dark art

 

my dark art

grazed

you truth

raw stuns

 like max on drums

ancient sacred primal

 dark art

mesmerized you

slipped in baptized

you approached invited

me to cite

sing tap entertain you

collecting my shroud

shadows gathering thunder 

trailing wailing women

prayers of unborn children

sliding the eagles

back into

the book

smiling

like you like

walked away

bleeding

dark art

bloody footsteps

stale air last breaths

centuries of trauma

soul

wet from the ocean

stopping to pour out

gin for Ogun

me & the eagles

smile

not like you like

breathing deep 

dark hearts

where sun

shines sublimely

refined refracted reflected

the inside of pure

darkness beyond dark

draped in black

three eyes

warrior

drum hearted

fire burning

nommo ignited

verbal vampire

invited

assumed you knew

she travel well

armed

w/dark art

spit spells

weaving existence

ways out the no way

sopranos sing here

high like corpses swinging

strangely in trees

in deeply purple southern breezes

drug by horses through the north

informing the curse

 now invoked

dipped in indigo

coffee sugar wrapped in cotton

invisible

but you see

i see

so you invited

we accept

me & the eagles

free

no prisoners promised

no surrender no retreat

blocked exits for several lifetimes

syndicated rerunning on BET

there is no escape

hold your breath

listen for

them

footsteps

syncopated like drums

slaves

walking on the bottom

of the ocean

dark art

tongue like sword

freed by

armies of bones

walking on water

swelling w/ recruits

rising from graveyards

pregnant w/ unresolved

history projectiles

jaggedly inventive inverse

conjuring murky magic

deliciously dangerous

perniciously persistent

hard to kill

dying to live

we are here

to entertain

double-sided axes

tilt your world

we on a different axis

listen closely to access this

now horns play

the drum never stopped

that’s the circle unbroken

beating hearts

waking  walking  invoking

the dead we are here

dahomey fire

zulu spears

protection shields

not a thing to lose

drown you in bluest blue

drums never stop beating

bass begins

she sings but

no tapping less

zavion come over

baraka is gone

fingers move in memory

but no tapping

she sangin

 but

got to go through

the back

door to save

your sorry soul

dark art

breaking your fragile

heart bending the

notion of me

nappy uncharted

jazz fall into my ocean

swim in it

jump jim crow fits

fill jail cells with it

live in fear of it

choking on greedily ingested

appropriated you tried to eat

it correct it erase it

mass assimilate it

come to the picnic

cut up the body

take a small piece home

injected into your ass

lips & tits

i have come to help

you digest your

dreams of me

captured consumed

uncured still wild

 monk miles marvin x

a thousand galaxies

ahead beyond

sun ra murdered

the fucking pale

i have come to bury it

crossing over

broken lines in alabama

dark roads in mississippi

sunrises over georgia

itinerant refugee landless

razor smooth

few possessions

insert

your confessions

here

on the altar of my

dark art

beating heart

naked on stage

blinded by searchlights

they come mostly at night

shotguns under the bed

you can meet god tonight

pray it’s your god

mine don’t play

there may be no overcoming

hold your breath

we are here

wet from the water

still purple

swinging

crosses on necks

seeing god in the mirror

resisting existential crucifixion

tracks of bitter tears

smelling of dried blood

sweat from climbing

heavy rank-ass pain

too stubborn to die

 broke raggedy hope

strangling

hold your breath

fly fly fly my granny said

grow wings too many holes

in the ground

she cried she cried she cried

can my pain change you

right there

they drank the tears

the ocean

left shimmering bones dancing

on dry land

no tapping

invincible drums beat

this is dark art

dark hearts

beating

she cried she cried she cried

the horns stopped

hex dropped

not a damn eye dry

feed my ocean

this is dark art

strung on trees

underwater

on dry ground

bones dancing

sharpening machetes

hold your breath

we in the desert now

just the eagles’ lions & apes

walking with me

grannys weeping over dead children

kept in urns too poor for the cemetery

we all here

are you here

another one shot down

can’t eat your guilt

born hungry

 got dreams deferred

looking for justice

feeling like fela kuti

dancers

bones & feathers

eagles machetes razors

nothing to lose

we here

are you here

something should be burning

are you praying

to my dark heart

pray 

poems never end

because

then

what

you breathe

here