Skin like midnight, baby, white sheet on its way,
Skin like midnight, baby, white sheet on its way,
Jus’ know your Mama loves you, prays for the break of day."
- unrecorded Blues lyric
Late for class, bouts with anger, too lean
for baggy-sagging – hip shoulder glide through
bowls of raisins, winter suns, Hansberry & Martin
fiction dreams corn rows tight set for homework.
Never knew, know what you’re saying!
days stopped & searched, street cornered bitch again;
black looks snot wiped, white look aways, snuffed fear
they dare you share outside the crew; cool Math mapping:
[lead point stray/intended] ÷ [licensed breath remaining]
and your parent’s Sunday shepherd churching,
her single lamb picked off, the blue wolf cruising.
Happy, still, you graduated;
shook your hand so hard from years knife
chipping, shaping the grip of Exit found,
all grown & ready – Go, get medieval! – for
that flag caped mutha – any triggery
finger! – fucker, making you grind halt again.
-W.W.
CLOUD
I come to pass
like everything else but I
do not pretend that pausing denies
the stretch. I’m already no longer
myself: quick, pause
and read what you can of your dark mind
in my faithless body of a thousand urgings
and as many faces, all as naked as they’re shadowed,
as good as gone.
(from “Scratches On The Air” by Brian Chan)
FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN 