Wicked Enchantment Read online

  scope would be broader. same here. i’m more horizon than the

  niche into which others constantly attempt to cram me. yet, after

  years of talks, letters and bark-at-the-moon confidences you don’t

  grasp? i’m surprised. i’ve worked wretchedly hard on those beastly

  jobs and loony marriages—to save my children with sad sorry

  results moon moon right now i’m feeling the hurt and profound

  failure of having never been able to give them all-American things

  like graduation presents or college tuition. driven. those moonlight

  imaginings my bedevilments/bitchin’ moon count me among the

  unlucky gropers who rise at the edge of day after the stories’ve

  been spun, the wine guzzled, the lover satisfied, who must don a

  cold night’s slave by a rude and noxious light to pay off the bloody

  moony relentless dunner, who must keep themselves whole sane

  and healthy—and i’m neither at this intersection—in the process of

  paying—the greatest of magics. that i’ve shared my tragedies with

  you was, i thot, statement of friendship transcending the fatwahs

  usually limiting our kind of intimacy. excuse me, if i’ve trampled

  over your feelings in my elephantine panic. but dear cousin, i’m

  fighting, if badly, having saved not one sorry cent and not one life.

  begging your gracious pardon. blame it on the falling moon

  nervous splash down

  (in retrospect her view from

  lockup is particularly

  poignant. she should never’ve

  hurt him his flesh wearing her rage

  colors and his skin

  nearly broken. but inside she

  weighs it as prevention by

  the ounce, would rather kill

  him herself than let them

  do it. they of course wouldn’t

  leave a mark on him just

  slay his spirit with their smirks

  and obfuscations and justice)

  what stinkhole is this and how did i fall in?

  terra infirma

  cityrise. o concrete moonblast of desires spires and

  electric wires. there’s nothing new to transmit

  when so much of the tiresome old’s ever unresolved

  creative writhings. fistprints on blue flesh. spread-eagled

  bardache caressed by ebony, lemon and alabaster men with

  star-faceted eyes blazing a thousand round midnights

  father, stretching his arms to thee

  god bless the fire

  it cooks the food we eat

  the poplar tree, bared of its

  strange fruit, stripped, processed

  and refinished has many uses. the

  fruit, buried in deep rich California

  soil sprouts forth unusual offshoots

  with remarkable staying power and smoky cast

  §

  tale of the white monkey

  for years it kept in the old wig box in the closet quiet as the

  breath between kisses so precious—a remnant of his power to

  please me with cheap little things and rich silences. i kept it hidden

  though i knew it was there. sometimes i took it out, studied it and

  hugged the knowing in it, tearless brown button eyes like his. when

  it lived on the dresser, those moist simian voids kept drawing me

  into an abyss of accusations, so i put it where i couldn’t see it unless

  i wanted to.

  one day, i noticed the imitation fur was dirty. i decided to

  experiment. i put it in with the soiled sheets, pillow cases and

  towels. i added a bleach to the detergent and hot water. later, when

  i unraveled things for the dryer, i found it in parts, the body a

  shredded headless mass. the stuffing was entrapped in the filter and

  inseparable from the lint. the eyes had come out, brown plastic

  screw-shaped tacks, semi-melted by the heat, clung by thin white

  nylon fibers to what was left of the head. the only part intact was

  the tail. i saved it. i keep it in a small box at the back of a shallow

  drawer—should i need it.

  §

  a)

  in the midst of talk show blather the faith

  is revealed in the snores of the sleeper. an

  accident resulting in acute social awareness. it

  would happen on a day after hours without a break,

  a bad day salted with mean, peppered with slights.

  barely time to scratch an armpit. barely ten

  minutes to scarf down a leftover meal. barely time

  to urinate and no time at all to take a squat.

  heaven is the pull of leather, boots removed from

  weary strugglers, that first rush of air and ease

  as sweet as a lover’s French. and no tickle

  b)

  the wife wilts in the sterile pink-walled waiting

  room with vending machines, drops a few nickels for

  a few drops of java. he’s somewhere deep in examination.

  dully, the wife fills out the insurance claim forms.

