A sample of some of my writing.
from When Did We Stop Being Cute?:
Something like a phenomenon
The story I heard was rookie slugger Darryl Strawberry asked veteran and
soon-to-be legend Keith Hernandez how to deal with a hitting slump.
Hernandez laid out a line of coke and said,
Hit that. Then you can’t miss, every time.
***
As soon as I woke the radio
went on. Sunday morning, the 12th of February.
I stayed in my room, as there was nowhere
interesting to go. That year I was grounded more than free,
life contained in my room while TV became
a random visitor never allowed to stay for long.
I switched from WBLS to WFAN, from
Black music to American sports. Sunday morning,
not a time for hip hop, or so
radio proclaimed. But as the dial slipped
from one well-worn groove to another, something caught,
threw me off simply by existing, out of
place, incorrect. No
context.
***
Lawrence Taylor of our minds, we acted out
that hit! on a daily basis, becoming those 237 lbs. of righteous fury
landing in that sickening crack on Joe Theismann’s right
leg. Did LT know, even then, that Joe’s career was fractured,
splintered, never to heal—is that why
he leaped to his feet, screamed to the sidelines?
That defined power, to us. To be filled
with such horror, such glorious
violence—a dream unspoken but always
shared. We knew the anger of course but the goal,
the goal was to somehow find a way to
maintain it, to live within it, to be LT and to force
others to bear the perfect weight of it.
***
I didn’t know the voice on the radio, at first listen. But I could guess.
It was the accent that clued me in—one rarely heard
on these airwaves. Not too long ago our class had been dragged
to see Cry Freedom, and you never forget any movie that gets
you out of school. And then Lethal Weapon 2
trained me in the art
of White and Black South African voices, with
one to fear, and one to fear for.
This voice was steady, continuous, not a soundbite signaling
the station’s noble intentions never actually intended to be acted upon.
This was a speech, uninterrupted, and wars have to be declared
for presidents to get that kind of air-time.
There was only ever one possible speaker, and his impossibility made
his inevitability.
***
Michael Spinks may have been the most frightened human.
To his credit, he ducked down, slid through the ropes,
slipped off his robe, stood in his corner,
waited.
There was no fight to come, only a beating
hovering over us all, delayed.
We fantasized of looking to someone, anyone, and seeing
Micheal Spinks eyes failing to look back.
***
I did not understand what I was hearing.
And then, back to the studio, where some
milk white reporter with practiced lack of passion
said what I clearly knew, but didn’t dare believe:
Nelson Mandela, free.
***
The stadium was full. Dwight Gooden’s return
from drug rehab. We heard the roar
as he took the mound and we quickened our steps,
muscled through the security,
paused on the stairs to catch that curveball breaking
past Barry Bonds who turned and
sadly took his seat as we
screamed
into ours.
***
Out of my room. Stumble around. Find someone. Anyone. There. My sister, sprawled on her bed, door to her room open, cutting pictures from a magazine, Top 40 soft on her radio.
Did you hear?
I said,
I can’t believe it, I mean, I never thought—
Yeah, yeah,
she said, eyes on her magazine,
I know. Mike Tyson lost.
No,
I said.
I mean did you hear—
wait, what?
***
It was the fumbling for the mouthpiece that I remember.
Goliath, reaching for the broken haft of his spear.
We watched the replay like
Philistines immobilized
in newly discovered fear, like
Grendel’s baby brother hearing far-off reports
of inconceivable Death.
***
No,
I said,
Mandela. Mandela’s free. He’s out!
Oh,
my sister said, and flipped a page.
Ooo that’s a good one, and the scissors danced around Bobby Brown,
dropping him down onto the bed beside her.
I stared at her.
***
(White lines)
Visions, dreams of passion
(Blowing through my mind)
And all the while I think of you…
***
You done?
she said.
Yeah,
I said,
yeah, guess I am.
We still play our little games
America you’ve given me all and now
I’m nothing.
America I used to be your bastard I’m
not sorry.
***
Outside biology I finally caught up with Jimmy Peterson,
some idiot nudged his shoulder, and we
stared each other down.
This is for Pete.
Snitches, stitches,
I said,
you know the deal.
Then all around us so much
silence. I felt myself smile
as I walked away.
***
America when will you be
angelic?
Pete is in East Jersey State now I don’t think
he’ll come back it’s sinister.
America when will we be worthy
of Standing Rock?
***
I find myself remembering Dude.
A little over a year before it all ended,
lunchtime.
We kept a few steps back from Dude, but
no one got between us in the cafeteria line. Pete
made the first crack,
probably about Dude’s dangling
earrings—we all had the left pierced cuz that
was cool, but he had both, which
you just didn’t do. Dude had on
a scarf, which was just about
the end for me, and his
nails were prettier than both girls he went
everywhere with.
