**for mother's day: my black 'mama' poem

if you could see
my mama standing
in harlem, at sunset
the cruel wind
threatening
in vain
to rearrange
her natural hair...
you'd know this woman was
a rare & beauteous
poem...




a bare roots
boogaloo-philly dance of
a poem
a joe tex, al green
otis redding listening
poem... a sweet-
potato pie, chitlins
grits & gravy
deliciously rich type
poem...




a my man's gone
but i'm still
standing poem...

a whatever
doesn't kill me
makes me a
stronger poem...

a hand on her hip
'boy don't you give no shit'
daydreams are
forbidden here...
it's truth or
consequences
& oh yes, a fearless
poem...



a please... address me as
"Your Majesty" cuz
'i used to be
a queen
& can't nobody tell
my spine
any diff'rently' poem!

if you could see
my mama standing
erect
after the shit tude
this america's
dumped upon her
shoulders, you'd say...

'DAMN!


if that ain't superwoman...
then she sho nuff
must be some
kinda gravity-
defying... strong
fierce, defiantly
black, keep on
keepin' on...
i got your back

poem!'





One.


by L.M. Ross


**originally published in Painted Bride Quarterly




Happy Moms, Momma's, Mumsy's MaMi's, Mamacita's & Baby Mama's Day to all!


One Love.


Lin

Inside This Friday Night's Hotness

I’ve danced till dawn
And parts beyond where
Neon streets cease
To paint anyone pink
Or blue or pretty anymore.

I’ve paid my dues to the gods
And the laws of Friday nights.
I’ve danced myself, hot, loud
And flawed under the lights,
Now, once again, I come…
Stumbling, staggering
Back to you. I come
Seeking shelter, seeking
Warmth, seeking refuge
From this damned
Sauna of a world
Which shoots race movies upon
My skin.

Tell me you GET it! Tell me
You do understand this
Need in me to
Sometimes win! Tell me
You hold the keys to
The heart of me… and
That you know my secrets
When I’m lost and vulnerable
And on the verge of
Weeping...



Show me there’s
Someone
Inside this
Insanity
Who still gives
A damn about
What happens to me!

You see, your face,
Your presence is
My solitude’s serum…
Cure me!
Feed me your
Enduring sustenance!
Come… take my hand and
Dialogue with me! Engage
Me in soft talk,
And romantic soliloquy…
Drown me in
Wet kisses… and
Cradle me in heartbeats!

Step to me with
Understanding arms
And empathetic eyes
Come inside these sheets and
Take this precarious
Ride with me!

Come… lets set our tongues
Free to paint
Goose-bump stories
Across these pages of our skin
Come… and let us make brand
New Happy Endings…
All poetry and movement and
Big toe quiverings!



When this world leaves me
Distressed and downhearted
Roll call all the beauteous things you see…
Blow passionate solos upon
This instrument of me...
Let each breath perform
Love’s slyest song...
Let each gesture reflect
Love’s slow-in-between-the-
Thighs-dance... and let us
Hum a mellow waltz to Love’s
Black-lighted trance…

Let us taste
Love’s salt upon our lips…
Feel Love’s glow and its
Healing effect… Let us
Know Love’s primal pulse-beat…
Let us engage in Love’s
Succulent symmetry…and
Then let us
Unleash Love’s most
Perfect SCREAM!




Yes! Inside this
Friday night’s hotness
Do what you must to
Puff my ego erect
And leave me shining
And radiant inside
Some pool of sweat and DNA
Which defines me and
Reminds me vaguely of
Some travesty
Some trickery
Some voodoo
Hoodoo witchcraft
Sorcery... some fools
And Romantics still
Believe to be


Love.




One.



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

A Brief Freedom

For My Friend B.B.

1970-2012


Death is inevitable here, my friend. As sure as rape and theft and overcrowded subways, death, for some of us, is just a station stop away. If we’re lucky… if we’re Blessed, Life slows down a piece... and grants us a sweet reprieve. It is released inside this freedom of poetry.

My Highest, Most Greatest Good is a dueling dream. It is fueled by the urgent SCREAM heard from others expectations of me, versus, this unquenchable hunger, this insatiable thirst of my undying ambition. Quite simply: I am a slave to this shit.

