Americana, Page 2

  The projects rise like broken bones toward mars

  Everything is brown in Philadelphia

  Even the boy next door who spoke as I was

  Getting in the car to head back to Houston.

  I had the same luck with the lottery

  I missed winning seven dollars by one number.

  New York!

  Herds of humanity

  Graze on street corner slop and ride in the bellies

  Of silver worms beneath city gutters

  Street people are ragged and unfashionably stinky.

  Everyone else is fashionably ragged.

  “Andy” sells me a beaded sweater

  off an old lady’s dead shoulders.

  A roguish Puerto Rican painter copies

  A Robert Colescott painting as his own black creation.

  Got all dressed up to go to the theatre in Harlem.

  Got there stinky and hot--Harlem,

  Who bombed it?

  Noise all night long in Brooklyn.

  No ugly people live in New York

  Everyone is Cafe' au lait. Tall boy with five inch hair

  Sits wide legged on the sub in baggy trousers.

  His throat is stiff with defiance, But his dark

  Eyes linger in mine for a moment.

  Everything is for sale in New York

  Even a hug from daddy long legs.

  All Over the World

  Nigger the same

  Nigger the same

  Nigger the same

  Harlem, Phila,

  Houston

  Nigger the same--

  Shuffling feet

  Going nowhere

  Buying everythang.

  Nigger the same

  Nigger the same

  Nigger the same

  Me, you,

  White folks too

  All the same

  I Want it All

  I want to be a crack salesman

  The biggest in the world

  I want a crack house

  Bigger than New York

  In every room, a shootin' gallery

  and a buck naked ho'

  Grinding on my Hollywood beds.

  I want to wrap my body

  In 14 karat gold.

  I want to buy my Momma

  A sea otter coat

  My dad a penguin-skin suit.

  I want my 'Royce trimmed in gold.

  I want to be bad, so bad

  I hook the devil on my shit,

  Turn earth into hell and

  Hell inside out.

  Then when I die, I'll go down

  And kick the devil in his booty.

  I want it all.

  Future Shock

  ****

  There is no Answer

  Is there racism

  In space?

  Or is space one color, black?

  Is it possible to be killed

  With hate?

  Is it possible to be hated

  With love?

  Red is the color of both passions.

  Is there love

  Between dying?

  Or is loving the reason we die?

  Is writing the beginning of poetry?

  Or is poetry the clicking

  of tongue against decaying teeth?

  Is there music

  That cannot be played

  Because it will be the beginning

  Of our own silence?

  Does the value of words end

  When you speak them?

  When you say, "I love you.

  Is it still true?

  Does life really end

  With death?

  Or like the mad dog eating his heart--

  Is death the beginning?

  Starry-Eyed War

  We need twice as many weapons as we got.

  We need weapons that blow up weapons

  When they fall into enemy hands.

  We need weapons shaped like cucumbers and tomatoes,

  To kill all the vegetarians.

  We need weapons shaped like anuses

  To kill all the punks.

  We need weapons. Oh yes we do.

  We need weapons shaped like vaginas,

  To render the Russians impotent.

  We need weapons shaped like David Bowie, Michael Jackson,

  To kill all the teen freaks.

  We need weapons.

  We need twice as many as we got.

  We need weapons shaped like toasters

  Blenders

  Waffle Irons

  Can Openers

  Corn cob cookers

  Salmon poachers

  Electric egg slicers

  Dildo Teasers,

  To turn dark communist housewives

  Into beautiful capitalist blondes.

  We need weapons shaped like hog maws

  Chitterlings Sweet potatoes

  Aretha Franklin

  Bobby Blue Bland

  Gold Cadillacs

  Ranch-style houses

  To kill all the black folks

  We need weapons shaped like fire hydrants

  To kill stray dogs.

  We need weapons.

  Got to have 'em!

  Can't live without 'em.

  We need weapons shaped like Thurgood Marshall,

  To zap all liberals and Humanists, and cat lovers.

  We need weapons shaped like the Holy Ghost

  To get rid of welfare lovin' Bishops.

  We need weapons!

  We need weapons!

  Lord have mercy, we need weapons!

  By Ron Reagan

  Aliens *

  *The Movie

  White folks can whip anything

  Orange

  Heat and dust bathe me. I glow.

  My skin peels away like an orange

  Under a child's awkward fingers.

  My hair lies on the floor like clumps of black spiders.

  My long yellow teeth glitter like gold.

  I am death. My decision-makers lie in cement bunkers

  Under me. 'Come out and see me," I shout. No one comes.

