NOW! and then.

 

 

 

i WAS so free in the eighties. Click here if you saw me---.

My jheri-curl slick as the tyrannical sunshine. Pulling

compromise out the air like King Lear. On that morning

when my brother needed a bail bond and we scrambled

to count our assets on one hand. Forget about it man,

you'll have to sit there. Rot there, until the proverbial

cows come home. Where's my afro-sheen, my activator,

my cold-wave sequence of vainglorious breathlessness?

Detroiter's invented dew rags/ and didn't nobody know

s**t about cool until I broke out those Cuban heels

on Easter.

 

And I agree, it's rich to be existential. My undying love

for the oft-thick idealist who raised clinched fists at

the 68 olympics and died of overdoses in 73. Love em.

Who saw the sun's over dirty rivers go down slowly like

Pigmy's from the canopy in those Tarzan movies. Saved

the skulls of the Vietcong on painted shelves along

with poloroid pictures of sweethearts in hotpants. Loved

those who laughed out loud at Sylvester and the Cockettes

twitching in makeup, while my sister, unable to match

her eye shadow with her coolots, dying of heartache. The

man who stole his fathers body from the funeral home

and kept him in the freezer all the while praying for

for his return to some semblance of life. Some breath

again, some inkling like it use to be when colored folk loved too hard.

Yet forbidden to write love poems because of the

"pimrose that forsaken dies" of the revolutionaries.

 

When they found Jimmy Swaggart with the w***e

he couldn't deny that he was human even while carrying

Jesus in his front pocket. And me, falling in and out of

love like a bedbug on that mixed jive that Chris and his

brother (dead as a doornail) would sell in the half light.

I can recall the names but never the faces, one I saw just

this past Saturday, 100 pounds heavier this time out

after swallowing Belle Isle, and her three kids, all by

different fathers, found rocks and called them seashells.

 

I'm too old to love again, deeply again. My good lips

of sound holds appeal but far too hurt to part with

sentiment growing as a lush meadow. Have I been

a burden, when in the morning I just might theorize what has

happened, this thing inscribed,

affixed to my narrowest horizons;

the rockrose fragrant oleoresinous was me

up the hill of thought,

like Constantine to Christianity,

documenting dreams.

Reviews

[Lydia Shutter]

How well I remember the 80's! You really brought me back with some of the imagery here. Jheri products for the curly hair....yup, we all had em. Love the "pulling compromise out the air like King Lear." What a great line! Cuban heels, VietNam references, poloroid pictures, Jimmy Swaggart....the stream of your consciousness was delightful to walk through. The last stanza is empowering. Sure, the 80's were a long time ago, but you are never too old. Climb that hill of thought and see what you can see.....then go after it. I liked this a lot, Dana. Lydi**