To Love A Black Poet

Could you love
A cat like me?
Black like me?
Knowing how we be?

Could you love
A word-pimp
Speaking the woozy-
Hemp-inspired-speak
In this bitter-
Sweet jazzed
Release of
Poems?

Could you love
A cat like me?
Black like me?
The unsung singer?
A noise and sho-nuff
Joy-bringer who
Croons and spoons you in
The passionate
Gush and Breath
Of rhythmic
Songs...

Could ya love
A cool fool like me
Knowing how we be
Seeing we dress,
In homeless chic
Knowing how we
Manifest and how
We speak
Like we live: Bold
Uncensored and
In riddles, ya dig?


Yo! Could ya love
A cat like me, knowing
How we see best when
We squint at
The world
With eyes wide open…
Knowing that we interpret
The yang and
Inhabit the yin
Knowing how we
Deduce and decode
The warm and
Swirling tides
Written inside
Each other’s
Irises? See...



We kiss
With mouths aflutter
In the softest butter-
Fly language.
Our lips throw thick
Caramel juices, often
Releasing sweet
Love notes and
Sonnets that grunt
In wild
Erotic
Passages...

And our tongues be
Untied
Unbridled
Unafraid
To explore
The maze
Of our
Vulnerable
Versatility…




So could you love
A cat like me
When we sit,
Inside ourselves
Seething, believing
In deep poetic
Thought...
Or when we SCREAM
In silence from these
Magnificent howls
Crouching beneath
Our breaths?

See, we commune with the
Stars and the moon.
We speak fluently
In tunes…
Communicate
In gasps
In chants
And we move, we groove
In this hungry dance of
Ravenous spirits...

See, our souls caw...
Like lions we
Roar
And like tribal drums
Beat
Across
African shores, we
Throw our voices
Softly LOUD...
And allow
Our tears
To fall and then
To make
Noise.

And we cry…
Oh, how we
Cry in
Indigo
Hieroglyphics
And laugh
The high laughter
Of fools
And stoned romantics...

We whisper
We scream,
We sweat,
And make love
In deeply quixotic
Overtones...

So could you love
A cat like me?
Black like me?
Knowing that ...
To Love
A True and
For Real
Black Poet
Is to covet a
Word pimp,
Tongue-aflutter
With a butter
Fly-language,
Tribal drum-bangin’
Noise and Joy-bringin’
FREAK… who speaks
Between the
Sheets of a
Baaaaadass
Epic
Poem.



One.






© 2012 by L.M.Ross moaningmanblues All Rights Reserved

"Gone" (A Jazz Poem For One of The Dearly Departed)

Inside that concrete canyon of

Deep and steely

Regrets

Where the mean streets sucked

You in, like

Aimless junkies inhaling

Crystal meth…

And the garish avenues

Spat you out

Like the night’s

Haughty sophisticates

Exhaling smoke

From French

Cigarettes… I search for


Signs of your

Cool-ass

Ghost.

Where the hustlers are

Still brawling

The busters are balling

And queens lean into

Neon-coated

Tete a tetes… and the whores

Grow bored between

Johns and quickies

And marathon sessions of

Oral sex… where

The atmosphere is

Terminally blue, I find myself

Searching for you.



Sometimes I forget

Being lost

In a dream

Where I’m

Naked, screaming

Screeching your name

Like a wildman aflame

Thru uncaring streets

As if you were still

Alive, still seeking

Your piece of fame as

A skidrow celebrity. On Broadway


No one really

'Treats you fine.'

It’s just a contrived

Little R & B

Rhyme... a convenient line

From a long ago

Drifters song. I sing


Your name

And throw my voice from

The top my

Lungs in a shameless fit of

Disorderly conduct

Terrified to confess and

Afraid to admit

You are gone… really


Gone, man. Gone

Like those

Beatniks, wasted chicks

And misfits from the 60s. Gone

Like Bird and Jupiter Ray

And those spacey tribes of

Bricked-up eyes

In the dimly-lit

Cafes of the village.

Gone…


Like the comfortably numb

Hippies and the skag-

Shooting junkies nodding

Their lives away in

Needle Park. Gone

Like those angelic–sounding

Jazzmen sparking reefer and

Hitting pristine notes. Gone

Like the cool ones...

The transitory

Doomed ones

Doping in the dark of

52nd street.


Gone… in the night’s frightful

Debris of objects, mirages,

People and things

That matter to

No one else

But me.



I refuse to let the

Demons win or pillage this

Richness of your memory

When, you remain like

Some old soul song

Only old souls sing

When high on something

Even those dealers in Harlem

No longer sling.


You are gone, now

Like afros and dashikis

And beautiful visions

Fleeting from the corner

Of my mind’s eye.



Gone… in a blink

In a final sigh...

In this stink-hole

Lost soul ghetto. Gone from

This unfabulous uptown

Plantation zoo of

Habits that wink

And nod and fidget

At you… Habits

That ache and throb,

Shake and rob…

Wild, and lie

And vomit

In macabre

Projectile

Streams of nothing

Nada, utter

Nothingness...

But the bang/crash

Echo of




Regret.







One.





copyright © 2010 by L.M. Ross