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

Never To Be Forgotten...

Michael Joe Jackson 1958-2009




"If You Wanna Make The World A Better Place... Take A Look At Yourself And Make A Change!"


One Love.

For My Father...

He knew how to wear a hat.

Trust... that’s not always an easy trick, when you’re a Black man, trying *not* to look like a pimp, a mack, a dandy, a fop or a player.


My father possessed that infinitely smooth gift of slipping on a chapeau and becoming this cool and mysterious character. Though barely 5’8, he always stood larger in his fedora. It seemed as if his posture changed and he became this whole other Larger Being , at least, in my eyes.

I was discussing this phenomenon with my mother, yesterday, as we were approaching yet another Father’s Day, without his presence. Because of this, she seemed determined to remember to be sad. And while I could only validate that emotion for her, an extended appointment with sadness was not placed upon my schedule. Instead, I spoke of a certain bronze-colored Oldsmobile Delta 88; how my father would take the family for long rides on Sunday afternoons, and how, from the backseat, in his fedora, he resembled some quietly Elegant Black King to my eyes.

When he died there inside the emergency room, a nurse brought his possessions into the waiting room. Perhaps she thought it would be too much for my mother, so she called me into a quiet corner, and she handed me his gold retirement watch, and his wedding band.

I tried like hell not to cry, especially there in that setting. Although my brother publicly lost it, I'd somehow retained my composure. It was a strange day. It was even stranger, holding those articles in my hand, as if the were supposed to represent this man I called, “Da.”

A day or so after this, at a more quiet time, I presented those articles to my mother, and hugged her tightly and for the longest time. I still hadn’t cried, but I wanted to.

After the funeral and after all the guests, and the food, and the stories, and the emotions, after the hubbub and the shows of sympathy, when everything sat quietly in its own haunted space, my mother asked if wanted anything of my father’s.

I thought for a minute about the car, which never was my style, and the clothes, ditto, and were way too small, and finally, I said,

“You know that black fedora? The one he wore back in the day, when he’d take us on those Sunday drives? I think I’d like to have that hat.”

Maybe it seemed like a strange request. But then, I was always her ‘strange poet son,’ and so she just shrugged and gave it me.

I’ve placed it on the top shelf in my closet. I hardly ever wear it. Over the years, I’ve thought of it as a kind of trophy to the modesty of his life, his quiet elegance; his one slice of mysterious cool, his subtle sense of royalty.


And so, on Father’s Day, in lieu of tears, and instead of episodes in sadness, I slipped on that black fedora, and tried like hell to mirror my father’s style-- not pimp, not mack, not player, not fop, not dandy.

You know, just a Black man, in a black chapeau, with a smooth gift for becoming a cool and mysterious character.

That’s it. That’s all.


Happy Father’s Day to YOU, Da.


One Love.


Lin

The Usual Bullshit a Go-Go...

An addendum to the previous entry: the cat I caught stealing from the till last week was officially given his walking papers on Friday night... when someone else caught him dipping and ATTEMPTING to get away with the same activity.

Karma is indeed a bitch.

Another interesting factoid, which I only discovered upon his firing: the lying, theif/bartender/cat just happened to be the nephew (in-law )of the bar's owner. Hmmmm... so, maybe he felt it was cool to take and rob from the boss, since it was all in the spirit of keeping it in the family.

Odd that!



In keeping with the nightlife theme, the following piece deals with my life as a bartender... the things I see, the emotions I feel, the impressions I come away with.

It is a repost, I call:

The Usual Bullshit a Go-Go



Sometimes and some nights you pick up the gist of these conversations your ears are virtually held hostage to hearing. You don’t want to hear them. You’d much rather, not know, because people are far more noble and more attractive when they retain a little piece of their mystery.


But you’re hurled into this cacophonous arena. You’re caught inside this land of ventriloquists, throwing their voices from the slick lips of the jagged, and the twisted. You’re caught… like some reluctant spectator, as the smooth and vicious volleys of nightlife play out.


Everybody wants to be a star, at least after midnight... Everyone wants to shine brighter, to be hotter, and more brilliant than the rest.

If you work in a bar, you begin to intuit this, know it instinctually, detect it in the mirrors. You can smell the smoke and bravado of it. You get to know it intimately. You hear the riffs of its blatant braggadocio, its egotistical emoting, its convoluted conversations seasoned with slick words, slick proposals and slicker motives that will make you go, “like Whoa!”


