American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin Read online

  AMERICAN SONNET FOR MY PAST AND FUTURE ASSASSIN

  For her last birthday I found in a used New Jersey

  Toy store, a six inch Amiri Baraka action figure

  With three different outfits: an elaborately colored

  Dashiki with afro pick; a black linen Leninist getup,

  And a sports coat with elbow patches & wool Kangol.

  Accessories include an ink pen & his father’s pistol.

  If you dip him in bathwater, he will leak

  The names of his abandoned children. Pull a string,

  He sings “Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note”

  Sweeter than the sweetest alto to ever sing

  In the Boys Choir of Harlem. The store clerk tried

  Selling me the actual twenty volume note LeRoi Jones

  Wrote the night before Baraka put a bullet in him.

  I would’ve bought it. But I had no room in my suitcase.

  AMERICAN SONNET FOR MY PAST AND FUTURE ASSASSIN

  A brother versed in ideological & material swagger

  Seeks dime ass trill bitch starved enough to hang

  Doo-ragged in smoke she can smell & therefore inhale

  And therefore feel. Must ride shotgun pouring fountains

  Of bass upon the landscape. Must be fat assed, fearless,

  And God-fearing, an ancestral insurgent, clean

  As new money, a cryptographer, a storyteller,

  A glossy sleeve. There will be a jewelry of wooing.

  There will be stacks of folded longing. Amid twilight

  Verbiage in parking lots smelling of live wire, liquor

  Hot air & fire: accompany a brother. Shout outs to vixens

  And bitches out there twerking for fucks in Bluff Estates,

  Washington Park, Star Light, Shop Road, Joe Frazier,

  Harlem Street: this is daddy’s boy. Who want it?

  AMERICAN SONNET FOR MY PAST AND FUTURE ASSASSIN

  But there never was a black male hysteria:

  As if you weren’t the spouse of Toni Morrison,

  Forced by love to watch her flower, as well as

  Literally expand. The locks of her hair prevented

  Your skin from ever touching her skin. You never

  Smelled the nape of her neck, though you glimpsed

  It when her head cocked to illuminate paper. As if

  Everything was a tool or weapon. Often you offered

  Your measure, but she preferred her own song.

  As if to make your blackness more strange,

  More elaborate, more characteristic, fine-tuned

  And refined. Soaphead Church, Empire State, Guitar,

  Gideon, Son. The hysteria of being multiplied & divided

  In your lover’s mind until you go out of your mind.

  AMERICAN SONNET FOR MY PAST AND FUTURE ASSASSIN

  Our sermon today concerns the dialectic

  Blessings in transgression & transcendence.

  We’re on the middle floor where the darkness

  We bury is equal to the lightness we intend.

  We stand in the valley & go to our knees

  On the mountain. One rope pulls a body down

  And into earth, the other pulls up & after stars.

  To be divided is to be multiplied. Let us

  Ponder how it is that you & I have remained

  Alive. Mississippi & all the seas bound to sky by rain,

  The root & reach of all the trees. When the wound

  Is deep, the healing is heroic. Suffering and

  Ascendance require the same work. Our sermon

  Today sets the beauty of sin against the purity of dirt.

  AMERICAN SONNET FOR MY PAST AND FUTURE ASSASSIN

  Something in the metaphor of the bow

  Which is never close enough to see the arrow

  Hit its mark. I remain a mystery to my father.

  My father remains a mystery to me.

  Christianity is a religion built around a father

  Who does not rescue his son. It is the story

  Of a son whose father is a ghost. No one

  Mentions Jesus’ sister. Nothing is written

  About her. She had no children, she was in her

  Forties the first time she turned water into wine.

  A late bloomer, she began a small wine business

  And traveled all over the world selling the wine.

  Her name was the name of the wine.

  I don’t recall the name of the wine.

  AMERICAN SONNET FOR MY PAST AND FUTURE ASSASSIN

  An old woman looks at the rows of clothes

  She will never wear again. Beneath the clothes

  Are high & low high heels, office & casual flats,

  Sandals, & sneakers covered in dust while above

  The rows of clothes is a shelf of tropic, exotic,

  Cryptic, elegiac, futuristic Sunday hats amassed

  Over many decades shopping wherever a woman

  Buys such hats. The feathers stand like flags

  In an overpopulated bird country where almost

  Every export is covered or stuffed with feathers;

  Where birds to survive disguise themselves as hats.

  The old woman with a mess of feathers in her care

  Is as lovely as she was long ago when she was known

  To wear, every night, a different feather behind her ear.

  AMERICAN SONNET FOR MY PAST AND FUTURE ASSASSIN

  Maybe I was too hard on Derek Walcott.

  In preschool while I lay on a nylon cot

  In a church basement staring at God knows

  What, I was not asleep when the old deacon

  Snuck downstairs to let the two sisters

  Watching over us lay hands against his advances.

