Poem of the Week

When a drummer is present,

They are God

“I am not an I. I am a black commons”

I am writing out my new tattoo on bus station glass

making tattoos all afternoon

talking myself into seeing the decade through

under my skin, they call a tattoo the sky

I must really be the devil’s front man

staring at an empty bus that I imagine,

in fact, carries paintings of people

and the man drunk behind the wheel

has to choose between

a black and white toddler

afterschool in america

on a california street

that doesn’t need a name

nor a california

no one on the street has a jo

and therefore

no one is there

“I colored my oppressor’s gun

and dance floor for him in the same day,”

the joke began

“the walk under bus seats is fine by me

as long as I get to the front,”

the joke concluded

and Tuesday is a

rotten soup

or downhill

entertainment

or commotion in the

ashtray

or the day jail quotas

get filled

the day that the

planet plays flat

Maybe the capitalist

sets stadium seats

on fire

and calls it economic

progress

The communist has plenty of time

To finish his cigarette

and lie to his boss

A killer lying down in front of a tank

I have a small statue built in my chest

and also, an anchor upside down in the air

worried about the walls

I forgot the ceiling was closing in on me too

—my take on my alcoholism

I am hunched over a meal

I ate five years ago

—my take on the look on my face

He cursed God a little

then took another step up the staircase

and for a second, forgot all occupants of the world

beginning with this house

he (this action hero of one street proportions) declared:

“rap music is the way I count blessings. The ’80s were better

than its fiction. I got a piece of fence meshed through my skull.

I will be half-eaten my entire life. Always walking beside myself

with a gun to my head and another one pointed at passers by.

And it’s half of me or all of you. Walking in and out of myself.

But I’m always happy to see you, brother. What a miraculous

route you took through the threat!”

honest pay

is a knife in his arm

honest pay in my chest

is a broken lock on the monument

tell you the truth

I forget what his hands looked like

What he did with them

What kind of third eye the cuffs cut into his wrist