You know the routine, and you've seen it all before. You know the stagger, the swagger, the vogue of faux emotions, the scam, the scandal, the hustle, the quick buck, and you even become familiar with the woo and ways of the opportunistic fuck…

And it all makes you lose just a little faith in humanity, especially the drunk and the distraught, the lonely and the desperate, and the despeartely lonely kind.

This all paints a wildly psychedelic/imagistic landscape inside the mind how people so easily become victims to the night's carnal crimes, and forge foundations of potentially core relationships on a tradition of paper houses that sit and waver upon acres of bullshit.


However, once, just once, I’d like a night of nostalgia, of respect, of charm, of something on the fringes of finesse. Just once, I’d like some lively intelligentsia which rubs my cranium with a mouthful of lovely. Just once, I’d enjoy the give and take, the ebb and flow of a buoyant conversation that doesn’t hurt so much, or nulls my senses, make me feel so nauseous, used or abused, or to become just another sad citizen of the usual Bullshit, a Go-Go.


In short, some people can astound me with their sadness… this way they attempt, yet fail to mask it with manicures or too much make-up, with gym memberships, or impeccably groomed wildness, or with cologne or perfume to drive away the stink of it. I’ve seen and watched them pickle their sadness into fits of supercilious arrogance. Seen them erect their genital sadness; get it to wink, to smile, to do risqué somersaults and parlor tricks in the neon-lit darkness.


I could be far more specific. I could name names and events and even describe, in great detail, the outcome of these retarded little incidents. But why, when doing so would only blast a light upon it and add more sheen to this sadness; this barren piece of celebrity?


I’ve come to see the Saddest Truth of all is this: people, even barflies, even drunks, even users, even thieves, even adulterers, even bitches, even bastards, even bullies, and even hacks like me… all want a little piece of acclaim.

It gets lonely out there in that fog of horror to head back home all alone, untouched, unkissed, unfucked, unfelt, unloved.

I guess.





One.

And The Oscar For The Most Convincing LIAR Goes To...

Maybe it’s a Blessing, but I think it’s a curse, that some people can exist just fine, living in a chronic state of what I call: integritas-rigor mortis.

They LIE! They possess not an ounce of personal integrity. They can emote an untruth as easily as most people breathe. Better yet, they can live, quite well, with their dishonesty without any signs of guilt or remorse.

I'm sure you probably know some of these people. They are everywhere. They are endowed with the ability to look at you dead in the eye, LIE, better than any prize-winning Oscar-toting thespian, and make you BELIEVE them. I, in my time, have sat inside the theatre of the absurd and watched the performances of some mad gifted and brilliant liars.

Trust… my name’s not Paul McCartney… but Maybe I’m Amazed.


Last night, a co-worker lifted some cash from the till.

No. This is not some Hitchcockian mystery; but more like a Woody Allen dramaedy. See, I already KNOW for a fact who the culprit was. The thing is, they’ve successfully finessed and polished their Act of Sincerity to a tee. They appear to be so damn honest and so very trust-worthy. The thing is, you want desperately to believe in them. And because they've become such convincing players upon the stage, most people DO believe them.

Trust me. Had I not SEEN, first-hand, this person so slyly slip the cash inside his pocket, I would’ve thought this act impossible of them. It all happened so quickly, that I almost thought I’d imagined the shit.


Yes. I realize for many of us, times are indeed hard. Trust, I’ve spent the greater part of the last year trying my best to hustle some extra ducats. I’ve been a-knocking on the doors of tardy and negligent editors asking for the status of those lax checks. I've been offering up my services, submitting, resubmitting, following-up and sweatin’ those dreaded deadlines. When reaching that critical point were the change is strange, I will go into tunnel-vision mode: slaving, scraping, saving and short-changing creativity in an effort to fatten my wallet.



But being hungry or being needy, hasn’t descended to the point of me actually stealing from people... people who trust and believe in me. It hasn’t led me into committing some bold, bodacious, or blatant integrity-free act.

I hope it never will.


So, after witnessing the incident, I took this person aside, and said ‘I saw what you just did, man.’


