two hours
and maybe he’ll live.
Pick up the kid
teacher says
‘she’s been quiet today’
my kid is many things
at different times
what she’s not
is quiet
take the kid home
temperature 100 degrees
call Alicia
‘What do you do
for fever?’
aspirins, liquids,
no drafts.
So the routine begins.
Give the dog
his medicine
give the kid
her medicine
try and get
his stool for the vet
try and get
her to stay in bed
three days later
the dog is fine
the kid is fine
I’m exhausted
and it’s time to
go back to work.
At work
start work on
the new protocols*
go to director’s meeting
write a speech for a rally
on the weekend
lab work returns
no products of conception
call the woman
get a sonogram
she’s pregnant – but
in her stomach
somebody forgot
to turn on the alarm
the we got
after being ripped
off four times
letter comes from
the IRS
I’m being audited
for 1978
they want more money
a friend calls
she’s broken up
with her lover
and is afraid to get
her clothes
could I please
go with her?
she doesn’t want
to call the police
I decide to go
to the bar and drink
woman decides
I’m flirting with
the bartender
who she’s been
flirting with
all night
now I’m in a fight
now I’m in another fight
outside the bar
and cop cars are
coming from everywhere
and I remember
my mother telling me
I should be a teacher
and me saying
but I want to write
paint pictures
with words
read poems for people
and I get a call
from a sister
who wants me
to come read
for her college
they only have
money for advertising
and I see me
giving Ma Bell
a poster
for my January phone bill
which is huge
since I called
my friend in New York
to say I think
I’m going mad here
cause my lover
who isn’t my lover
because we haven’t
defined the relationship
as such
thinks we’re getting
too close
seen each other
five days in a row
after the fight
we had two weeks ago
because
I had not shown
enough caring
or commitment
decides maybe
we should be
good friends
who fuck
at least
we do
that very well
and why deprive
our bodies
even if we can’t
get our heads
in synch
and I think
maybe
the next person
who asks
‘Have you
written anything
new?’
Just might get hit.
*guidelines used by health care practitioners for patient exams.
child’s play
Have you ever
tried to explain
human behavior
to a four-year old?
Spend the first years
saying learn to share
daughter
being selfish
self-centered
is not worthwhile
let Jamie play
with your toys
and Susie and Leotis as well.
Then Leotis decides
he should have
the pinball machine
not you
takes it away
to wherever he lives
and four-year-old tears
are asking
why
isn’t Leotis sharing
my toy with me?
I want to scream
at Leotis for making
my task harder
and it doesn’t matter
then
that Leotis is poor
so are we
and it doesn’t matter
that
Leotis has four
brothers and sisters
I want to kill
Leotis’ mother
don’t understand
her
accepting toys
she didn’t buy
but I can’t tell
this four-year old
with tears wanting
to know why
her toy is gone
any of my anger
I calculate
the pinball machine
cost eight dollars
and pay day
is ten days away
and if I write a check
and it takes two days
to get to their bank
and then two days
to get to mine
it still has
six days to bounce.
But should I
just replace it?
there’s a lesson here –
be careful of your toys
but the earlier lesson
of sharing
didn’t
say with caution
and so I offer
a trip to the park
it’s free and a diversion
and we can swing
and play on slides
and she says yes
let’s go to the park.
I am angered
even more because
I know Leotis
didn’t take
just a toy
he took away
some of my child’s
childness.
