For the Restless …(and the truth seekers)

For the Restless …(and the truth seekers)

 

There’s no place for

propriety here-

No place for

Bitten tongues

bloodied and swollen from

Pulling back unfiltered words

 

No scratched esophagi

Bruised and beaten like punching bags

Throbbing from damming tears

 

Because it’s bullshit

If it’s not loving who we are without makeup.

If it’s not letting our guts hang.

 

Don’t write to me if it’s not

Babies screaming for milk-filled tits

Like black fists

With

4 clenched fingers

leaving the fifth to spread its wisdom

 

I need verses that don’t hide.

Don’t hide

        tales

              of 

                 black whores

selling their treasure for the

devil’s

white medicine.

 

Don’t cover your eyes,

There

           is

                no revolution-

Don’t worry about it

being televised.

 

Give me poetry that tastes like remorseful twilight dipped in lust.

 

Don’t sugar coat your cookies

Or dunk your donuts in stoicism

To glaze me.

 

I’d rather have “dagger poems”

To part your blonde hair

Give me poetry

That knows my black daughter’s

strife isn’t self-inflicted.

 

Poetry that knows

Nigger is just a word

Isn’t just a word

Is just our word

Not yours anymore

 

Call me my real name without forgetting who I am.

 

Let my words come alive because they have to.

 

Take the air I’m giving you.

 

                 -November ‘08