But guess what? He denied it. He looked me straight in the mug, and shot me with this quizzical what-the-fuck-you-talkin-about gaze. He said something about “making change.” He displayed these prize-worthy Denzelian-like skills and dismissed and denied what my eyes had so clearly seen.


Hey! Morgan Freeman, Don Cheadle, and Chiwetel Ejiofor, you cats better look out, yo!


Yes. He was good, too. So damn good, I almost believed him. I almost questioned my own eyesight. But I knew what I saw, and now he KNEW that I saw him. But since he obviously played to win, he wasn’t about to admit a damn thing.


We’re not real friends, only coworkers. He’s been there maybe four months. I know he has a new kid and wifey separation issues. I offered to split my tips with him, if he would only replace the cash I’d witnessed him stealing.


He looked at me like I was some crazy person.


As I gazed in his eyes, I realized that no matter how hard or earnestly you might try, you can’t make a person rise up, do the right thing, or be Real with you. It hurt, insulted my intelligence, and pissed me off to see this denial, up-close, and then to watch this feigned little act of resentful anger.


I didn’t want to make a scene, or cast either of us in a suspicious light, so... I let to go, knowing that while the conversation had dissolved, the real issue and the consequences of it would not simply vanish.


I know the code of duh street: you don’t rat, ya don’t squeal, ya don’t snitch, ya don’t reveal. But this AIN'T the streets. This is MY livelihood! This ain't a game! This is real-life!

Truthfully, if it came down to losing MY livelihood, or protecting some less than upright individual, well, that choice has already been made.

So, when the cash is counted, when totals are tallied, when receipts are checked, rechecked and checked again, when the discrepancy is noticed and employees are questioned… someone will have to rise up and take responsibility. Someone had better possess the gonads to step up and be a man. Or at least, a RIGHTEOUS human being!

And when it's all said and done, and the ish really does hit the fan, I can only HOPE he has *that righteous role* stashed somewhere deep inside his acting trick bag.


One.

My Personal Perversity: Please Don't Fall Down... Go BOOM... Around Me!

Steady.... lady! Easy, Gaga!



I try, I mean, I seriously TRY to be a good person. But sometimes, I just plain suck at it. There are certain quirks in me that I wish didn’t exist. For example, perversity. Sure, we all possess a bit of it. It’s obviously not something to be proud of, and certainly not our best trait. But it exists, and it can, will and does manifest in different ways.

Me? I’ve a few of them. But something I tend to do in a disturbing way is to laugh at things I’ve no business laughing at. And I kinda feel guilty when I laugh at stuff I'm NOT supposed to be chortling at.

Like what? Well like: grown-ass people falling down and busting their azzes can make me erupt and cry with mad wild laughter.


I know! I know! I ain’t right, yo. I ain’t right! I am NOT right!!!



Here’s a prime example. Picture it: a while back, I'm walking down the city street with a close friend. It’s all good and animated, as we’re talking and riffing back and forth, and our conversation's fairly serious.

But suddenly, this very sharply-dressed sista came darting outta this fancy clothing store right in front of us, all aloof, and very, very quickly, and then BAM! BOOM! She just hit the sidewalk, HARD!


My bwoi said: "Day-YUM! It look like somebody just THREW her azz out the store!"

That statement tickled me to my core. And then, I just lost it, yo. For real. My adult manhood took an extended holiday. Suddenly my inner Junior High School Kid emerged, and that lil fool in me busted out in this mad LOUD GUFFAW! And I do mean... GUFFAWED, like a BIG DAWG!


But ATTEMPTING be a gentleman, and not wanting to HOWL out loud in this woman’s face, I, at least had the good sense and common decency to actually duck into the nearest foyer... just to get my chuckle on.

See? Nice guy, right? Nah! NOT! Why? Because this only made the sound even worse, and now my chuckle had insanely LOUD reverb and it was emptying out into the streets!

So, this poor, exceedingly well-dressed, well-coiffed woman is still laying there on the sidewalk, maybe hurt-up, and all she hears is this LOUD, cackling, disembodied LAUGHTER!

I know! I know! I need my ass kicked! Clearly, I am NOT right!



