GETTING CAUGHT UP IN THE MOMENT WITH ERIC CLAPTON

Me
Swaying with Clapton’s Bell Bottom Blues

She			a stranger
Treading cold uneven pavement 

Ebony feet set softly in burgundy cowboy boots
Frisco’s blackening sky a dome above us

Only minutes from letting go
I taste tears before the fall

And she glides
Healing me with the 	click-click-click 	of her hot heels

I catch them mahogany eyes jump on me
Only she craves not me

Today her lover was atop the Golden Gate
And the ocean opened for the taking of his depressed flesh

So I’ll keep singing with Clapton
Damn sure		I don’t want to fade away		Damn sure

-Get Caught up with Clapton (Watch)

Knight

(First published in River Oak Review)

You don’t know the full story
As these white boys got me second guessing
						 myself

Your black hands be like mammoth cinder boom blocks
Protecting my fragile inner-blackness from its whiteskinned shield
And the lookeylous
				confused glare

Black man you tell them all
That’s my son
While the other day i lowered my head under
The Windex streaked Chevy window for the school drop
							off

And I wonder
Did you pick up on my shamefulness
Did your pride crumble like crackers smashed for the fry
As you watched me step out of the car and
over the pink lantanas
				    scraping the cracked cement

Hope you know now that I saw you as mi lector
I soaked in all your words (Close mouth don’t get Fed)
Words that pummel in my soft chest still

—for Mi Pops

AN OPENING OF THE HEART

for Joe Cocker

i often think how one breath,
a hot, deep, cleansing release can move the heart.

and how its heat can melt them layers
that no longer need be stored in a body.

cocker, singing a song with his whole body,
when all you see are possibilities.

and this is how i come to this poem,
like cocker - let spirit lead way.

my hands taking over. i am letting my brain slide back a bit.
put my hands out front, and let 'em tap . . . cocker shaking on stage. 

one breath . . . quick taps on this black keyboard . . . cocker, you are so beautiful . . .
his mouth open, my hands in motion.

-And here is Cocker (watch)

Slave Not

There had to be
one ship
that
bucked
out
of
the
water
and reversed its course back to Africa.

I Ain’t Movin’

Thunder up on me movin’ to a place where bricks stay down Thunder poundin’ the walls in on 13th ave Walls set ablaze I hear my train slammin’ hard on the tracks of muh’s cocoa butter arms Train a comin’ fast My body now two One turned to look into the sun Me eyes lost The other holding the moon Belly full Hear my train a comin’ Fire crackin’ from my chest Rails rattlin’ Them soles that stayed for the fear of fear now pressed deep in the earth Come on jimi Give me the train bra I want all the screeches Them sparks hoppin’ up and down on steel Blues Reds I hear my train a comin’ And i ain’t movin’

—after “I Hear My Train A Comin’” by Jimi Hendrix (listen)