  It takes a brave son-of-a-bitch to face me.

  The White House is singed orange and lies silent.

  No one faces my battery of microphones to answer me.

  The Russian mother waits for Chernenko. He is cooked

  And cooled in his grave--He will say nothing

  To any of Us simpletons, Us pawns,

  Us welfare mothers, Avon ladies, prostitutes,

  Us middle managers, Us guitar pickers, Us poets--

  I step back from the wall, my shadow stays.

  I am naked. I see the imprint of my striped garment

  On my chest. So powerful was Einstein's bomb

  I sung Glory Hallelujah! I saw Jesus walking on water!

  Water--I sip and vomit air. My intestines stroke my spine.

  I tell you, I am death!--though my Mother named me Hope.

  I feel through my cunt man's hot ideology sucking my bones.

  I see Out my window, and through my father's bones,

  Running Jew, monkey grass, and in a fit of faith—

  ¬A sunflower pushing through his rib cage,

  Even as radiation clicks in the air

  And me, I peel away.

  Black Christmas

  And they came,

  Three wise men

  Bearing gifts to

  A black Christ

  Child who lay

  In the burned

  And broken ruins

  The place we

  Know it as

  South Side Chicago.

  These wise men

  In cyan suits,

  Shades, fedoras, walking

  Canes tapping on

  The sidewalk,

  Came bearing horse,

  Crack, grass, wine

  To the ebony

&nbs
p; Christ sucking milk

  Laced with sperm-

  'Cause his Momma

  Hooked for money

  In alleyways on

  Her knees. But

  This Christ grew

  Anyway despite his

  Gifts. He became

  A leader, spoke

  Like thunder striking.

  Called called called

  All God's children

  To worship black

  Bones, black cats

  Black trees, black

  Crosses and commune

  With black wine

  And black crackers

  Every blessed seventh

  Day and sing

  Black work songs.

  Survival Technique of the Black Homo-Sapiens

  I spend all of my days

  Trying not to be a victim

  Of my black heart and your

  phosphorous white genocide.

  In my heart's four chambers

  Lie grenades.

  Watch me pull pins!

  Sept. 19, 2057

  Nothing is Different/Everything is Rearranged

  In this funny land the scientists have concocted Chickens grow on trees,

  Strawberries are the size of watermelons, Watermelons hatch pigs,

  A side of bacon comes from the bull, A side of beef from his better half,

  Milk is made from the honey bee Sugar from a skunk's teeth,

  Snakes can swallow elephants Because elephants are the size of porcupines.

  Your eyes are even with your tail bone-¬Mooning is no longer against the law.

  We are all on one level-¬Two feet-ten and a half.

  Green mold grows in sunny spots in the kitchen. Rainwater will dissolve a head of hair.

  Turkeys recite the alphabet--Z to A. Gorillas live in condos.

  Defecating gives you the rush that making love used to-¬Ex-lax is now an aphrodisiac.

  In beauty pageants a girl's ass must match a zebra's Flank for flank, stripe for stripe.

  Men are judged on the fullness of their 38 d-cups And their sweet milk.

  Eating cheese causes AIDS.

  The cure comes from the anus of the kamikaze terrorist

  Whose will to die is so powerful

  It lifts an ordinary Joe from sickness.

  Blues singers are out of business

  'Cause love is a signed contract--

  No more of that chest thumping heart stuff.

  A heavy dose of valium takes care of that.

  Children hatch themselves inside women’s wombs

  Birth themselves from her mouth

  Quickly before she can bite off their feet.

  Life Insurance is really that-¬The more you have, the longer you live.

  Your agent sells you a policy

  So he can buy a bigger one

  Nothing is different/Everything is rearranged.

  About the Author

  Charles W. Harvey is a native Houstonian and a graduate of the University of Houston. He has studied fiction under the guidance of Rosellen Brown and Chitra Divakaruni at U of H. He has studied poetry under Joyce James and Cynthia MacDonald. In 1987, Charles was a 1st place prize recipient of PEN/Discovery for Cheeseburger, which went on to be published in the Ontario Review. In 1989 Charles Harvey was awarded the Cultural Arts Council of Houston Grant for Writers and Artists. Also in 1989 he was a finalist in the MacDonald's Literary Achievement Awards. Charles has been published in Soulfires, Story Magazine SHADE, High Infidelity, The James White Review, and others. He is the author of the novels The Butterfly Killer and Promise Goodday.

  *****

 

  Discover Harvey and Other Great Writers@

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