In the frosted fields between the sheets of my sleep, I am haunted by this duality. It is always hiding, like a shy ghost, inside of my deepest self. Life, for me, has been this journey through streets of Sadness and Euphoria, with a brief but necessary escape inside the plains of poetry.

And I’ve known some poets... Real Poets... such Beautiful, Living, Breathing Poets; scribes so much Higher and Greater than me.

And after living their heroic little lives, they’ve died their invisible deaths.

This weekend someone else’s earthly suffering came to an end. This weekend, another poet friend of mine expired.


Today, once again, Life for me has become this brief excursion into the freedom of poetry.

I am reminded of how some vile thing or some monstrous entity always comes along to kill this poetry in us.

Death, it just keeps chasing us, stalking us, walking beside, and then, running after us.

Death by winter... in a cold-shouldered America. Death by failure’s sharp and jagged needle. Death by trigger-fingered cop. Death by a city’s speeding stopwatch. Death by some incorrect, mistaken identity. Death by some ignorant-assed vigilante. Death by merciless abject poverty. Death by a lonely man’s disease. Death by some obscene and unnatural cause will come for us, just as it came for him…

And we will grieve.

As blackly beautiful and brilliant as he was, his life should have never been cut so damned brief! I get it, though. I do. Between us there are few differences. We are bittersweet slaves to an Art, a Mistress, and to a World of thieves that will ultimately betray us! I get it!

Life, for me, is this brief and tragic hesitation. I fill in the gaps and gaping holes with broken prose and poetry.

His life was terse, composed of heavy heart and crying verse. His life, it should have been a song. Instead it proved to be... a broken stanza... an aborted passage.

Yo! Would someone please throw him a jazz funeral, damn it!





And send him home most righteously! Let those dark cherubic-faced men blow their horns through the streets for him!

Celebrate him! His life! His gift! Speak poems, say odes, sing hymns to his spirit! And then, being that we are such carelessly foolish humans, we’ll forget just what made his soul so rich and special, so unique, and beautiful.


It happens all the time. I’ve seen this shit happen to my own father; the way people just forget the Shine from his Star. I’ve come to expect nothing more, nothing less than this, for it is his plight, and my plight, and perhaps all of our plights.


My Highest Good is a dueling dream. It is fueled by the urgent scream of divergent expectations of me. It remains this unquenched, insatiable thirst of undying ambition. In the frosted fields of my sleep, I am haunted by this duality.

Life, for me, has mostly been this reed-thin freedom I find in poetry.

Life, for me, has mostly been this reed-thin freedom I find in poetry.

LIFE, for me, has mostly been this reed-thin freedom I find in poetry.


I wish you golden days and lyrical nights of radiant riffs and open mics and Gabriel blowing Cool Jazz on his horn... and from the neon-lit clouds on the hipper side of Heaven, I wish you Thunderous fingersnaps.


That's it. That's all.

Au revoir, Bonne nuit, Mon Ami.


One.

Endangered At 17: Poem For Trayvon Martin

I remember being 17, living on Lays
Potato chips, chili dogs and Wonder bread…
Would never be caught dead
Or seen without
My Swedish knits and
Chuck Taylors… with Stevie
Wonder blasting Superstition
In my head. I remember

Playing Spades, and scratching myself in
“Nasty” places, full of raging
Hormones, adrenaline and
Silent fear. I remember how it feels

To live in Black skin. Being told
By my mother, I was “beautiful.”
Being told by teachers, I was “Artistic”
And yes even “Gifted…” but
Never once told I was invincible. I remember this
As surely as I recall walking
Home from the movies, at night, and

Being stopped by local cops
Because I fit the descript
Of some hot-
Wired black boy who might just
Explode… who
Was up to some no good,
Criminally-minded shit,
When it was neither my behavior,
My nature,
Nor my actions but
The color of my skin which
Dictated this.

I remember feeling diminished, and
Embittered, enraged,
And endangered for the first time
At age 17... when I should have felt
Young and wild and free
And full of possibilities… Like you,

Trayvon… Angelic-faced manchild
Of a brown-skin hue. Almost
Brand new in the world,
Caught up inside that swirl of
Confusion... and yet
Another senseless
Victim to the paranoia of
Another racist fool.