  His crown was haloed in gray, but eyebrows

  And eyelashes swirled black as calligraphy

  Around his gaze. “Cut it out,” I’d hear the girl

  With plump, plum lips say. He wore a silver

  Bracelet, he spoke with a radiant sway,

  Everywhere he was known to pray a prayer

  So blood-filled & persuasive some listeners

  Were said to fever, kneel, beg, break, levitate.

  AMERICAN SONNET FOR MY PAST AND FUTURE ASSASSIN

  On some level, I’m always full of Girl Scout cookies

  In the land of a failed landlord with a people of color

  Complex. On some level every action is an affirmation

  Of personality. In the near empty subway car

  I watched a brother dance on the ceiling, spin

  On the subway pole like a stripper, twirl like an inverted

  Ballerina on the parallel bars. I had no money

  To give him. I was going to the party as Will Smith

  In the first half of the Hancock movie: aloof, gifted,

  Fucked up. I saw the shadows of planes gallop

  Over buildings. I saw five white girls side by side

  On a park bench, almost synchronized taking selfies

  Of themselves taking selfies together in the land

  Of a failed landlord with a people of color complex.

  AMERICAN SONNET FOR MY PAST AND FUTURE ASSASSIN

  America, you just wanted change is all, a return

  To the kind of awe experienced after beholding a reign

  Of gold. A leader whose metallic narcissism is a reflection

  Of your own. You share a fantasy with Trinidad

  James, who said, “Gold all in my chain, gold all in my ring,

  Gold all in my watch” & if you know what I’m talking

  About, your
gold is the yellow of “Lemonade” by Gucci

  Mane: “Yellow rims, yellow big booty, yellow bones,

  Yellow Lambs, yellow MP’s, yellow watch.” Like no

  Culture before us, we relate the way the descendants

  Of the raped relate to the descendants of their rapists.

  May your restlessness come at last to rest, constituents

  Of Midas. I wish you the opposite of what Neruda said

  Of lemons. May all the gold you touch burn, rot & rust.

  AMERICAN SONNET FOR MY PAST AND FUTURE ASSASSIN

  You know how when the light you splatter spreads

  Across her back like wings tattooed elaborately one evening

  In an ink-shop beside a river, how with the raw blood

  Settling again into the meat you are you slump backwards

  Half thinking it is more falling than slumping, more heartbreak

  Than release & how maybe it’s the wings that are real

  Or that will become real when you are dust, Money,

  When you have slipped again into the black husk

  That is not a black husk at all? That’s the feeling

  Of her name in my mouth. It is like reaching a town

  Bruised by headlights after too long in the darkness,

  Like the feeling of one question flush against another,

  The feeling of wings clasping the back of the body,

  The feeling of wings clapping wind along the spine.

  AMERICAN SONNET FOR MY PAST AND FUTURE ASSASSIN

  If you have never felt what is fluid

  In a woman run warm along your thighs

  And testicles, Mister Trumpet if you do not know

  The first man was in fact a woman whose clit

  Grew so swollen with longing it hung like a finger

  Pointing toward the lover stirring her meadows

  Mister Trumpet what the fuck do you know

  You are lonely because you could never unhitch

  Your mother’s terrifying radiant woe

  I mean my mother here she the crazy bitch in me

  She the way I weep she the way I break she manly

  Trumpet I can’t speak for you but men like me

  Who have never made love to a man will always be

  Somewhere in the folds of our longing ashamed of it

  AMERICAN SONNET FOR MY PAST AND FUTURE ASSASSIN

  Rilke ends his sonnet “Archaic Torso of Apollo” saying

  “You must change your life.” James Wright ends “Lying

  In a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island,

  Minnesota” saying “I have wasted my life.” Ruth Stone ends

  “A Moment” saying “You do not want to repeat my life.”

  A minute seed with a giant soul kicking inside it at the end

  And beginning of life. After the opening scene where

  A car bomb destroys the black detective’s family, there are

  Several scenes of our hero at the edge of life. A shootout

  In an African American Folk Museum, a shootout

  In the middle of an interstate rest stop parking lot,

  A barn shootout endangering the farm life. I live a life

  That burns a hole through life, that leaves a scar for life,

  That makes me weep for another life. Define life.

  AMERICAN SONNET FOR MY PAST AND FUTURE ASSASSIN

  Goddamn, so this is what it means to have a leader

  You despise, the racists said when the president

  Was black and I’ll be damned if I ain’t saying it too.

