"like painted kites"

the café plays

charlie don't surf

in one speaker

in the other

i got my mojo workin'

it sounds like my head feels

i try to remember

the poem i forgot

the clash drops out

muddy waters surges

freight train harmonica

pushes through the speakers

like a fist floated

by the shuffle drum beat

roiling roiling roiling

like a clutch of secrets

buried in steel drums

dug up

floated upriver

behind a barge

harmonica-freight-train

shuffle-float-fist

steel-drum-river

the music switches to sinatra

"like painted kites

those days & nights

went flying by

the summer wind"

F*ck a Fash

What was David Duke back alley trash Is now mainstream Tucker trash

Times are getting tougher

Hate is spreading like a rash

Well I say fuck a fash

Folks are feeling mighty desperate

Sending bigot pols their cash

They say might makes right

As they watch their ethics crash

Well I say fuck a fash

They're waving flags and talking shit

Looking for heads to bash

Their ideas are diabolical

Their teeth they start to gnash

Well I say fuck a fash

They talk of days gone by

Like Shangri-La's a secret stash

Take some Adolph and Benito

Put some Augusto in the mash

Well I say fuck a fash

Fuck the fash in the present

In the future and the past

Their fantasy playpen blather

Their proud boy brownshirt rehash

Whether they're giggling on TV

Or belching anthems while they pee

Fuck a fash

And their idiot dreams

Definitely fuck the fash

F*ck a Fash Audio here

What Is a Queen? (Sons of Kemet)

What is a queen? A woman 103 years old

From Barbados

They memorialize

In the steady rain drop

Fall of snare drum

Rimshots

And a tuba

Bassline

That struts

A 4-note step

And modulates up

A queen is a saxophone

Story proclaimed atop

The double drum

And the tuba pace

Sax says:

“Ocean”

"Shore"

”Walk”

"Breathe

"Speak”

(written in John Hopkins Mood Disorders Unit, April 2018)

(Image: still from the video for the

Sons of Kemet song, "To Never Forget the Source"

produced by Black Balloon, 2021)

An American Project

The project of the American founding fathers, pioneers and settlers was the dumbest project undertaken in human history. They came into landscapes where human cultures often lived largely communally and operated within the greater web of life and proceeded to biotically and ethnically cleanse the lands and re-form them into private plots where individuals would toil for themselves and "the market," for bosses or in slave labor camps. They also initiated dystopian enterprises such as fur trading species to their extinction point and fishing species to their extinction point. We have not even begun to comprehend the depth of the stupidity of their project.

Robert Lee Off the Horse

Gone is the six story-high

Statue of the bigot warlord

Glowering over Richmond

Like the shadow of Satan

Winging above the terrestrial

In Paradise Lost

Ex-prez calls it “desecration”

Of the town above the river

But there was nothing holy

On Monument Avenue

Only “Affliction…

Mixed with obdurate pride

And steadfast hate”

And up goes Lee, wobbling into

The morning air of September

In Richmond

Defeated

Again

Off Goes Robert

Off goes Robert

Mute and metallic

Posed on an outsized horse

The Kingdom of Hell

He sought to defend

Remains grey smoke

Lee like the star of the poem

Paradise Lost

Doubly routed

Doubly cast out, thinks

To himself

“… then, in the grave,

Or in some other dismal place, who knows

But I shall die a living death? Oh, thought

Horrid, if true!”

True, Robert, true

You’re truck-driven off

To further oblivion

Like scrap metal and dumped

All you fought to defend

Rots with you

-- DH, 9/21 / Photo by Steve Helber, AP

"Growing Old Is Quite Excellent" (Ricardo Aleixo, tr. DH)

 

"Growing old is quite excellent. I recommend it. One just must avoid falling into resentmentism. Because growing old is not the same as "getting old." It is, rather, the acceptance of the grace to craft the final phase of your life. With joy, and if possible, with a light touch."