Did you fit that tragic
Descript too, Trayvon?
Hoodie-clad and armed with
Skittles and iced tea? How dangerous!



How deadly
You must be. How deadly!
How..? Deadly?

How dead.








One.





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

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

Today’s Musical Selection Will Be

Do you ever howl sometimes in a loud, yet quiet note?
Do strange fingers ever reach out and
Stroke some sleeping
Ache, lodged within
Your Soul?

Does a tear ever make a clearly distinct noise
As it crawls… before falling
In a singular ping of
A triangle's
Jangle?

If the written word were a strain of music,
Arranged to echo the sound of your
Essence, what tune would it
Assume? What instrument,
What timbre would suit
The voice of your
Deepest
Mood?

Would you strum your strings softly
Or bleat your horn, loudly?
Would you swiftly strike
Every key upon your
Piano, like a
Virtuoso,
Angrily?

If the spoken words were music, what
Sound would you affect? The vibrato
Of a cello? The rhymic pounding of
Drum? Perhaps a bass
With its resounding
Fret?

If your emotions were a symphony,
Would they thunder in dissonance,
Vibrate with sound and righteous
Fury… Or stew and brew
Like Miles Davis'
Mute?

Me? I am muting today, deep in my own
Blue instrumental jam. I am a hobo's
Trumpet… Awaiting the lips of
A muse to stroke me sweetly,
And blow upon my
Chrome.

I am a solo sound with no direction… lyrics
In search of introspection. I am
A wild note, cast to
A mercurial wind.
A distant quake
From a faraway
Gong.

Perhaps… this is my most authentic
Resonance … the genuine tone
Trapped within the solitary riffs
Of my lone blown
Lin-song.




One.




© 2011 by L.M.Ross moaningmanblues



And on a sadder musical note:





Rest In Peace Heavy D...You always brought a sense of fun & a party vibe to the Hip-hop game. You will be seriously missed.

Moanman-out.

imprisoned, age seven

imprisoned, age seven



it is frozen

inside a sepia photograph. & i

am forever

its imprisoned child.

the dark brown child

grimacing inside, when the white

photographer demanded


"smile..." this is what

"happy" looked like

at seven. after

my father

brushed & greased my

defiant, black hair

into some semblance of


a part. tied a noose around my neck... &

fashioned from my squirming,

crying, wildness this

upright afro-

american child.


& so...

half-heartedly

slyly, then rebelliously, i

became "him"... this

little brown clown of

robotic assimilation.


posed, frozed in his

best sunday clothes, until

he did not look, or feel

or even smell like me.



"smile..." you little fool


this one's for

prosperity.






One.



 
© 2006 by L.M.Ross moaningmanblues

Sex and Love: A Confessional Poem

This is my confession:
I've made love
Far more times
Than I've ever had
Sex. My
Imagination is
A whore… yes… but my body
Has been

A temple
Composed of
Apprehension and Tolerance, Poetry and
A reed-thin Hope for romance.

The penis
Is a jerk
With piss-
Poor judgment.
It works,
Rises, performs as
We breathe.

It can pretend to be
A magic wand...
It can abracadabra us away from
Loneliness...
But only the fluid of
Lust appears
From its hat.

And me? I've always dreamed
Bigger
Wider
Better
Than that, and so…
I've made love
More times than
I've ever had
Sex. Yet,

My head,
My home has been
A promiscuous dome
Where Illicit
What Ifs play
Twenty-four-sevenly.

This is what we
Men do. We stick our erections deep into
Illusions and
Come
Into the reality
That we are most alone
Inside this bed
Within our heads.


But sex with no emotion
Was too easy, too dangerous,
So instead
I've made love to faces with names,
To orifices with brains
And souls who fell
Shamelessly to their

Knees. And I've fallen, too
Before false gods
And goddesses, who
Made me kneel
At the altar of
Some thing
That felt
Soft and Hard… and Real, like

Love.






One.



copyright © 2005 and 2010 by L.M. Ross

Cigarette Poem? (Maybe, then again Maybe Not)

I have breathed you in…
Inhaled you in
Drifts and drafts
And mad dizzying spins.

And I have
Sucked you
Deeply into my lungs
Like some nicotine dream
Or herbal retreat…
An opiate from
A madness
That dare not speak
Its name.