Meanwhile, my friend, the comic, the fool who'd made the damn joke that prompted my outburst, has now shifted into being the Adult One. This versatile bastard is jumping into Prince Valiant mode, helping her up, dusting her off, acting all concerned and whatnot. But me? I'm a victim of this unhinged fit of laughter. I'm the madman in the next storefront, CRYING, doubled over in hysterics, and I can’t seem to stop! That wild scene, it just kept replaying in my brain, as if on a loop: her regal, finely designer-clad-azz, stepping all lively, and then, BAM! BOOM!


A part of me was laughing at how it DID, indeed, did LOOK like someone had “just THREW her azz out the store!”


I’m so, so ashamed of myself! Seriously. I realize it was WRONG. There must be a 12 Step Program for supposedly GROWN and emotionally mature people like me! I mean, WHY couldn’t I had just MANNED-UP, and helped this woman, like my friend did? I’ve carried elderly women across NY puddles before. True story. I've rescued a stranger who was having a seizure right in front of me! I've a history of stepping up, and doing the RIGHT thing, dammit! Shouldn’t that COUNT for something!?

And why is it that some folks are endowed with the witty gift to say the funniest shit, and keep a straight face, while I look like a total idiot, busy ROTFLMMFAO?


I told myself, the woman had only bruised her well-pampered and manicured ego. My friend would later concur, she wasn’t seriously hurt. Kool. Kool. This made me feel a little better. I told myself this scene would have been far LESS hysterical, if she wasn't so damn ROYAL with her shit. Her attitude was so imperial, so regal, that surely The Last Thing this fancy woman expected to do was to BUST her azz on the city sidewalk!


It’s not like I’m immune. Just this last winter while taking out the trash, that first step onto the very slippery ice-laden stair, and WHAM! Picture it: Me, on my back, fingers scraped on concrete, trash bag ripped, garbage everywhere. But I was able to visualize just how ridiculous I musta looked, and I laid there, pissed, and yet laughing at myself. It’s just mad FUNNY when adults fall down… go BOOM! And personally, I’ve discovered, the better dressed someone is, the MORE HILARIOUS it is when they BUST that azz!

Is it me… and my sophomoric Three Stooges mentality? Am I alone in this fit of mindless perversity?


Sometimes, I think laughing at our fight with gravity comes to us naturally. Or else, why would small children laugh at such things at an early age? As someone else reminded me, you can entertain kids for a long time just pretending to hurt yourself.



But somewhere down the line, we're taught that's not right. Someone could be hurt. So, even when you WANT to, you force yourself NOT to laugh... well, it ain't natural.

“It's all fun and games till someone loses an eye.” Right?

So, I’m not proud. I’m actually a little ashamed myself. But at least I’ve shared, and I’m seeking the cure.

That's an episode of me, being "perverse." How does YOUR adult shame manifest?


After all... we’re only as sick as our perversities, right? Right? RIGHT?




One.

Noticing The Color Purple...

SO...it’s another typically tedious Tuesday. Not a GREAT Day, and not a particular day of note. And so you sigh, you rise, you shower, eat, prepare to meet the blinding onslaught of daylight and the issues attached to living your life.

At work, you turn on your computer... log in to your homepage, check your email and your eyes begin to blink in messages from hungry strangers asking you to contribute to some invisible cause, bloggers requesting that you check out their latest renderings, online friends who thought enough of you to send a few short pick-me-up-messages of: ‘Hey Beautiful!’ ‘Hey Gorgeous!’ ‘Have a Great Day!’ and best of all: ‘I Believe In You.’


And taking absolutely nothing for granted, you are actually, factually THANKFUL for those few messages. Yes, you are thankful. And yet, you're also somewhat dubious, because you don’t feel ‘beautiful’ or ‘gorgeous’ or that your day will be so ‘Great’… and you sometimes even forget to ‘believe’ in yourself.



But The Creator along with the meteorologists have conspired to bring a piece of sun into your day. You realize, it’s spring, and you’re alive, and if you listen very carefully, there are birds singing outside your window.



And when last you checked, your family was healthy, and not one of your friends was in today’s obituary.



So maybe, just maybe you should celebrate this stuff. Maybe, just maybe, you can manage to smile a bit... and still be serious.




Maybe the world spins on Atlas’s brawny shoulder by design, and the ratio of good shit vs. bad shit evens out in time, until you experience the epiphany that:

THIS IS IT.



This is your life: breathing, humming, singing, bitching, laughing, crying, sighing, flourishing, unfurling all around you, and you are failing to *acknowledge* it.




