if you wait

the music as moses 
will part that steady stream 
of club roving indoor pedestrians 
whom have finessed into a fine art 
the spilling of their drink

those groping apes 
will grow increasingly bored 
of reaching for a fleeting wife 
to lay claim and pillage 
for obligatory grinding 
and grumble their way 
from the dancefloor taunting 
"dis party some bullshit."

you 
yes you 
who are far too important 
to mind engaging this music 
this life 
this rhythm 
in this moment 
will scuttle your ass off 
to a cozy club corner 
to continue texting that mighty urgent 
post midnight business matter 
to subtle chants of "Thank God!"

the drunken disorderly man 
in his own personal mosh pit 
will finally make time 
for a face to face consultation 
with the porcelain oral surgeon 
and stop bumping everybody 
in and out of their damn groove

those who came to pose for pictures 
will find no more friends worth 
standing still for and retreat 
to the vip section 
to end their evening 
sitting on uncomfortable couches 
nursing expensive drinks

if you wait

the dancefloor 
the flickering lights 
the dj 
the music 
will move you 
for there is needed but seconds 
to make a lasting imprint 
and space will clear 
and celebration will ensue

if you wait

patient enough 
to never stand still 
to hydrate 
and hoard the music 
and hold your peace 
you can heal all those 
broken toes 
and wounded melodies 
and shout your song 
through physical 
symphony

if you wait

others will remember 
the real reason for being here 
and the dance 
will be a contagion 
spreading like love 
and wildfire 
and pandemonium 
cause we are 
not like crazy 
in this asylum 
where pills won’t suffice 
to dispense this 
pent up frustration 
we just want to shake it loose 
because tomorrow 
life will wind it up 
once more

and if you wait 
you just might 
snap your rubberband 
in two.

Waiting On Superman (Sesha Reprise): Scored by African Roots f/Buckz

An Uninquisitive Time

If I found an end to the Earth
And asked you to follow
Would you go?
Reluctantly...Bitterly
With a sour taste in mouth
Or Willingly
Walking with a subtle consistency

If I found an end to the Earth
And asked you to follow
Could we...Would we
Walk in each other's footsteps
And live experientially
Me experiencing you...You experiencing me?
With the seed in tow
Walking soulfully amongst us
On Desert Sands
Young Lions and Lionesses...Princes and Princesses
Would you all...And each of you
Walk to the end of the Earth with me

If I found an end to the Earth
Would you call your father on the nearest jack
And say "Papi, this time I may not be coming back."
At the end of the Earth
Sometimes cell phones tend not to work
Could we build our Kingdom in silence
At the end of the Earth. 

At The End Of The Earth

once
i loved
a woman
with
ink felt
fingertips
who clawed them
across
walls
and windows
in abstract
patterns
an erratic
reaction
to any
shade of
passerby
fading into
or out of
her life

and i ever
awestruck
stuck face
against
clear plate
glass
in utter
fascination
following
the imprint
of each
epidermal
ridge
with which
she sensed
vibration
blowing
butterfly
kisses
from
beneath
the bowels
of my lungs
with a
feather soft
futility
that found
her person
unimpressed
with first
impressions

nestled
in my eye
her
pentameter
pushed
pressure
points
upon my
pupil
carving
closet
space
inside
my cornea
etched
intaglio
underneath
my eyelid
inked me
permanently
that
i can’t
blink
but think
of you

and yet
irony is
delicious
in that
i know never
when i
will savor
the full
fragance
her presence
again

until then
i refuse
to write

i will
spite you
and every
woman writer
like you
despite this
grin
i wear
whilst seeing
you recite
or write
the most
minute
forms of
foresight
i don’t
like you
woman writer!

and it won’t
matter
that your pen
hovers lighter
than hummingbirds
for hire
i take pleasure
in the fact
that it takes me
twice the time
to construct
each line
with a
transparent
justification
that it is
the sign
of every great
writer

while i was
studying classics
you were busy
burning pen
pricks
in the pages
of your journal

i chose
advanced
composition
you wrote
a lament
to mourn
the passing
of your
adolescence

i sought
lessons
from
professors
professing
to be
the best
at
word craft

you
handcrafted
a chapbook
of seven
cinquain
into an
off broadway
one woman
production

you write
and i wait
for i recall
there was
a time
when the
writing
was about me
and i imagined
your greatness
painting
on a canvas
too small
so i
stroked
a viola
of the
bonfire
of your
vanity
until it
flickered
into wild fire
and fame
became
a flame
self sustaining
then
the writing
was no longer
about me
what once
was p(en)timate
now profane

and i
wonder
if there
be a reason
why
i should
ever
write
again.

