i’ll
airbrush
you on
any t-shirt.
156.
i would fight for you
like my shoes or my
boys or any excuse
for contact.
Ragtown prayer
For Tyrone Lawson
1.
Dear Heavenly Father
As we gather 2ma wit broken
hearts, lost souls & heavy
emotions to bury our love
1 Tyrone we ask that you give
us strength. We kno he’s in
a better place watching down
on us & you never make mistakes.
I’m askn you watch over Tyrone’s
family & Us…his Ragtown family.
A lot of us dnt come 2 you
bt that’s tha best thing about family…
1 prayer can cover us all!!! We love
& miss you Tyrone!
R.I.P/B.I.P AMEN
FROM ME & RAGTOWN
2.
No Father (Maybe He Heavenly?).
2ma is broken. what we gather
from this heavy life is souls, hearts,
buried emotions, our love (& brother
Tyrone is 1). you give, took him, no ask.
We strength, he kno us.
Better places watching down
on us mistakes. You make nevers.
I’m over you. Tyrone askn
Us… family?Family? & Ragtown?
2 a lot of us it is
family: that best thing, tha
cover, 1 prayer, love,
Tyrone, a miss, & you.
MEN & ME
A RAG-TOWN
R.I.P.
*The 1st section was a Facebook status on the eve of Tyrone’s funeral.
in the land where whitefolk jog
he walk down the road
dark & abandoned
skull cap & scowl
quick stride & limp.
he mug & bump
the sound of fuck you up
in his headphones.
he hear what goes bump
other than him in the new
moon’s no light. he brace
for everything. he slide
his key in between
two fingers of his fist
readies to aim somewhere
soft & exposed.
he contemplates a cheek
or eye socket.
he raise his hand out of pocket
like a holster & cocks elbow.
& the pat pat of New Balances
bounce down & around the
corner. & she glows in her
peach thigh & sunflower
shorts & she pat pat &
he remembers key between fingers
is for locking & also entry.
he enters a decade earlier
hoping for glory
to wash him in high school.
he straps up high top only
athletic shoe he owns & is off.
he around the corner & over the glitter
of exploded Wild Irish Roses. he thump
thump & crosses the paths of pits
& shepherds & rottweilers.
he see the neighborhood people there
& he thump thump & they do too.
he know they never seen someone run
in not their hardest way.
he never ran in less.
he never been in land where
jog is a memory.
he never knew someone to run
without having to join them
or stop them in their tracks.
Chicago high school love letters
spring break
214.
i know all the museum
free days by heart. you
the exhibit i steal touch from
in shadow.
226.
i’ll stay with you.
even after
the streetlights come
on or don’t.
praise song
praise the Hennessy, the brown
shine, the dull burn. praise
the dare, the take it, the no face
you’re supposed to make.
praise the house, its many rooms,
hardwood & butter leather couches
its richness. praise the rich, their friendship.
praise the friends: the child of the well off,
the child of the well off, the child of well
the child of welfare, the child of welfare.
praise the diversity but praise the Hennessy,
& again, & again. praise
the new year upon us. praise my stumble,
the shaky eye, the fluid arm, but the steady
hand. praise my hand, the burning it has,
praise the dive into the gut of a friend, the dousing
of my hand in his ribs, praise the softness of skin,
the way it always gives.
praise the pulling, the calming down.
praise the fuck that, the jump back into all
five of my friends fist first. praise all
carpet, knees in my back, praise my back
how it hurts & raises anyway how it flips,
how it’s the best friend of my fists.
praise the swinging pool cue, how it whips
air like a disobedient child. praise the disobedient
& all the chillingi won’t do.
praise the child smile on my face, the fun
plunging a knee into a cheek of my best friend.
praise his blood, the brightness of it, a sun i bask in.
praise my blood, the nose flowing wild with effort,
the mess & taste of it, praise the swallowing,
salt & its sweetness.
praise the morning, the impossible blue,
Midwestern January above us, praise
the blues dulled in my denim by all
the brown, praise the brown shine, the dull
burn.
praise all six in my jeans, our salt
& life sitting dry on my thighs
mixing, refusing to wash away.
