Two Poems

GOLD

his children

he can't touch too good

with old yellow eyes

set back in deep

old black skin that's

use to coldness but

a body alone

(or even a tree for that matter

without something to hold sometime

cannot stand

a winter

a offspring)

from children

who come from him

bent black

sometimes spewing it

between gold teeth

that cost him

checks

received

for three fingers

missing

cut off in the U$A

 

cut off from

his children he is

unable to reach or rest

whole hands on their foreheads

under stylish afros and clenched fist

his children just don't feel

it take power to raise

an old black man's

bowed head

 

"I had my hair like that when / was cornin' up,

but it wasn't called an afro then . . .

You just called it keepin' your head warm! "

 

he laugh it and talk it

he push it out

and smile it between three teeth

that are not gold

cause we don't own no gold

that he know about

 

SURVIVAL MOTION: NOTICE

We gotta

put more in our

children's heads

than gold

teeth,

to

keep

blackness

to

keep

blackness

to

always

keep

it

from

turning around.

 

america's

got all kinds of

attractive distractive

colorful

freak image

clown clothed

hypnotic animal

music games

and rides.

 

and you

can lose a child

at a circus,

very

easy.