I have breathed you in
Inhaled you so deeply
You became
My wind… became
The song
That plays in my brain
And repeats
And repeats
Its soft,
Sly refrain.

I have breathed you in
Like a fine Italian
Wine, and felt
My viscera sigh and
Palpitate…
From the giddiness of
The high. I have
Breathed you in
With both lewd
And angelic
Inhalations.

I have felt my
Corpuscles race and
Stiffen
And glided with
The flutter of
Sightless butterflies, as I
Imagined gardens of
Earthly delights.


Yes, I have breathed you in
Like carbon monoxide
And frankincense
Like roses and toxins
Never knowing if
Your fragrance
Will awaken or kill me
Slowly. I have breathed you

Into my system… and
Made you a part of my
Blood stream's story
And then
Si-i-i-i-i-iighed
Until you became
My prick

Of heroin…
Sliding thru my arteries
And taking me on wings to
The Heights of Heaven. You are

My insanity and my
Adrenaline, personified.
And I have become
A junkie...

Nodding to The High…
Purring to The High
Smiling to The High
While dancing inside
Each time, I close my eyes
To slowly
Deeply
Breathe
You
In…



One.


copyright © 2010 by L.M. Ross

Between Fractured Verse and Poetry

The following was written, after someone asked me the pointed question: "So, who are you, really?"




Between Fractured Verse and Poetry


I co-exist with bits
And pieces of me,
I am the stuff of
Fractured verse
And poetry.
Open door and barbed-wired fence,
Comic relief,
And dramedy.
Half-Asian eyes and Negroid lips
Half-conscious Hip-Hop,
Part Jazz purist. I
Breathe in rhythms
And gasp through lungs
That pace and race thru
Conflicted emotions.

All heart
And bone
And bullshit parts
Chronic bum, and work of
Art… I am
Full of soft blues
And vivid reds, and
Could use a little more
Green…

I am full of visions and
Still-born dreams,
Pristine memories,
Joy and Pain…
Thick with quiet
Words and screaming
Silence
Muted expression
And hovering
Violence...

Full of stars losing
Their vital shine
Like black holes
Dead… or slowly

Dying.


But I co-exist with
Bits of me
And sure-footedness pimps
My uncertainty.
Half-broken man,
Part ravenous child,
Fed on cannibis,
Muse and an innate
Dose of wildness.
Part reticent kid,
And verbose man… I am
Contradiction’s poster child.


Behind this gaze
Behind the maze
Inside this flesh
A primal haze
Of fear and bravery
Freedom and slavery
I am all of these...

And you can't save me...


From these
No trespass signs and
Barbed-wired
Fences protecting me
And what’s mine. I am

This selfish work,
Of complex parts.
A Cosmic dancer
A work of
Black Art
So just
Scratch the
Surface…and you’ll find

A piece of me and
My partial heart…

Lodged somewhere
Between tears...snot
And fits of laughter
Between
Coltrane bleats...
And emotions fractured
Upon my tongue
In stuttered verse and
Still-born riffs of
Poetry.




One.


copyright © 2010 by L.M. Ross

Junkie

Yesterday, I ran into an old friend who has, over the years, fallen on hard times. Much of this was due to Life and its disappointments, personal weakness and the failure to overcome the adversities we all face. It saddened me how he could have been me, or I could have been him. It saddens me still because between us there are very few differences. After speaking with him last night, I was haunted enough to light a candle for him, and then to write this poem.



JUNKIE


Funky
Skunky
Untrustworthy
Junkie, I might just be
Your only friend
Left.

Maybe ’cause
You haven’t yet
Robbed
My car,
Broken into
My home,
Stolen my TV
And DVR.
You have not
Abused my trust
Turned my love
Into tainted
Dust… or
Made empty
Promises
I knew you
Couldn’t keep.

Yes, I’ve still
Got your back
Because maybe,
Just maybe
I’m nothing but
An addict too…
A junkie, scratching
The scabs of my
Sordid history
With you. I keep
Feeding off
Lost years of
Pick-up b-ball games
And Converse All-Stars
Mainlining
Good Moments and
Memories
Into my veins…




And now I’ve become
Some strange form of
Junkie…
Jittering to
This music
Of a past…
Tripping on times
When laughter made
Jazz and sparks in
A summer night’s
Darkness
And it was cool
To be young and
Foolish, too.