I Will Never Write Again...Forever

See when I ain't there
I ain't there
But when I am there
I want to be all caught up
Underneath your hair
Like a neurotransmitter
Thought listening device
Embedded inside your skin
Like a splinter
You touched this Earth 5 days
After I honored my own rebirth
Nearness never got any simpler
So even when you age
When adolescence sees
Our luna(r)tic tendencies
Locked in mortal combat
I'll remember
You named me "Father"
And our lifetime agreement
Offered no possibility
Of breach of contract
Therefore you can reach for contact
Or keep me as distant
As Earth's surface
From the closest Comm. Sat.
I'll still leave a line
Open for conversation
Never let my heart be closed
By parental consternation
Guide your feet towards independence
Like a North Star constellation
And when life is serving you losses
I'll hold your ice cream consolation
For you are the #winning combination
Who slid to the midwife's coaxing
With nary a complication
Burning conflagration
Tremendous enough to consume
Traces of my boyish exuberance
Maturity is the movement
And I'll be damned if I ain't doing it
Because I have one chance
To change her life
And the cost to this world
Is far too high to ruin it.

Staking My Flag In Her Stability

tilt and rock
tilt and rock
tilt and rock

black men
walk like
they've
somewhere
to go

head cocked
to one edge
sharp as a
hatchet blade
cutting swath
broad and wide
hewing
smoothness
from the
fibrous pulp
and rough
wooden
fiction
of life

black men
walk like
lumberjacks

chop and carry
chop and carry
chop and carry

hauling half
the load upon
their shoulders
hopeful that
the mule don't
give out
for then
they might
have to walk
the whole way
home alone
since
big papa
robert said
if you rise
to hoe
the grove
at five
by noon
your day
is halfway
done

black men
walk like
early birds

swoop and fly
swoop and fly
swoop and fly

if they come
in the morning
mama angela
said
black men
had best
be ready
for oppression
may retreat
but still not
surrender
and no knock
was never
rescinded
but it did
rename
and replicate
itself
and democracy
is such
a great equalizer
that any
convicted person
can now know
what it means
to be a nigger

black men
walk like
they are
prey

double time step
double time step
double time step

lions
and gazelles
on the
savannah plains
sirens sound
like a lion's roar
ain't no innocents
here just
food chains
and a system
so hungry
to consume
social detritus
the carcass
of human castaways
that they
criminalize
poverty
criminalize
bad education
criminalize
fatherlessness
criminalize
color
criminalize
class
criminalize
insubordination
and advocate
that should you
wish to move
up that chain
you had best
learn to be
a predator
too

black men
walk like
robots
with bad
programming

wrist elbow knee foot
wrist elbow knee foot
knee wrist foot elbow

can't walk
straight
can't think
right
can't see up
for being down
can't measure
the radius
of the circle
and so
can't see
their way
around their
problems
can't predict
the future
cause they
can't remember
their past
can't calm
their fire
cause water
is privatized
can't stop
saying "can't"
can't
struggle
won't
progress
can't find
the door
to this cage
built around
them
can't
breathe

black men
walk like
a breath
of fresh
air

we cool
we real cool

cool enough
to read
a book
that ain't
carrying the
torch left
burning
by The Source
intellect cool

cool enough
to take
our wife
on a date
and woo her
like she
was going
to get away
if we didn't
put the
jeffery osborne
on her mind
something heavy
romanticool

cool enough
to jump
into a
hurkey
fall down
for a split
and somersault
tumble
if it means
our daughter
is fully
aware
that we
foster
her total
growth
and
development
father cool

yeah nig...
no
we too cool
to call
ourselves
anything
lesser
in quality
or condition
too cool
to say
"nigger"
unless we
are
deconstructing
the construct
of racial
politics
and
planning
an exit
strategy

black men
cool
black men
walking
cool
black men
walking
in a multitude
of ways
cool
if only
black men
could walk
together
if only
black men
would talk
together
when black men
love being
together
on purpose
for a purpose
yeah
that's real
cool.

The Gait

don’t want no change
unless it’s the correct change
a penny for your thoughts
but you negroes
nickel and dime insight
failing to grope the scope
of what’s in your sight
a quarter used to stretch
two butter cookies
six pieces of hard candy
but I have since ceased
the kiddie feast
needing something now
more substantial to eat
nutrient rich and farm fresh
no Whole Foods fashionably organic
requiring me to break a Franklin face
i’d rather see this single dollar circulate
like an untampered stream in an undiscovered glen
somewhere far away from the wiles of men
who corrupt nature’s resource budget
from the very first moment they touch it
but fudge spit
i reclaim the innocence of the very place that you profane
i refuse to plant my flag in declaration of any name or national origin
for I recognize that we are mortal men
destined someday to return to that primordial stew
and I don’t know about you
but I want my children
to be left with something to celebrate
like Earth still close to an inhabitable state
and I refuse to wait
for you to offer me
the correct change.