God Bless Alice Walker! There was a very profound the line from her novel, The Color Purple:



"I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it."




Today, inside this field of my life, I’ve decided to NOTICE the Color Purple.


It really is kinda Beautiful, you know.





Snatch JOY!




One.


Lin

We Are Really 'TOO SHY TO SAY'???

“Too Shy To Say"

You make me smile
You make me sing
You make me feel good everything
You bring me up
When I've been down
This only happens when you're around

And I can't go on this way...
With it stronger every day...
But being too shy to say
That I really love you...

I wanna fly
Away with you
Until there's nothing more for us to do
I wanna be
More than a friend
Until the end of an endless end

And I can't go on this way...
With it stronger every day...
But being too shy to say
That I really love you...

And I can't go on this way...
Feelin' it stronger every day...
But being too shy to say
That I really love you
Ohh.. ooooooh-ohhhhh-who....
Oh, I... do...” ~ Stevie Wonder



Thank you, Sir Stevie!

I’ve always, ALWAYS appreciated The Gift and the artistry of Stevie Wonder… and I’ve always, ALWAYS adored that ballad. It is the sad song of the chronically shy and terminally tongue-tied soul. It is that quiet anthem of the frustrated inner poet. It fits perfectly with a theme I’ve been meaning to discuss. And this page seems as good a place as any to broach the subject:


Stevie sang that song ages ago. But the question remains today: Are WE Too Shy to SAY?

When we truly dig someone, like someone, even LOVE someone, why are some of us so damned tongue-tied about expressing it? Are we only poets at our fingertips? Are we spoken word artists performing live, for one-night-only, behind the mic of a cell phone?


How many of us are tried-and-true romantic waxers, angelically lush sweet-talkers? How many of us are mad spinners of magic, keen pitchers of woo, and yet… when face-to-face, belly-to-belly, we lose our juice... misplace our voodoo... drop-kick our lyrical muse?


Where do duh mojo go, yo?

Are we, in reality, these verbal stumblebums?


I ask this question because, I’ve noticed in myself, and in others, this strangely reticent factor enters into the realm all too often when we’re one-on-one.


In letters, on paper, on the phone, on my screen, I am King. I am all things: brilliant, verbose, sexy, clever and funny. I am the most wise, intelligent, sweet, deep, sensitive and kind mofo. In other words, I’m all harps and strings, and triangles tingling. I am the symphonic equivalent of Duh Bomb, yo.


So where does that bomb cat go... when he’s supposed to arrive and deliver that bomb show inside the beautiful, if less symphonic reality?


Is he shy? Is he dumb? Is he borderline retardo? Was he a Lyrical King, only by proxy, or did his doppelganger send in Cyrano?


I am fundamentally a word-man. Words are my friends. They sometimes represent me even better than my own physicality can. Words will spin around inside my chest, start a small riot in my viscera and then gracefully (or sometimes violently) pour from my fingertips.


This is the Art in me. This is the God Voice thrown from me. God is an Amazing Ventriloquist sometimes. Yet, it is still my voice.... my *authentic* voice, in lines, in dashes, in squiggles.


But... I don’t always speak the way I write. The Writer Me, well... he can be a tad more eloquent, more formal, more passionate, more didactic, more poetic, and more a dictator/conductor of my heart’s purest language.


Hmmm... but one can't go around speaking in the same way they write! That would be tres ridic, and mad corny, wouldn't it? It would not be very 2010 of me, to run around reciting these heartfelt soliloquies!


But apparently, I’m not alone. Often, I feel lost on a small prosaic planet of poetic souls, turned verbal idiots. People who’ve shown me so much promise, so much warmth, so many degrees of idealism, lyricism and spirituality are often struck near-mute, or become these linguistic morons when suddenly face-to-face, eye-to-eye.

Sure, ply us with liquor, or some artificial stimulant and we can riff, kick, and spit it... like the best romantic poet. But it's here, in our most sober skin… that the romantic can often take a prolonged hiatus.


I wonder WHY that is, and what it is in the human animal that shies away from ebullient, effusive, romantic expression. I mean, obviously, we are capable of it, as we’ve displayed its soulful music, shown fits and verses and stanzas of it with our craft! Yet, when pressed to spring into action, it all dissolves into that shy-not-so-special-less-unique tongue of the ordinary!

