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fromTHE VAGRANT HOURS
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September
The month of sonnets: The long distance runners roamed the hills recited their poems in the afternoon and kissed. The poet-professor in corduroy cuffed pants daydreamed of the evening flask of black whisky his nights watch over the hour glass of metaphors. The young men were cumbersome in their stalls. October The month of sestinas: The charm of lovers against the burred ivy walls held the riddle of sixes and coaxed the student’s heart to a blackboard of pentagrams and tarot flames in chalk. The griot’s basket of apples, chestnuts, and maple leaves held back the screen door of their teacher’s writing studio. The young women were cumbersome in their shawls.
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BROTHER KENNY (BROTHER BIRD)
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Brother Kenny (Brother Bird)
There was a tumbler pigeon in your hand brother Kenny, elder brother, king-archer, its unbridled flight above the chicken wire filled with speckled eggs and caged birds. They roost inside the mouths of gargoyles. Their hooked nails climb the brittle stars among the charred oak and smokestack into the dominion of a feather blue sky. Inside your perch at a Veteran's Hospital you twice tried to raise your skeletal arms and lift a throne of angels above the earth. Was that a lighthouse nest you warmed as the north wind shook your body down snapped the masthead and hollow bones as those seabird eggs broke into blossom and sang in your cupped and weary hands? You held crossbow and Apollo's arrow brother Kenny, elder brother, king-archer, your wild boar tail and black bear heart, tanned and skinned, teeth straightened, pinned to walls too frail for majesty. You fell, curled, out of your wheelchair like crumpled paper in a schoolyard ruse as stray pigeons pecked at your sleeve. The tenement neighbor dropped the baby starlings into a barrel of fire at the curb and you whimpered from the third floor railing that rose and swayed like a ship its flag raised into the insignificant air. The ash and snow fell over the garden. Had you looked into the wishing well the way one stared into a fire? There was a song sparrow in your hand brother Kenny, elder brother, king-archer, one last letter tied to its wounded leg. Its angel wings called you to the window one iridescent last kiss to delicate lips. You released their glory older gray bird and fell to earth one hand on the wheel the homing pigeon tumbling heavenward.
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DARVIL MEETS JAMES BROWN IN
HARLEM AND NEW ORLEANS |
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Please, Please, Don't Go
Harlem. 1962. Apollo Theater. Ain't no potatoe like blackberry jam. Darvil sits three rows and three hours before show time front stage his elephant ears and alligator eyes drift to a black cajun a drummer like a waterfall in the rocky mountain fat back Americana rent party on a twenty four hour street corner rock and roll born and stamped grade A by the bastard blues and subway humming birds feed on race records found sunny side up on a brownstone Victrola 78's thrown to a black bottom mama by a big daddy in a nine piece suit woven in the harlem renaissance fire hydrant hot sauce hand out by a social worker in a farmer's market mango pie in the glove compartment of a three story Cadillac collards in every black ass pot a green banana in every two door garage mast head alley cat wrecking crew in grand central station grease on the ankle shoe shine pullman porter on a bag pipe anchors away on a continent of the five and dime window cleaner on the fifty-nineth floor juke joint catfish band in New Orleans. Try Me. 1982. Mississippi Queen floats on a red river midnight saxophone, like a full moon carousel of bourbon and beer baroque barbecue goat ribs alligator pie mardi gras mambo street car lizard smokes a cuban cigar five minutes to show time ain't no potatoe like blackberry jam.
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FOR TWO DAUGHTERS
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