i know these streets

kazembe

1

noisy. wide. dirty granite. kinky asphalt. wet. then dry. then wet. i know these streets like the coins in my pocket. and like those coins these streets rattle/prattle their animal tales. monkeyshines. gorilla jones. leopards chasing spots. brown wrinkled hands shuffle ivory bones to connect black dots in tiny doorways where flocks of ashy faces with yellow eyes trace spontaneous patterns in the cardboard.

courtesans wearing cut shorts exposing pecan thighs strut back and forth madly in love with right now. they shoot crystal stares from dark eyes that comfort and tease and haunt. they be the sultry brown daughters of migrations from greenwood and grenada. i see there be arkansas and alabama in those magical hips. i see there be rosewood in those sugar sweet lips. they be. there be. me, i know these streets.

peppermint breath children laugh/zig zag past decapitated parking meters and rusted laundromat signs. just outside the cut-rate store, nappy jackie’s convo with that korean dude boils over into the crosswalk. a puffy black face in neon orange motions musically to small nieces and nephews on their way. first day. fourth grade. she is mother and missionary. prophet and protector of our priceless nieces and nephews.

2

there is a honey brown tenement on forty-seventh street. each night street lights cast their stingy glow on mahogany souls below. each night families hustle dinner. while outside, sin always finds it sinner. bulky shadows flick flicker in the velveteen of one a.m. these streets be a kaleidoscopic haze of fine silk shirts, copper rims, short skirts. and juke joints that float on cannabis smoke and elaborate dream sequences.

while down the street and around the corner on the right side of the left side, arguments ensue over the wrong drink poured or new shoes stepped on or the wrong woman stepped to. at two a.m. ruby puddles rest quaintly beside flattened aluminum cans, sidewalk weeds, and hopscotch marks. at three a.m. these alleys are alive with initiations and the incantations of purple sages whose cauldrons call out to me.

i know these streets like the coins in my pocket. and like those coins these streets rattle/prattle their animal tales. monkeyshines. gorilla jones. leopards chasing spots. i know these streets/its parkways, avenues, and boulevards. nomenclature custom cut from tempered glass. these streets they call. cyclical and cynical. these streets they call. i know these streets like the ever ugly beauty of timelessness.

© 2010 Lasana Kazembe

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a city speaks
kazembe

a city speaks its dream tales

spiteful allegories that whistle

and roar its gangrene streets

of rich noise and neon its

frigid children choke

its withered veins

and dry bones

like halcyon vapors

elastic

putrid

a city speaks its air in flame

and the corrugated rage of sons

and daughters frozen in time

deathly still / still as in death

mired in this space dancing

hot jig and hucklebuck

dancing habeas corpus

and the rhythm of bone smoke

on red clay and rooftops dancing

survival

iron worms crawling fast

creak past sagging brunette structures

silver deities inch their icy dominance

through coal black tunnels

and smug temples of gray glass

and steel / this city

it’s bowels shit green politics

whorehouses, and hot chicken

dark corners presage the witching hour

when thin men immerse themselves

in malt liquor and the greasy contortions

of caught catfish

migration men with neck bones

fattened on tripe

and trouble

nighttime echoes stir alchemy

sand and choruses of warm lust

this urban savannah converses

in forked tongues

bullets and bureaucracy

guns and butter

we the city and its pleurisy

we the city and its silent noise

undergirding spirit / flesh

we the city / grit and ham bone

people

carpetbaggers run from

cotton fields to cold flats

a city speaks its elixir yield of music

nets and slave narratives

red hot blues and mason jar laughter

from brown satin bellies in basements

where hang yellow bulbs warming bones

making greasy children golden

so speaks a city

incredibly

inarguably

beholden

© 2010  Lasana Kazembe

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good times 2010 - that was now this is then

kazembe

so we tell ourselves sell

toxic lies to ourselves

good times 2010    that was now   this is then

taxes    death    trouble

gritbone growl    screams executing dreams

executing men standing in long lines

we eat the details and slogans    hurry up and wait

mechanics of misery live in threadbare pockets

mechanics of misery live in poverty lines

winding west side to south side to shreveport to

lake street to lagos to okay to toby to obey

take this here cheese    and make it free

take these here woes    and make ‘em go

upside the heads of decapitated men deprecating

thought dreams of false liberty    orgiastic innuendo

take these here licks and stamps you broken

contemptuous spooks you

whining carpetbeggars    you

dilapidated porchmonkeys

take them go unkindly into warm velvet city nights

where stars are shards of thunderbird & night train glass

twinkling sharply embedded in black rubber asphalt

blood mirrors staining these streets        littered with happy

meals, sewer grills, coupe de villes

twist caps and pigeon shit staining soles

saved for hanging in chow lines

where you find things

like black dignity and respect

hiding behind things like

ham bones and weak old soup

that was now this is then

a knock upside the head    at midnight

bruises

chase we hughes’ naked shadows

forehead veins on display

intersecting hunger    hollow

hallways of echo screams and staircase piss

gang sex, youthful defiance and loosies    newport smokes

cheap jokes ‘bout the difference between white

christmases and black christmases and white

bail time and colored jail time and white work and

brown work and black work and yes work and no

work and ho work for sweet daddies

and sour mammas

don’t gimme yo’ white sighs and elevator

speeches    gimme black thighs and flowers and

curbs and schools that work and

work that pays and pay that paves way

for those behind me    gimme happy neighbors

and good cholesterol    gimme that    ‘stead of

food deserts and new reconstruction    ‘stead of

panty raids on black politicians    ‘stead of

naked shadows and dead children    ‘stead

of brutal police, cheap freedom, and muscatel

can’t they tell the difference

‘tween a gun and a phone?

cant’ you tell the sameness

‘tween projects and experiments?

that was now this is then

good times 2010

grit and poke for dinner

grit your teeth poke your lips

ask your mama    ask your mama you

soulless hopeless backward heathen you

child of slaves    oppressor lovin’ you

fake huggin’ twenty first century sharecropper

dried enfamil on your baby’s chin

you and yo’ folk sport that emaciated grin

too much salt pork and colored jokes

too many drive-bys and walk-bys

too many shootings and chicken shacks

too much faith in classism and cosa nostra

too many churches and church’s

too much crisco and cold chicken

too many nail shops and wig shops

dollar stores of ghetto glass

now and laters can’t even pass

too many poor black people with congested chests

lime green vests    return of the chimney sweeps and litter kings

stuff picker uppers, assimiliationist dreamers and biracial

ballot casters injecting themselves into the pekoe veins of tea party

vampires and crotchless strung-out soccer moms imagining themselves

divorced from the hurt of history and heritage and memories and massacres

that live on the occlusive outskirts of black hills and grey cities of cold metal

and white devils doing chaos magic conjuring hunter green jobs for angry

white dropins and olive green jobs for angry black dropouts to protect

private capital and central business districts and foreclosures fomenting

elephant tears on the verge of drowning us in empty hugs and bench warrants

and blue lights illuminating the angriness of restless nights of crosshairs

and crosses borne and worn by bloody born-again christians decorating back alleys

of terror and compromised tomorrows banking on black misery and exchange

rates for yellow houses that used to be black houses that used to be homes

in places called chicago and cleveland and detroit that used to be cities

where folks could breathe

black migrants

driven north dreaming

dreams for

black children dreaming

to taste sunshine

and freedom

and gorge themselves


© 2010  Lasana Kazembe 

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