Provocateur

I paused this morning to peer through the mirror
to gaze through eyes both green and grey
to plumb the visage upon the glass.

I stared to see beyond beyond
to delve beneath the glass
to cross into heart and soul
to touch The Face upon the face
my face, Christ's face facing.

The image stands curious
on a morning after bath
as the world awakes to day
and I to the questions of Life.

This icon I bear, is it Christ's?
Is he the one staring back at me?
If he's the one, then who're the others I see?
Is it his face I face in the mirror of their eyes

the molding of their lips

the coloring of their skin

the silence of their cries

the laughter of their heart?

The grey houses

The grey houses sit like old rocking chairs

holding mem'ries at the breast.

They watch o'er Niggras hauling cotton fresh

across yon fields that slaves once trod.

The intenseness of their gaze cause fires to flash

in woods once guardians to a lingering smoke.

Wisteria drapes them front and back, Godiva-clad

hair tangled in knots and plaits.

The weathered skin of their old and gnarled flesh

witness to tales hid 'hind their framed doors.

Who cares what vision might twinkle in their eyes

curtained behind the glaucoma of chattered panes?

Who'll sit long 'mong the wizened boards of their pain

or press ears to the earth to hear the blood of their heart?

These ole ones are too soon wrenched from the home of the soul

destroyed, chopped down, New Africans brought to these shores

shackled, scarred, twisted, torn out of place

to be mem'ry to progress all too some forgot.

Moments of contradictions in the Realm of Distinctions

The tongues of the virtuous speak from hearts gone sour

then languish aft sherbet to sweeten their breath.

What is implied when we're chewing on bullets

that backfire in our mouths, painting our lips with hate?

With guns as the power behind their convictions

the children claim vict'ry at the Battle of Dunce.

Who believes what's included at the Liar's Debate?

Will their girls have erections at the initiation rite?

As the natives are waiting for just compensation

the agents insist that their treaties were forged.

These denizens now stand 'round the Lake of Extinction

awaiting morticians to whisk away their spirits.

The rice-niggas sang praise in their bent positions

fleeing from Hell when freedom caught their hearts.

Screams arise from an underground passion

while the burning of flesh fills the night with incense.

Midst orgies of protests signalling the demise of reason

the dreams of the many are smashed one by one.

So many the stories of  progress repeated

stories of progress newly deferred.

Grabbing my eye

the first act

A boy-man strolled the street

babbling with a friend

blanks in his hands

fondling his zippered pants

a child with a toy

a jewel that if lost

life would be lost

and maybe the world

the second act

"Help! Help!"

the girl screamed

as the baby cried

squirming in her hands

prying, struggling

slipping cell by cell

to an empty wagon-red

while her mother yelled

"Hurry! Hurry!" angrily 

toward someone to kill:

her child

her man

her very self instead

as she speedily walked 

so far ahead

the third act

Kilned-women browned

by a woman pottery-flowered

stood exposed without frowns

their vaginae guarded and sound

behind their cloistering hands

as if fear trapped them there

in their Third World trekking

Humans don't ape

It's pretense...

my pretense...

our pretense

that I am NOT...

We aren't like the other,,,

That each Desire is hermit

unlike another...

a habit un-dressed

stressed in diverse ways...

expressed alone...

on a unique island 

where none other has walked

with no pain met

nor violence made

all's a lie

a lie we live

lying

doing what we pretend

doing IT 

doing as imitation...

doing it

for we are monkeys

doing monkey acts

like monkey's act

pretending they are apes

aping as they sway.

Requiem for the Old Man

Panting with palpitations of Need

he rushed to satisfaction's vision quest

to be filled with promises on the run

the momentary glut of what he sought.

But there at the table of choice

the sweet promises passed him by

and he knew then the Old Man's death

was hovering o'er the pall. 

At this moment of stark realization

his Want died and the Old Man sank.

Peace settled o'er the scene of dying

and the eager mourner was himself.

"Done! It's done!" was the plaintive phrase

circling with Alleluias in the air.

Twas no dirge sung for children at play

but for blindness long covering his heart.

The paroxysms of desire passed with "Thanks!"

as the masturbating pleas of Satan waned.

"And all manner of things shall be well", she said,

"All manner of things shall be well."