***
America are you being sinister or
is this some form of practical joke?
I’ve given up trying
to get to the point.
America free Leonard Peltier.
***
I said
Dude wears that blouse better than my sister does
and it was all over for Jimmy Peterson
who laughed too hard to do too much else. Danny
just watched Pete. But Dude said nothing,
so we assumed they couldn’t hear until
the taller of the two girls turned on us
and said
Enough!
***
America this is the impression I get from
looking at The Huffington Post.
America this is quite serious. It occurs to me that
I too am America.
I am yelling at myself again.
***
But then Dude
calmly took the taller of the two girls by the arm, and led
her towards the salads.
Don’t even bother.
The cute one whined—
Anthony—
and he took her arm as well.
I know who I am,
he said,
and I like it. They’re still too dumb to know they don’t.
***
America why are your librarians
full of tears?
America how can I write my screaming
poem in your boring mood?
***
I know who I am,
he said.
They’re still too dumb
to know they don’t.
***
In the end, Jimmy Peterson
ran. That was unexpected.
A shove against a locker, and Jimmy Peterson
was gone. But he had never been
fast, I stayed on him as we raced down
hallways and hallways and eventually
he found himself stuck
behind a surprisingly tiny girl playing
a tuba strapped to her waist and
a very large fellow jamming along on a piccolo.
***
America my mind is made up there’s going to be trouble.
You should have seen me reading Fanon.
America I feel sentimental about Occupy.
***
Jimmy Peterson
covered up, I got a few shots in, and
he took off, this time
as soon as he made it round the corner he threw open a door and
dove in. I skittered to a stop in
the doorway, Jimmy Peterson
clambered
to the back of the room, and
three teachers looked up
from coffee mugs in shock and
I turned back and straight
into a screaming hollering crowd
Fight! Fight! Fight!
***
America stop pushing I know
what I am.
***
I hadn’t seen the crowd form, though I
had been a part of so many I
should have known. I
had not yet been on this side before,
and the greedy straining horror of it all was complicated
by the crowd’s happiness, pleasure,
their immediate shrieking
satisfaction.
***
America you don’t really want
to go to war.
***
There was a mirror in the back of the room,
but I couldn’t bear to let it
look at me.
***
America everyone’s too serious even me. But now I
can’t stand my own mind and
it just makes me sick of your insane
demands.
***
The crowd was so joyous, so gleeful,
so expectant,
so hyped
it didn’t even recognize me when I
snuck through,
crept my way to the back, even
lifted my voice
once or twice to
blend in—
not one of them could tell
the fighting was already over.
***
America after all it is you
and I who are perfect not
the next world,
even if we’re both still too dumb to know it.
from Just/More:
1.
They placed you in my arms and to be honest
I panicked. That little face, scrunched up, mouth scarcely
anything at all, yet the roar you unleashed
rattles within me today.
Your mother said I should speak to you, that you
would recognize my voice from late-night poems performed
against the backdrop of her belly and I thought
it was more happy midwife talk but somehow
as always she knew better—I would love to say I told you of
the deep mysteries or even my worst Dad jokes but I remember
only the sudden calmness
that unfurled itself across your tiny face and it was instantly clear, so clear
that you knew me, that you
had always known me, and I held you to me and gently
touched your chest to feel
for the very first time my own blood pushed
by another’s heart and when I saw myself in your eyes I knew
it did not matter what words I spoke.
I have doubted so much of myself.
I have been afraid of the world, and all its insane demands.
My backstory is a mess, and I have lost myself in hate, and
regret. There are those who hurt me who I did not even know,
and others that I knew too well. But who’s to say if just one
smile replaced a sneer, an instant of silence replaced a slur, if belonging
replaced the loneliness, if family replaced the coldness, would I have
ended here mirrored in newly wide blue eyes?
I do not know if I have it in me to forgive
the world
for my life
but with you Itzela
I was finally able to accept it.
2.
My son’s eyes
at seven are wide, wide like
rivers and wide like
singing woods at dawn,
and they blossom, they blossom like
sunflowers shimmering in early morning’s dew,
they dance, they dance because they are,
because they are sparkling comets gleefully
traveling lightyears just for a chance
to gently kiss your smile, your heart.
They are
joyous volcanoes, they are
joyous volcanoes overflowing and melting
everything they see.
They are brown, they are the color
of my soul, they are brown and they are alive
and I
have to search inside his eyes,
I have to study, I have to
watch,
watch for that ticking, for that twisting,
for that silent unmarked shifting,
for that moment when
this world no longer notes
the soft brown tones in his eyes,
only the angry brown tones on his skin.