Maybe we’re all
Just junkies
Holding onto
Dreams
Tight as
Hypodermic
Needles…
Always looking for that
Transitory fix

See everyone
I know
Clings to
Something,
To someone
Or some shit
That may never
Come to be…



And so we
Junk ourselves
Away from
Reality. We stifle
We dope
We medicate our
Silent aches
With placebos
With nicotine
With liquor
With amphetamines
With something
That makes disaster
Seem a little more like
A dream.

Funky
Skunky
Untrustworthy
Junkie, I might just be
Your only
Friend left. Maybe
‘Cause beneath
The scratching,
Leaning palsy and
The slow-mo ballet
Just maybe I see…




How my veins
Have collapsed
From the weight of
My dreams
How my desires
Have atrophied
From someone
Else’s schemes
And my fingers
Wear sores and
Skid-marks
From clawing
And clinging to
Some illusive shit
That may never
Come to be.



The only difference is:

I’VE NEVER STOPPED
Believing.


One.

Freak Comes Clean

Let me tell you a secret:

When I first saw you, I wanted you. I wanted you physically, spiritually, emotionally, too. I wanted to kiss me so badly… I kept stuffing that urge in a cool place, hoping my hunger wouldn't show so much. I wanted to do you… but even more, I wanted to hold your wholeness.

And now I want to make an Art of you, to let my fingers crave Love upon your body, like warm wet Plaster of Paris. Imagine it: me, with my chisel, hard as diamond, hammering into your hot marble flesh…. me, with my chisel… molding and erecting this brand new shape to your heart.

Yes… you would be my art's food, my chisel's muse… as a carve and drill and erect this space inside you, where your caged freak soul flies free.

Let me tell you a secret:

I'm one of those romantic fools, those Sensitives who sometimes holds tenderness too close to the heart and the bone. Am alone to sometimes think of sex as Art?



So ponder: Does this make me, a freak, or simply an Art Groupie?


Some tend to see, to think of Love as a Science, a question of Chemistry; a continuous series of complex equations. E=Mc2. See. You've lost me? I always sucked at science of scientifics. I excelled instead at fitful poetry. I could never recite the Table of Elements, but I can be your creative idiot savant.

Let me tell you another secret:



I sometimes some nights forget to be so tender. I sometimes want to grind your mind in time with mine; to grind you finer than you mill your coffee. See you with your flava, and me with my vintage beans… imagine what a brouhaha we could be together!


And my kisses… oh, my kisses might begin so butterfly soft, and then the intensity of them increases… and that butterfly becomes a freakish raven.



That kiss alone might cause tongues to chafe like flint and kindling igniting flames of desire…wild hot fiery flames that smolder, smother and consume us both to ashes of moist lust.

Let me tell you my final secret:

Love makes me artful, thoughtful, sensitive and tender, angel and devil, madman and savage. Love and me… we've this running history with schizophrenia, baby.




See… I'm not a ho.



I'm a freak, yo.



I just told you.



Now you know.



One.

My Tisha Mae, My Favorite Jersey Chick, On Her 46th Natal Day

Dressed down in all black, our berets cocked at a deadly tip, our cool is

heading towards ridicuous and our swagger is becoming the stuff of

legend in this city. Hey, Tisha Mae, in the moment, I am quietly digging your

sway, and how sometimes you'll move in this smooooove unutterable elegance, I

become so impressed by the essence of you... that I almost forget you

know me, know my name, shared my secrets and heard my dreams, and you

even “LOVE” me a li'l bit... that way you Jersey chicks do… or so you’ve said

on a bold or giddy occasion or two… though it seems it’s always me who says it

first...




Night blows by like a hit of good cheeb... and we sit, lit in pink bistro

light. Some slight scatting jazz chick croons from the juke... and jazzoid that

I be I think it’s Rosie Clooney, which is sweet though Nina Simone would’ve

grooved and wooed and taken us home in slow motion. Slowly, we eat, talk, laugh

some. We speak fluently of horny evenings and current sex machines and of poetry

readings in Brooklyn. We each secretly want to be Real Poets kissed by stars of

adoration and acceptance. Yet we only admit this in deeper whispers when those

voices of our inner perverts come gleaming from our eyes. Funny how we become

two groggy victims from this Italian wine with the world "swhirling" and the

traffic sighing around us as Rosemary Clooney serenades us.