Are WE too SHY to say?

Are YOU too shy to riddle me an answer?


”And I can't go on this way...
Feelin' it stronger every day...
But being too shy to say
That I really love you
Ohh.. ooh...
I... do...” ~Stevie Wonder





One.

Is It Real Love or Fastfood Luv? Only The Gut Can Decide...

I feel the need to speak, to wax, to pontificate on the subject of Love. Love! Ah, yes... Love!

I mean, The Realness. The Real isht… The Authentic Stuff... not that weird, obsessive shit. And not that: please-baby-baby-please love-me-long-time, desperate variety. I mean that many splendored thing joint!

I‘m talkin' ‘bout Love as described in the classic jazz tune, “Moody’s Mood For Love”.


It goes a lil sump’m like dis::

“There I go, there I go, there I go, there I go
Pretty baby you are the soul that snaps my control
It's a funny thing but every time I'm near you
I never can behave
You give me a smile and I'm wrapped up in your magic
Music all around me, crazy music, music that keeps calling me so
Baby close to you, turns me into your slave
Come on
Come and do with me any little thing that you want to
Anything, baby just met me get next to you
Am I insane or do I really see heaven in your eyes
Bright as stars that shine up above you
In the clear blue sky
How I worry bout you
Just can't live my life without you
Baby come here, don't have no fear
Oh, is there wonder why
I'm really feeling in the mood for love…” (by~ James Moody and Eddie Jefferson)



Now ain’t THAT Love… or some a form of delusion?


It could be because this is the season of Spring, and maybe it’s contagious. Maybe, birds gotta fly, bees gotta buzz, fish gotta swim, yada yada boom-bang. All I know is, the subject of luv keeps whirling 'round my dome like some annoying housefly.


But I digress...


The subject is: Love, Luv, LOVE! Yes, the Big Amore. The Whooper. The Hoodoo. The Voodoo, some seem to do so well, and others, well... they just get done.

Lately, I've been surrounded by those who've claimed to be feelin’ duh luv. Please, note the spelling.

When it's Real and Present, when it’s Vibing and Verbin’, then out of all due respect, it gets the L.O.V.E spelling.

Here, the *luv* I’m addressing is suddenly the topic of much talk from friends of late who feel that they've either stepped, stumbled, tripped, slipped or landed in a big ole pile or at least the potential potent possibility of it.

Ah, Luv! Ain't it wonderful? Ain't it grand? Ain’t it what makes the world go 'round? Can ya even stand it?

One good friend tripped into a piece of it recently while on vacation. Let's call her, Anjette. Now Anjette is cool, cool, very cool people. Anjette is, and always has been a very independent Black woman (many light-years before Beyonce & DC told her to be one). Anjette is very, verrrr much a person in control her own dominion. Swears she doesn't need a man, doesn't crave sex, doesn’t worship at the Alter of Penis, doesn’t suffer from chronic lack-of-the-'zack attacks (or so she claims), and doesn't whine when it's on lay-away. Just so you understand, Anjette doesn't bitch when the boyfriend juice is not in stock, nor does she protest too much when it's not in (the) store.

To wax in the current venacular: Anjette don't roll like dat!

However, as recently as a week ago, she’s been speaking of having found this wondrous new LUV! Ah luv! It seems she has just suddenly stumbled into something or someone that has produced a feeling in her soul, so silly, so giddy, so wonderful and rare, so "Day-YUM!"

I mean, is it REALLY like dat!? It's making up poems, impromptu, it's opening doors, holding hands, it's making no demands, other than that mythic two-worded curse of: "Trust me."

Hmmmm…. But of course, since life never hands us a sweet, untarnished piece of gold… there are issues… like: Is this new Luv, being true, or only auditioning for the part of Love’s Leading Man To Get Into The Panties, as we all sometimes do?

The answers to those heady questions have yet to materialize… and so I must stay tuned.

Not trying to appear the pessimistic sort, because I KNOW Luv, Attraction, Lust, Lust-luv, and LOVE do indeed exist. And there is no time schedule, no appropriate waiting period for one to declare it as such. Love just happens, much like that old phrase, “shit happens.’

I wish you well, Anjette. Really, I do. Like all of us, you are more than deserving of the Real Deal. The Super-Sizer. The burger, fries, the extra-thick shake AND the damn apple pie! And somebody throw some extra cheese on that burger, please!