  the triage nurse stumbles over English. at midnight

  it’s a big awkward tongue even when neatly typed. she

  must do it the adult school way, by rote, to avoid losing

  pertinent details like blood pressure, temperature,

  soft action verbs and googoogaga

  c)

  rented, never sold. a choke-trauma at medical

  services. anger extinguished with a clothesline

  across the back and waist which hampers the chore

  of laundry. she has been folded neatly at her

  knees, head in arms. a cold blank judgment, she

  was once a professional knob polisher—this modern

  remedy for scuffed knees and congestive throat—it

  makes you stiff but no longer thirsty. an end arrives

  to hours of bickering over inconsequentials and

  bad weather. call it aversion therapy. feet slapping

  cold linoleum. badges appear doing the copper’s

  walk. hands and guts dangling loosely within

  draw-and-fire proximity. skull-ravished batons

  eager to crack open matters. authoritative knuckles

  slightly relaxed to foster the illusion of

  donut hole liberalism. but every fool knows

  smmmmsk

  Liston’s rule: even if you’re acknowledged The Champ, the

  belt will be given grudgingly when they do not like or

  deeply misunderstand you and you will prance naked into

  oblivion minus critical acclaim and commercial endorsements

  she recognized me but not in sistuhhood

  she caught sight of me on the western horizon

  twixt dark and light, as mother nugget in the muthalode,

  as black hole monstrously altering time and

  firmament. she saw me and fell into a rage and said

  if there be such a woman as she, what am i?

  she rose up and made war upon me for possessing

  what goddess gave. she fixed me with graciousness to

  the crueflix of ridicule, each laugh a nail

  god bless the fire

  that draws hurt from painful feet

  indocilis pauperiem pati

  imagining home and reinventing family, i search

  the cuttings of plantation life where they

  speak the dialect of brains and scrambled eggs

  there in jadu’s sunless realm of echo shadow and

  glint wherever’s the November after heapin’ good

  harvest of wheat, pumpkin and twin births—

  where peach brandy settles the restless and

  sn
aketongued mamas wise beyond reasonableness

  mount stoops ’round sundown waiting for

  joy to warm their beds—my swampwater rootings

  what it looks like is ass on top of ass

  out time

  “someone called, used your name and hung up.”

  bad weather friend has become a counter of days. misses

  virgin-ripe gossip. low-brow bickerings and snipes. builds shrines of

  calendars. horoscopes and hormones. every nick feels like a gash,

  instantly gashes become canyons—every splinter, a redwood. once

  there was the promise of vitamin BCE—microbiotics and

  mudbaths. ism-ing was big-ticket to game, and she deserved only

  what she deserved.

  “someone called, used your name and hung up.”

  men are so diff-rent and frequently cause cancer. when the

  body sags the head follows 17-year-olds as does the silver fox fur, the

  ice and othersuchlovelies like jealous rivals. she fancies herself in my

  skin, as opposed to shadow (loves it when i weep), but only as long

  as it takes to compose the shot and develop the negatives.

  “someone called and hung up. dahhhlin’ was that po’ little ol’

  angryrangry you?”

  §

  startled out of a catnap, i discover the

  whole of upstairs is tilted at a 20° angle

  a symmetrical box-shaped hole appears in the

  corner where the filing cabinet stood minutes

  ago. my first concern is to get Mama

  and the baby out of here but they fall

  the sky fills with their screams as the building

  collapses and i slide after them to awake

  at 11:55 on the last day of the millennium as

  countdown begins in Times Square

  §

  smmmmsk

  no flowers no jokes no dandy

  feeding me a grits-and-yams philosophy

  (caught between the rock of chaos

  and the hard place of calamity

  this is the rugged brass rune where the years collect like dust)

  i buy American. why this pernicious hunger?

  god bless the fire

  which scours the filthy pot

  tyranny his swollen tongue o moonraker

  has the mack down. he reeks of soul-sound draped in gold

  and black dead-eye yellow carrier no red roses but plenty blue an

  ice-water smile douses in multi-sinful satisfactions, dexter hand

  extended in gentleman’s grip, lifts victim into joyride interior, a

  sleekness so ebony it mirrors the stars and renders want superfluous

  the absolutist posture of a pistol-packing conk-haired papa, sherm

  snaking from those thick thick velvet kissables which speak

  voluminous if raspy rhythms and whose cultured croons can tempt

  a snake out of its venom—rides phantom foot glued to the

  accelerator—sheds weight, years and pain. has the mack down,

  will travel

  legend

  cathode and neon and mink

  (method acting sexxxy)

  betty boopboop bus stop

  made of pin-up ink blotto

  the A-bombshell blonde.

  JFK did the goddess so

  say they. all the king’s

  men and all the king’s

  lovers could not stop

  her tailspin. diamonds

  are a girl’s best vavoom

  misfits skirt billowy

  blowing upward glam gams

  like seven years of long

  itch or Sugar in love

  with bourbon going down

  on Mr. President gain-

  fully exploited by some

  who liked her hot diary

  in which she wrote off

  loneliness and overdosed

  sleepytime pills that made

  it all so Norma Jean the

  immortal mole, size 12,

  the All About Eve padded

  C-cup eye-popper no Abbey

  Lincoln oola prints of her

  gone Warhol used to sell a

  nation its decline into pop

  nailed to her own image

  the girl next door gone

  Hollywood long gone Ms.