"Happy Birthday, Tisha Mae!" I raise my glass and sing in Stevie Wonder style,

as waiter brings a single red cake cupcake and you smile like the sun.



Later on, 27th Street sits all over your shoulders like a navy shawl with

moveable glitter in it.



You want to visit a psychic. You want to pay some mystic to feed you

good news and divine you some brighter future… But I nix this idea. Psychics,

scare me. Besides, I say: 'I’m all the clairvoyance you need, baby! Let’s see:

You still dream to be kid-free, Jersey-free soul-free to write and Be

Heard or maybe if not prominent then at least a cooly popular cult figure.




See? I know your dream. I even share its sheen with you.


No need for juju nor tarot reading mojo-slinging mystic women summoning up

Voodoo, at 1:22AM. No need when nothing but the swoosh of traffic and Cool York

City noise comes on strong in this shrouded voice of Love and yet-to-be poetry

speaks best for you and me.


Hey! Tisha Mae, have I told you lately how your smile paints me softly in

colbolt blue plumes and downtown moonlight? Hey! Maybe it’s infectious, too.

Makes us giggle like junior high fools and beautiful, if profoundly retarded

people do. You smile and it reminds me how I haven’t really smiled from

deep inside my soul in a week (or was it a decade?) or two. Well, at least

since my last time hangin' out with you.





The night turns a cold 59 degree shoulder to us. I walk you in Stagger-Lee mode

to your train, and we wait for its arrival. And it comes in a slow gust of foul

air, and I kiss you goodbye. And you grab my ears... and you smile that smile

you do. "Thanks for making this one a memory, Lin." And you kiss my lips, and

you kiss my cheek. And I back away as you board the train. And I turn back

to see you in the windows. You are moving through the cars… just moving with

this Grace, with such quietly dignified, with such unutterable elegance that

your swagger becomes legend… and you make a new memory... and it's times like

this that I almost forget, you know me, know my name. I forget we've shared

each others secrets. I forget, you know the weight of these dreams I’ve put on

hold… Hell, you even “LOVE” me... a li'l... or, so I've been told…



Seems I'm always the first to say it, though.


Sometimes, inside my mind or in the back of my throat, I find myself

humming it, in a happy-to-be-nappy tune of strangely transforming notes

all the way home.



Happy Natal Day, Tisha Ma. I do… I really do love you, yo.






One.

Your Sensuality

The size and

Degree of your

Sensuality

It sometimes almost

Frightens me. I feel



Unworthy

Unqualified

Unequipped

To know

This wealth

To receive

This gift

This prick of





Your nipples...


Like two pin-lights

Inside a cosmos

Of skin

As taut, tender, and

Tight as stars.



My God!



Your sensuality

Can almost

Frighten me.

Make me feel

Hard as Diamond

And Yet,

Minute

In The Universe

Of its Largeness…



It’s as if

Your legs

Would stretch

Into a chasm

Deep and Wide

And swallow

My secrets and

Swallow my

Pride...

And gorge my

Insecurities

Whole.



And I

Believe

That sex with

The Soul

Manifests and

Flows into

A slow and

Enduring song.



I believe

Sex

With the skin

Is a physical act

But sex within

The intimacy

Of the soul, unfolds

And floats upon

Erotic sheets of

Poetry… It’s all

Nin & Whitman

Maya & Kerouac and

Zane, Barrett-Browning

Shakespeare and shit!



But I am finally

Ready

To dip

My pen inside

Your whipping

Erotic tide.



But will I

Only drown

When I’m supposed to

Flow?



I never learned

To perfect

That arc

In my dive. Never learned

To swim freely

Against

A rushing tide.

Never learned the righteous

Way to go

Insane, and lose

My mind

Inside of you…



But I am

Ready

To embrace

This newfound

Lunacy...

To close my eyes

And ride

Your wave

To wherever place

It leads…



And so

I go down

With grace

And I go down

Willingly...

Even though

The size and degree

Of your sensuality…

It sometimes

Almost…



Frightens me.







One.



By L.M. Ross