Hey, I'm not being cynical (well, not too much). I'm a big fan of Mickey Dee's.

Holla atcha boi, when this new Luv becomes LOVE-- & in the meantime, I'll be in that booth in the back, munching on fries and lighting a candle for your monkey.


Luv-potion # 2:

This one comes all the way from the "Sunshine State" of Florida, in the form of a friend (we'll call him Luis). Luis also claims he wasn't looking for the L-word. Yet, he too had this trick thing called luv, shock his monkey-azz-- just smack him in between the ojos, as if to say: "it's me, fool! ya better recognize!"

He's recognizing something all right. He's recognizing how the heart is singing new Salsa tunes, and how his corazón beats faster than Tito Puente’s timbales ever did. He’s noticing how his head and his dique are lost in deep thought of this particular heart-throb. Ah, yes! Those magic throbbers. They come in all shapes & sizes. They can sneak up on ya, and sometimes even surprise ya. I'm happy for his monkey, also.


Albeit Love or Luv, it's so wonderful when it's all brand-new, fresh, & dewy-soft. When it makes you wanna lose yourself in the moment, & and get lost in the ridic, and downright Simon and Garfunkel-like-silly wid it. Ya know:

"Just skipping down the cobblestones, looking for fun & feelin grrroovveeeeeeee!"


Hey Luis! Yo, papi! Please, slow ya roll! Shout me a holla when all that damn skipping's (&/or sexing) is through. I'll still be in your corner... even when gravity takes over; and even if you should find yourself, lying face-down and all broke-up along those damned cobblestones.


But maybe you’ll be a Lucky One… and LOVE will kiss you firmly in a cool place where the sensation lasts forever.

Here's to believing in those rare, if oh-so-coveted four-leaf clovers...

Meanwhile, I’ll still be in that booth at Mickey Dee’s, watching all those fast-food flings roll by.

Yo! Is my burger & shake ready?


One.

A Lesson In "Manhood..."

Once, I thought that Manhood was like a musky cologne… or a dangerous R & B song that came on strong, like Otis Redding did. In my young and ignorant thoughts, Manhood could flip the script and be like a switchblade, flicking long and sharp and deadly from the pocket.


I once thought it MANifested in a jock-strap, a fly new Cadillac, in a designer suit; that it possessed a mad smoooove rap, and a sufficient amount of neighborhood juice.


See, Manhood had these strong hands, huge-ass biceps, hairy knuckles, a broad chest, and it always drove fast and recklessly.


It was measured in wallet size, clocked by the way I used my fists; determined by the width of my shoulder span… and proven by the frequency of my one-night stands…


But strangely, none of these things ever made me a man. Instead, they left me longing, left me empty, kept me reaching for some Deeper Meaning.


I once thought Manhood was in a sliver of meat hard, thick, menacing, and full of promiscuous tricks. It was in the ability to make others feel inferior. It was this magnificent presence inside my posture and it didn’t have shit to do with my interior.


I once thought that Manhood consisted of:


A snarl, a frown, a furrowed brow, a cuss word on my tongue to show I was down. A bottle of Hennie, cheap wine or a 40… my hand on my crotch, my third-eye on watch, a quick fuse, a simian bop, a well-timed middle-finger to prove I was nobody’s punk!


Yeah... Manhood was some strong shit! I wanted to wear it like a musky cologne… and whip it out, like a switchblade, that was sharp, useful and deadly in my pocket.


It was in the style of my swerve, not in the honor of my word.


However, I’ve come to believe to truly BE a Man is to survive Adversity… to rise from my knees and thrive in my humanity. It’s to calm down and to step up… it’s to holler in a righteous tone, without raising the sound of my voice. It’s to own up to my mistakes… and to handle my responsibilities. It’s to take full ownership of my actions and reactions.


Manhood… it’s something you earn. It's not something you’re given… but something that you must learn to possess. To be a Man is a rough gig, yes... but it’s real, and it’s honest. It’s full of pain and fears unafraid to be acknowledged.


It’s the song and the poem composed of myself. It’s my own unique and singular sonnet... And I try Like Hell to sing it daily; because no other Soul can compose its lyrics…


But me!



copyright © 2010 by L.M. Ross



One.