  Monroe he sweetly called

  me “Marilyn, dahhhling”

  he meant no offense that

  mine was short kinky black

  afro and broad shoulders

  my wide wide hips my dark

  cinnamon skin how i hung

  together whole aroused

  him as if as much as if oh

  ’twas simply the highest

  of high compliments he

  could possibly pay a woman

  black, white or otherwise

  caught between the rock of image and

  the hard place of assumption

  into some serious rag, the grayboy scrubs down the sheen

  on his black-on-black caddy at 6 a.m. and as i trip

  past i wonder who’s paying the note on his firesnorter

  vid-head. inability to break out of

  predictable TV dead-butt sitcom formalism/canned

  culture in which integrity is synonymous

  with low ratings

  you

  my sentence the indeterminate sum of

  mechanized days and simply long nights during which

  i’m immobilized, strapped (numbcum 101)

  where be i?

  driven by guessings, grapplings with suspicion,

  too restless for sleep too uptight for talk,

  i slip on a cassette and cruise, the towncar’s

  electronic windows tightly up to maintain

  sound quality. this is not Mars, it’s outer D.C.

  and lookahere all the young buffs straddle corners

  in droves/suppressed overthrows hunkering

  down to spill dreams like dice between swigs

  of elephant malt, drags Thai-style or toots of

  white magic in lieu of black power, (liquor, liquor

  everywhere and not a drop too soon), later to

  empty gonads emptily trumpeting manhood bullets

  a little sweetbackside in swagger acts of drive-by

  lust like Miles expectorating earshit into imperial

  marshmallow minds for profit and payback or Ice

  Berg, himself pimped, offering up a “hit this a lick”

  and on certain corners, my eyes are assaulted by

  pity-crippled Brillo-headed midnight squeegee

  wielders who beg forgiveness and cigarettes palms up

  smmmmsk—kisses to all and cruise on. westward home tomorrow

  delphi’s tale

  driven by her distant romantic guessings

  about the fine young cannibal she once enjoyed

  on an airbus to Seattle, delphi grapples with

  her suspicions, her pinings, and grasps onto

  blind baptist faith. her creed nails its savior

  on the medium-built cross of the suave honey-toned

  johnson, motive for her spin. she makes her must

  a sexual jihad to the land of the palm. and arriving

  too uptight for sleep she talky-talks, begs her

  sistuhs, “please understand.” but her aunt, my mother,

  is too old to be running these streets. and i’m too

  busy, but sympathy and her pain bests me and so i

  find myself slipping a blues cassette into the tape

  deck, cruising to like longings reheated, the towncar’s

  electronic windows tightly up to contain delphi’s

  fear-drenched anxiousness mall-hopping under pretext

  of shopping for-clothes-you-can’t-find-elsewhere,

  we smoke and ride the high road in search of her

  dreamdog. he’
s provided his stats, confident she

  hasn’t means to put in an appearance. “he owns his

  own house,” she articulates her deathcamp hope,

  “has started up his own computer business.” we know

  what planet this is, our splatt on it, and what

  fantasies we can’t afford to entertain. nevertheless

  we locate her joe, to his evercursing shock, still

  living with his parents. they can’t make-out there,

  so they climb into his bumblebee bug with the swapmeet

  carburetor and i trail them to the crash hang he shares

  with his flyweight homies. as delphi crudely pressures

  joe for explanations and marital commitment between

  smooches and suction, i pretend interest in the walls

  The Game the retread of soulsounds the cheap beer the

  cheap glass ashtray the cheap pornography and the

  creepings about of strangers so adolescent i might’ve

  given them stillbirth. a three-hour chaperone’s my limit,

  so i punch my own ticket, deciding to leave them to

  love it over. i offer to take custody of the clothes

  delphi’s bought and to pick her up from joe’s the next

  morning. but she skips after me, reeking of radiance,

  and plucks the goods from the trunk, blissed-out by joe’s

  mojohand, convinced she’s succeeded in forcing him to

  act The Man. i swallow my lecture and pick up my own

  troubles where i dropped them. later, delphi and joe will

  argue typical she-wants-him-but-he-has-other-options

  bullcorn and she’ll demand he take her back to Mama’s.

  the bumblebee bug’s faulty carburetor will explode

  under the strain. stranded, they’ll watch his car burn,

  the brand-new clothes locked in its trunk, as they pray

  helplessly from the concrete apron of the harbor freeway

  he will bust his billfold for cab fare, escort her to

  Mama’s door, where they will part without a kiss forever

  god bless the fire