ran

the memory of bells

gold mined in sleep

III

how we used  to dote

over the explosion indices

these days silence detonates

where we used to

close our eyes

security is verified at every checkpoint

men with guns make sure

what never saw the light of day

leaks into rivers

lives

vehicles

emptied

who wears the rank of gun

as second self

fears the little

fuck you knives

tongued in bitter whispers

draws steel to unsuspecting skulls

in spasms of self defense

unfed as a child

survived on the penitence

of forbidden fruit

grips the nail like a savior

for faruq z. bey

1

a dark tall stranger than most

breaths life

into a question mark shaped

like a horn of plenty

hendrix quipped

you can’t call home

on a long distance saxophone

or was it you can’t go home

except long distance

the plutonian sax player

asked me why

hendrix sounded like he did

i mentioned the stratocaster’s

harp like transparence

even through a wall of electrical charges

and mountains of overpowering amplification

there was the sound of light

and it dawned on me

how they rose in the same generation

their brotherness otherness

the muslim as constructive hedonist

and it dawned on me

the fluid mechanics of jupiter’s clouds

was what he strained through be bop

a dark tall stranger in the night

skids along on a reed shaped rocket

thank god he had his helmet

a book of theory

to answer the question

why home seemed such a distance

measured in coltranes

mapped in volcanic whispers

dislocated in oceans of now

what happened was things

what happened

things were supposed to get better

what happens when

the outlaw becomes the law

and nothing is law but out

if there is a criminal element

i am of it

2

learned as a child

before childhood

before the eye separated

from the tongue and the ear

words from the tongue for the ear

motor noise

or how sirens call from cities

where ambulances scurry

like rats on a drowning ship

measured in coltranes

the blue reed

slick with black ice

the bell of the horn

tolling for thee

the keys as valves for

steam released in the birth process

circular as breath

in the century of my birth

a building had been leveled and cleared

on a city block

left for residents

mostly the descendants of slaves

there was no one else

and there he stood

in the municipality with the largest

percentage of africans in north america

stood calling through the volcanic whisper

come out dark citizens

and citizens of the dark

we’re going to jerk the twist

like junkie the bird

wave albert ayler’s cleveland cataclysm vibrato

found in a foreign river

drowned with blood

drawn from the map in his head

stood on the leveled city block

bell of the horn

open as sun

i like to think i was there

slapping my forehead in applause

howling at the alternate moon

the horn was just another

way to breathe

          for Sekou Sundiata

sound each word, align with its silence

likeness of drawing the issue, figures within the meaning,

emotions set by what’s together

everyone is an event to know,

as much as air, as met by a touch

earth comes to the eyes, shoreline made of bodies’ walking

knowledge strikes the same note

as a music lifted from voices, unfolds as a space to measure

the daily pace, the chorus inside belonging to involvement

out there takes in here to call it heart,

ours is in all the hours spent

how we write alongside the wrongs  to take transparent to apparent

understanding is the ocean to think across

the wave-like lyric changes, chance for daring the direction,

a claim for being among the places in abundant

sometime can be now as somewhere is the possible,

send drifting thoughts to the center of tomorrow

uncover the masks that lay hidden in what is present,

held-back fears dragging down the current

nearly said is not enough horizon to settle by small talk,

nouns are what is none when spent alone

descriptions are the first trip to language,

each a distance to close in the spaces between spoken and done

inside intensity calls out to bring some clarity,

sing away old habit keeping speech in dream’s shadow

alternatives working into position where site is inspiration

collected in care  connected to sharing

trace the time it takes to measure

so many ways to believe in pleasure

and writing past any thought of ending,

all the stories fall into peace

Where HQ’s collide smoke is the newsreel hue,

love what the generals said about the contrasting blur

available between mirrors and the dispossessed,

all that vital language gear carried around,

messaging aspects, management terms, terminal determinants,

a canny ability for re-scratching the tablets

in museums to reflect new historical boundary flush,

I’m blushing, with so many waiting with me

on this corner, to be considered the hired help

driving reigns slated for millennial stance,

take a number , assume the trance is aggregate,

take it as a package, its in the reality show

contract of portable lengths, act specified

as if troubles like these were unavoidable,

not enough to be drugged or dropped

when consonants spell me duped,

it’s a big picture fit for a small creed, cozy up ideals

for a mere fleshing out of those running figures

present in bomb-drop crescendo fly over.

We make fortunes here, unfortunates there,

market share trusts conflicts raging ,

plenty of room for a price on one’s head

to be lost in translation, trending through transaction,

eventually, Malthusian one day could be next Tuesday,

the face of part time land quadrants,

like it’s advised on the on point title box-

wreckage: the series, starts here

live in a world of containment

‘live’ from shipping containers

dressed in handout handsome figurative

there’s no better polite statement in police states

than battering ram viewed intrusion then

cut to dollar store living, selling point

tastefully done in grayscale, time lapse the spatial

as the next sent in exile

are trotted out in hands up march-off  finality,

will the vanished please stand up

for the conqueror’s caterer’s head count?

there’s a need for ciphers at the company picnic,

audience for their version of horizon.

Cue the story old as the salute, I acknowledged

I miss the old shakedown street able clan,

cosmic in scope and breastplate demeanor,

face off or face down blood matters these days,

its not a reject of temperament here,

the dejected need time to reflect

on the requisite teamwork spunk ,

to find who’s daring done trapped in ad diction,

long hours

viewing not too much in the offing

beyond the day’s remaining view of gated camps’ stretch,

or the finding the escape tunnel on the map

where conquest is as re-creational as

outdoors in a cardboard box

with a familiar address is creation myth,

something like parallel play

or vacationing with family in Cognitiveland,

so lead on, so detention all proverbs,

and squire the detainees about

their language painted on

a green screen for effect.

But, just try keeping these suspicions of abstraction

away from the lurid real-time after the next

focus on that rebellious last stand in the background,

or what variety of pushovers drop

with or without a favored camera angle,

punch up more ruse with a tech savvy sashay,

we’re either in their dream

or pasted on backwards in the background,

make mine the world-view desperation tinge on the rocks

like it was spelled out in the training film at birth,

identifying with violence involves a slight timbre

coming from each glimpsing of pesky roadside incidents,

but it’s too hard to separate which voices snap a dying one-liner

when buried in fire’s rampage, my sight

was clouded moment to monument,

escalation to entrenchment,

while looking for volunteers to draw up

the drama on sidewalks, cloying images

of the landing site where pastel chalks

could spell the situation

might be teeming with catchy phrases

to make debatable equal vertigo,

I’m mis-lead, your mister, we’re plural of virus,

learning cloud dwelling angle through

the one-off proverbial-brink tour,

providing search teams years

to sort  recognizable test languages,

matching bottle shards to soldier, citizen, gulagist,

any analysis that makes personal silence a functioning hero,

an eye’s blank stare, a gesture, for word’s broken snare.

Came to serve up the quixotic ‘desert’ topic

full of can’t miss theoretical logistics,

all hands off the deal making rejection,

the material for an abyss is deep enough

to be one more test of fortitude,

you gotta earn your nimbus

through innovation, not convocation,

let’s demand that spike in brass sales,

it’s the big essential alloy

now that silencers are legal fare,

sold with heart-shaped holster,

differences aren’t just a trope

in these parts, citizen stranger,

no need looking for a quiet ‘hood at last,

live this gadget-essential lifestyle pinnacle

and thank the all around leveling

of the fairness doctrine,

rule of thumb is you don’t

hear the bullet that gets you

and now add neither will those

cranky entities going after you,

so drive by the institutions

quislings, drive on by,

no one can be heard

inside the stained metal box.