oh my GOD !!

they kill our FRIENDS
they kill our FRIENDS
  THEY KILL OUR FAMILY !!

THEY KILL THEY KILL

THEY TAKE LIFE
        AWAY
                FROM US

give HELL in return !

this must be hell

there must be hell !!

street and sky close up
brooklyn , gaza close up !

they are right now snorting DEATH
uploading death
dedicated
                I want to scream !! a hole
                in metal thru metal

                cuz it’s only living if I am

I just KNOW
THERE MUST BE SOMETHING
there is some thing in this world

I KNOW

        THERE’S SOMETHING
                !

---

present tense

I don’t want to die alone , alone alone

that’s the end of the season , all arcs are crossed

by obligations . I fill the window of myself .

I ride the b43 to the movies , full of dread

dread dread . it’s a bad thing . it’s peristaltic .

it’s slowed down . if we want to make the world

available for living , we should stop

cutting down all the fruits and vegetables .

oranges , zucchinis , watermelons , pears ,

cabbages , cherries , strawberries . peaches .

greens . you know what I mean . you know

exactly what I’m talking about .

---

I was a sensitive child

I rose from dead sleep to have an idea

then pressed and pressed and pressed

until I jumped

the turnstile and stepped from the coffin

of my father’s defenses like man , woman

in their immediacy – oh my god I understand

 

and feel like death under the ground soil of sentiment , with

the ground floor of my memory dissolved

 

it’s a solemn fall – all the angels descend

from facebook

to wring their hands about violence

 

well everything can be criticized

this wall , this law , this collection of living

thus I leave the room with my attitude destroyed

 

in a world town run by killers

huffing oil from the earth’s fifth wound

 

while scraps of children float up

and catch the earth’s breeze

 

float float float

 

the sun calls

from behind

the dead screen of gray

 

something shook inside me

last week

and children circled my head

they live

in their immediacy

around my head

and on the earth

as it’s flung

toward fire

cold fire

the melt of all glaciers

---

under the direction of marshall allan

this purple hat on the head of a person

an emanation of blessed life

and I cross my legs for the arkestra cuz I’m sitting on the floor

zoos , in the 21st century , have slid into maternalism

no more absconding with lions , wrestling africa , asia into cages

but the insemination of pandas , the preservation of life on the eve of total collapse

etc

this is a phenomenon and essential beam in the structure of new york city

the zoos that time forgets and the non profits that put metal frames around our black elders

so I’m seeing the arkestra – marshall allan is 97 ,

and we’re at a big rich cultural venue in red hook that abuts the NYCHA houses

where police have just advertised their latest raid on children

I’m seeing the band , my life , in a particularly managed way

I’m experiencing transference with the zoo , my mother and father

the air smells like legal weed and sugar

a diet of cultured nutrition and polite applause

but what is the pulse of the discomfort , not a critique of the bourgeoisie

I’m tired , on mushrooms , not a critique ,

or when crackhead barney demanded someone , anyone , say mulattos are tragic !

won’t someone speak up , break the brittle politeness of social success

I’m always hunting for weakness and pleased when I find it

you’re all so weak , I think , and experience love in that way

all living under the now resurgent shadow of nuclear disaster

feeling love in that way

being sufferers

and the arkestra is playing songs I know and don’t , it is so good

the most incredible music , it drowns cynicism

the people with their horrible dogs and stepping on my sisters’ feet

to push to the front can’t ruin it , the music fights back

it breaks the bars of the zoo or gives the idea of preservation a body

my body your body

Hmm

600 pandas in captivity , how many black musicians

people in red hook , new york city

these interlocking mechanisms of holding a thing in hand and shaking the life from it

shaking the change or spirit out of its pockets

two thoughts in the same room about impossible situations

I committed myself to change as an activity

the sun is red and makes thinking difficult

black mind red sun white world

I was raised in a world of zoo logic , eating a ham sandwich near the gazelles

looking into a future where I could touch the animals

be seen by the world in the eyes of a lion