See Demons

I’d do it again

Because I can

And a million more like me

Would do exactly the same

Put me in a uniform

Give me a hood

Show me the history of honor and blood

Give me a scapegoat

Feed me the fear

Make me the weapon

We all desire

For my arrogance is no longer enough

There is no security in the privilege of hate

I need to see demons to eliminate

Keep me righteous

Keep me pure

That I can stand tall on backs once more

When the wind changes

Apples go bad and wolves are alone

But a million more remain

And a million thereafter each generation until further notice

This skin has to mean something after all

Liberty and Justice for all (of US)

Surely not an accident a gift

Of centuries passed in domination

Dehumanization

Exploitation

Construction of a virility untouched

Enlightened bathed in the wisdom of a continent

Which matured in the blood and faeces of the poor, the tortured

Surely not that

Because if they remembered and passed that pain on

The descendants of those poor could not become a scared, hooded, uniformed weapon after all

Could not see every Black Woman as a succubus

Every Black Man as a demon

But would see everywhere mirrors into the ravaged wastelands of our souls

And in our millions, though one by one, could grasp the irony and the cruelty in there

And wrench the evil life from them

Because we couldn’t do it again

Not after this

Never again

Could we?

Tibalt Was an Honest Man

Is he a bridge builder?

Not with these hands

Picking at scabs

Bare feet on shaded sand

Thinking Tibalt was an honest man

Tibalt was an honest man

Is he a priest?

Not with that past

Gazing mid distance

Eyes playing on dead cars

Thinking Tibalt was an honest man

Tibalt was an honest man

Is she a healer?

Not with those tools

Delving into hornet’s nests

Grasping for lost jewels

Tibalt was an honest man, an honest man

A man who let his hate define his speech; his commitment, his pride steer his course

Self destructive mission

A lesson, a mission walking, smoldering

A bastard who never said “I Love Peace.”

Trilogy

In this complex there is no sleep

In the life of the night

Breath falls on unhearing ears and words dig deep inside the flesh

Can’t walk on water but have surely walked in wine

Striving for humility, thinking of fast cars and balladeers

And the feeling underneath

Whilst vanity boils within

Indicators of assumption shared

Hide the schism, hide the fear

When I find my voice

It feels alien to my ear

But when I touch the truth it sings

Echoing in the hollows

Between Ivory and blubber few taboos remain

 but none have claimed me for their own

now we have reached the season of the storms

and I am unoriginal

exempt excommique walking brick paths

watching the chipped masonry float away

we all build our fascias

of stone or flesh

we all squirrel something safe within

but time passes differently here

since that other power breached

and those etched tablets expired an age ago

the titles that defined us, shaped our response, hang in the air,

pretty lies that slash at transformations which shun the frame

the person that I was glows and blurs

the thing that I am becoming moves in spirals

headed south bound

the passion

I’ve purchased prayer shawls for women of states that never quite were

Who are more real than I could ever feel

I have put my hand in the passion, centuries worn, and felt the beauty in the lie

Smoothed over with the seal of ritual; incense and flagellation

Enough for the breeze to speak through

Enough for the griot to bleed to

Wearing the beat of whip upon flesh

Watching the children marched to war

In the belly I, judge penitent, gluttonous feeding upon organs, confess; echoing hollow

Without the map of commandants who would profess prophetic sentence

My cell walls are well lined with other words

Nasty Short Beautiful Forever

Tracing the arbitration of the absurd

 (kissed with insect offal)

Symmetry speaks where logic is silent

Battles

I’ve been fighting all the wrong battles

And I’ve been losing time and time again

Looking at the faces of all those departed

Feeling in my pockets for the key to see them safe

This is a long long way from home

And I never made all the right allies

Turned some to enemies

In retreat again from the shame of disbelief

Scoured the shelves for the tools to lever open

Never felt further from the truth

The things that hold this together

Chew deep into flesh

Straining for purchase

No less fraught for all their bite

The marks we leave on each other

Heal rough and clean, stitched by time

And I’ve been making some right turns

A passenger charting hazy terrains

Our movement fluid

Steered by steady hand and strong currents

Never fled from fire only from fear

And the romance of the things we can never know

The rights and wrongs escape us

But we can never escape them.

31

27 Times came the knock on your door

Mummy answered

Alcohol on her breath, body black and blue

Domestic after domestic

Police turned away and your teacher never knew

4 times

You were sent to the nurse

They patched you up, swabbed you down

Patted your head

Noted their concerns

And never asked you

One more time

One more chance

They stepped across the threshold

Ready to help

Not from the school, not from the station

Unconnected to other and seeing as if for the first time

This filth

This degradation

The violence and neglect

The denying defiant faces of your abusers

The one who bore you and helped to take your life

Your sickly frail body twisted unnaturally in the corner

Disfigured and discarded

No-one’s fault but theirs

Still the questions beg

31 of them screaming in the conscience