  Is this a mandate for whiteness, virility, sovereignty,

  Stupidity, an idiot’s threats & gangsta narcissisms threading

  Every shabby sentence his trumpet constructs? You

  Are not allowed to say shit about Mexicans when you

  Ain’t actually got any Mexican friends—I bet you’ve never

  Been invited to a family dinner. You ain’t allowed to deride

  Women when you’ve never wept in front of a woman

  That wasn’t your mother. America’s struggle with itself

  Has always had people like me at the heart of it. You can’t

  Grasp your own hustle, your blackness, you can’t grasp

  Your own pussy, your black pussy dies for touch.

  AMERICAN SONNET FOR MY PAST AND FUTURE ASSASSIN

  Probably all our encounters are existential

  Jambalaya. Which is to say, can a nigga survive?

  Would you rather have happiness or freedom,

  Pain or boredom? Would you rather hitch

  Your rotten rope to a wagon or hitch your rotten

  Wagon to a leash? After blackness was invented

  People began seeing ghosts. When my father

  Told me I was one of God’s chosen ones,

  He was only half bullshitting. Probably each twilight

  Is as different as a father is from his son.

  Something happens everywhere in this country

  Every day. Someone is praying, someone is prey.

  Probably blindness has a chewed heart

  In its belly, or a gate opening upon another gate.

  AMERICAN SONNET FOR MY PAST AND FUTURE ASSASSIN

  I’m full of more water than a forest

  And the adrenaline of a spooked horse.

  But I’m a Time Lord. My armor is flesh

  And spirit. I carry a flag bearing a different

  Nation on each side. I carry money bearing

  The face of my assassins. I’m good company

  And pretty fun for a little while. A whirlwind,

  I tend to repeat my mistakes. I’m a camera

  With no cameraman, my own personal

  Assistant & assassin. The truth is easy to see

  When it’s before you, but it’s deceptive

  Otherwise. I am selfish. I am a religion.

  You are a religion. Together we are a religion.

  My love is oppressive. I’m a Time Lord.

  AMERICAN SONNET FOR MY PAST AND FUTURE ASSASSIN

  But there never was a black male hysteria:

  As if you weren’t the lover of Langston Hughes,

  Forced to hold what you knew of his measure

  Secret until it drove you mad enough to cruise

  The dive bars reciting the poems he wrote

  About you but never published or spoke:

  Lines covered in bruises & stars, almost

  Unhinged lyrics. The man was high yellow

  In public, afraid of himself, pretending his music

  Was material when in fact, it was the opposite:

  Like a breath that comes so quickly you know

  You’re breathing ether: either atmospheric

  And anonymous as the air against a window,

  Or indefinite & mute as a curtain of wind.

  AMERICAN SONNET FOR MY PAST AND FUTURE ASSASSIN

  Because he cannot distinguish a blackbird

  From a crow or raven, it’s all the more

  Brazen when the autocrat kisses a cat.

  Because he’s a kettle of oil about to boil,

  It’s all the more touching when the despot

  Pets a pet. The skin breaks so easily, he says,

  But he cries it softly. Because he’s someone

  Who can’t distinguish a horse from a zebra

  Without the stripes, he can’t describe himself

  Without looking in a mirror. Baller. Bawler.

  Dentures. Makeup. He’s almost too flakey

  To be the villain. Because he’s someone

  Who cannot distinguish meat from malarkey.<
br />
  Anything close to his mouth gets bitten.

  AMERICAN SONNET FOR MY PAST AND FUTURE ASSASSIN

  Sometimes the father almost sees looking

  At the son, how handsome he’d be if half

  His own face was made of the woman he loved.

  He almost sees in his boy’s face, an openness

  Like a wound before it scars, who he was

  Long before his name was lost, the trail

  To his future on earth long before he arrived.

  To be dead & alive at the same time.

  A son finds his father handsome because

  The son can almost see how he might

  Become superb as the scar above a wound.

  And because the son can see who he was

  Long before he had a name, the trace of

  His future on earth long before he arrived.

  AMERICAN SONNET FOR MY PAST AND FUTURE ASSASSIN

  It feels sadder when a black person says Nigga

  Because it sounds like Nigger. It feels sadder

  When a brother or sister says Nigga because

  It sounds like Nigger. I have never heard either

  Word in the mouth of my mother or father.

  Once I had a lover who said neither word

  Out loud. I used neither word for years.

  It feels sadder to hear a nigga say Nigga when

  It sounds like Nigger. Nothing saddens me more

  Than Nigger, one whose master has no Lord.

  No word leaves me more graced by shame.

  You will always be my nigga, I say to the mirror

  Because it is a dark water the temperature

  Of a blade, the yellow flower stalking a dream.

  AMERICAN SONNET FOR MY PAST AND FUTURE ASSASSIN

  The subject is allowed up to twenty years

  After leaving the home of his or her parents

  To reconcile all but the darkest of infractions.

  The deeper the wound the more heroic

  The healing. As the story of Aeneas is The Aeneid

  And the story of Odysseus, The Odyssey, the name

  Of the subject is as mysterious as the journey.