when it comes back
in the locker room
i’m staring at the far wall fresh
off the weights considering the treadmill
or just dressing & going. a white boy is
naked in my sight line
& mumbling:
…get dressed & go…
…hanging around…
…fucking queer…
i don’t know if I hear him right so I stop thinking
about the treadmill. i hold my hoodie, hoist it
over my head & down across my frame.
the white boy (who is my daddy’s age)
repeats himself & won’t put a towel over his waist.
his stomach is an ugly puff of cloud above his cock
& he keeps talking
in a lover’s tone:
… go home…
…damn fairy…
i’m back at Pullman Park.
i’m a boy again with a brick
in my hand, a boy under me. my brick
kisses the boy in his mouth & i’m on top
of the boy. my hand
becoming the brick.
meanwhile i make out
the wordf_ggot.
the white boy might be a veteran,
an untreated mental health case to be so mad
at someone for sitting in a public place
& i’m some kind of veteran untreated mental health
case. we’re closer than he knows.
doesn’t he know that i could fuck him up
if i wanted to? i’m fresh off the hack squat machine,
my legs are coiled
& i could kill him.
Chicago high school love letters
prom weekend
320.
jump the broom
or turnstile. no car
except want.
331.
this song is dedicated
to you: either R. Kelly
or R. Kelly. love
ballad or elegy.
in the event of my demise
sprinkle my ashes
across the north side of Chicago
& the surrounding suburbs.
the south side has seen
too many black boys
become the end
of a flame.
postlude: the day _____ died
after Frank O’Hara
it is __:__ in Chicago. a ___day
three days after every day, yes
it is 2006 2008 2010 2012 & i go get shoes
because Jordan still happened & i don’t
know if i will make it home for dinner every evening
or if dinner will make it.
i walk up the mean mugging street, a son
& have a honey bun & a Nehi & buy
a nameless CD to see what the rappers
in Englewood are dreaming these days.
i go to the currency
spend half the money in a check just cashing it
& Ms. _____ behind the bulletproof
glass smiles for once in my life.
at the ALDI i buy a bag of off brand chips for moms
i text my girl Ree & we going to Navy Pier maybe
this weekend. i think of Twista or Oscar Davis, Jr.
or Curtis Mayfield but i blast Jennifer Hudson
through my cell phone speaker on the bus
& ponder family while falling asleep awake.
i stroll into Fame Food & Liquor & ask for a grape Swisher
& a pop & then i go back where i came from to 116th
& into the candy store to ask for a peppermint pickle
& there’s an obituary with my face on it
& i am sweating a lot by now & thinking of
leaning on the park bench in the hundreds
when they started shooting during a pick up game
between Carpenter & Morgan & everyone & i stopped breathing.
Chicago high school love letter
graduation
333.
hold me
before
i
disappear.
* the numbers in “Chicago high school love letters” represent the city’s homicides during the 2007-2008 Chicago Public Schools academic year.
About the Author
Nate Marshall is from the South Side of Chicago. He received his MFA in Poetry at The University of Michigan where he currently serves as a Zell Postgraduate Fellow. He received his BA at Vanderbilt University. A Cave Canem Fellow, his work has appeared or is forthcoming in POETRY Magazine, Indiana Review, The New Republic, [PANK] Online, and in many other publications.
He was the star of the award winning full-length documentary Louder Than A Bomb and has been featured on HBO’s Brave New Voices. He is also an Assistant Poetry Editor for Muzzle and a Poetry Editor for Kinfolks Quarterly. Nate won the 2014 Hurston/Wright Amistad Award and the 2013 Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Award. Nate was named a semi-finalist for the 2013 “Discovery”/ Boston Review Poetry Contest. He was also a 2013 finalist for the Indiana Review Poetry Prize.
Nate has been a teaching artist with organizations such as Young Chicago Authors, InsideOut Detroit, and Southern Word. Nate is the founder of the Lost Count Scholarship Fund that promotes youth violence prevention in Chicago.
Nate is a member of the poetry collective Dark Noise. Nate has performed poetry at venues and universities across the US, Canada, and South Africa. He is also a rapper. Nate can be reached at natemarshallbooking@gmail.com.