Correct Change

“I am the founder of Nowhaus,
The home where Life becomes Art.
It’s a halfway house, I guess you could say,
For those who have to live life more than halfway.

I don’t write or paint or sculpt, you see,
My masterpiece is this family.
I’ve built this radical sanctuary,
Where only love is revolutionary.”
~ Desi from Passing Strange

Love the doing for only then is your best work delivered.  Therefore you must choose work which soothes and settles itself within the protected core of your being.  Love the process for then you might mine the crevice of each moment until discovering the space which allows you to dream deeply.  Deep dreams speed the pursuit towards deeper action.  Orient your love towards the axis of action.

Love is not sufficiently thought or spoken.  Love is done over and over again.  Love is in fact overdone, overflowing and overexposed.

Love burns like the funeral pyre of the bennu bird seeking anew its resurrection.  Love is a metaphor for growth as love expands to envelop all around you.  Love big.  Love wide.  Love deep.

Love like the day is your last.  Like time is escaping and all you can do is excavate every ounce of emotion to pour into this person, project, prospect or process which is your passion.

Love long.  Late nights.  Exhausted mornings.  Disappointments which help discern meaning from this fruit of wasted labor.  Love until it hurts because it always will eventually.

Love until you can let go and say with solemnity that you have loved until you could stand to love no more.  Never let love lose.  Love does not lose.  Love always wins.

Love the struggle.  Love success.  Love challenge.  Love change.  Love changes.  Love changes.  Love.  Change.  Is.

Ain’t no luck just love of chance.  Ain’t no strategy just love of planning properly.  Love making preparations for opportunity.

Love community.  Love push back.  Love ain’t no damn crutch.  Just because I love you doesn’t mean I won’t correct you severely with love.

Love people.  Love the people.  Love your people.  Love YOUR people.

Love getting lost for in the course of navigating yourself back onto the path, you discover new avenues to make your way around those obstacles.

Love the breakdown for it gives you an excuse to dance.  I said.  Love the breakdown for it gives you an excuse to dance.  The breakdown may not necessarily be in the middle of the song.  Sometimes it arrives in traffic.  Tired eyes.  Nose, red and twisted.  Face puffed.  Searching for the peace of yourself somehow misplaced in pursuit.  Love the breakdown for it gives you an excuse to dance.

Love the dance for it affords the most beautiful possible means to maneuver through a fall.  The dance can make a fall look like art.  Love makes dancing while falling the most perfect method of repositioning.

Love discomfort for you can learn from it.  Examine it.  Crack it apart like pomegranate and feast upon the seeds as Persephone hungering in a lonely space of Hades.

Love rambling, omni-directional rants for on rare occasions they are complete thoughts struggling to liberate themselves and remind you that pretty ain’t always insightful and structure does not connote utility.  Sometimes that ugly and disassembled mess is a collection of puzzle pieces that will find their way together again in the reader’s mind.

Like love.  Awkward and tripping all over itself.  Searching for the time that is just right not knowing it has always held the metronome.

Love counts the rhythm of a beating heart and the moments left in one that is bleeding.  Love is a band aid to stop the bleeding so you can put yourself back together again.  Humpty Dumpty ain’t no fairy tale love.

Love is the only real revolution you have left for it is a cable tie which can draw together all the other elements you have at your disposal.  If you don’t sincerely love building community, aiding people and addressing problems, your revolution will find itself a hollow gourd echoing the simple music of activity with no one to dance to the band.

Love is the wallpaper of this radical sanctuary where only love is revolutionary.

Love Is The Revolution: A Rant from the Literate Epoch at Merrill Park

she was
kemetic nasty
osiris resurrecting
penis power
from fires of passion
that i burn
each night
upon my bedroom altar

he was
kemetic nasty
washed ash wednesday holy
in the crutch waters
of me
like a new day
born of my vulva.

together
we sacrifice
tonal meditations
invoking pagan god
and goddess
of brown earth
as we sing
sacred temple songs
hum harmonies
that hearken
wiccan sensuality
moonlight magic
and sensual alchemy
shining sun shine hot
like Mercury
in dizzy revolutions
of everlasting
daylight.

she drank my aqua vitae
we last life forever–
he lit my pilot
we combust forever–

i carved my name
on the walls
of her pyramid
and set booby traps
for foreign invaders.

i etched my insignia
on the contours
of his polyhedron
and pissed around the corners

no foreign invaders!!!

Michael Tekhen Strode