jonestown
As a child in Texas
race education
was simple
was subtle
was sharp
The great lone star
state sharply
placed me
in colored schools
with colored teachers
and colored books
and colored knowledge
I shopped in white stores
and bought colored clothes
‘Keep the colors loud and bright
so they dazzle in the night
No matter where a nigger’s bred
they love yellow, orange and red’
I used colored toilets
and rode colored buses home
I went to colored churches
with colored preachers
and prayed to a white God
begged forgiveness for Cain
and his sins
and his descendants
us lowly colored sinners
and the message
was simple
was sharp
there is a place for niggers
but not among good white folk
At home
race education
was simple
was subtle
fact gleaned
by differences
The white man
who jumped
free-fall
in the sky
was quietly dismissed
‘white folks are crazy’
the white man
who turned
somersaults
on Sports Spectacular skis
was quietly dismissed
‘white folks will do anything
for money’
the white man who
shot and killed his wife
and children
and then himself
received a headshake
and a sigh
and the simple statement
‘white folks are crazy’
And the messages
fell into place
white folks went crazy
and went to nut houses
Black folks got mad
and went to jail
white folks owned America
Black folks built it
As I grew into adulthood
many messages were discarded
many were forgotten
but one returns to haunt me
Black folks do not commit suicide
Black folks do not
Black folks do not
Black folks do not commit suicide
November 18, 1978
more than 900 people
most of them Black
died in a man-made town
called Jonestown
Newscaster’s words
slap me in my face
peoples’ tears and grief
emanate from my set
and I remember the lessons
rehear a childhood message
Black folks do not commit suicide
I thought of my uncle Dave
he died in prison
suicide
the authorities said
‘Boy just up and hung hisself’
and I remember my mother
her disbelief, her grief
‘Them white folks kilt my brother
Dave didn’t commit no suicide’
and the funeral
a bitter quiet funeral
his coffin sealed from sighters
and we all knew
Dave died not by his hands
some guard decided
that nigger should die
And I stare at the newscaster
he struggles to contain himself
it’s a BIG BIG story
and he must not
seem too excited
‘American troops made a
grizzly discovery today
in Jonestown, Guyana’
my innards scream as
the facts unfold
‘a communist preacher’
and I see old Black women
my grandmothers
communist NO
little old Black ladies
do not believe in communists
they believe in God
and Jesus yet,
the newscasters’ words
a commune
a media storm of
words and pictures
interviews with ex-members
survivors, city officials
the San Francisco Chronicle
had a problem with its presses
erratic delivery
of the morning paper
and in two days the Chronicle
publishes a book
Eyewitness Account
by a staff reporter
who survived
the airport attack
and the story grows
STEP RIGHT UP
STEP RIGHT UP
Ladies and Gentlemen
have I got a tale
for you
we got these men
two men
a congressman & a preacher
& a supporting cast of hundreds
the congressman went
to investigate the preacher
and wound up dead
the preacher wound up dead
the supporting cast
wound up dead
and all the dead
are singing to me
Black folks do not
Black folks do not
Black folks do not commit suicide
My phone rings
newscaster mistakenly says
Patricia Parker
not Parks
died on the airstrip
a friend
wants to know
are you alive?
Yes
I am here
not there
festering
in a jungle
with bloated belly
not a victim
in a dream deferred
not a piece
in a media puzzle
not a member
in the supporting cast.
Yet
I am there
walking with the souls
of Black folks
crying
screaming
WHY WHY
Black folks
why are you here
and dead?
tell me how you
willingly died
did the minister
sing to you
‘Kool-aid Kool-aid
taste great
I like Kool-aid
can’t wait’
I see Black people
beautiful Black people
in lines in front of a tub
of twentieth-century hemlock
I see guards with guns
guns guns
why guns?
and the pictures
continue to flow
images of a man
a church man
he cures disease
he’s a fake
hired people
treated liver
he loves God
NO
he’s a communist
he talks many messages
revolution to the young
God to the old
he believes in the family
NO
he destroys the family
fucks the women
fucks the men
and the media continues
to tell the tale
An interview with a live one.
‘You were a member of the People’s Temple?’
‘Yes, I was.’
‘Why did you join?’
‘Well, I went there a few times
and then I stopped going, but
Rev. Jones came by my house
and asked me why I quit coming.
I was really surprised.
No one had ever cared
that much about me before.’
No one had ever cared
that much about me before
and it came home
the messages of my youth
came clear
the Black people
in Jonestown
did not commit suicide
they were murdered
they were murdered in
small southern towns
they were murdered in
big northern cities
they were murdered
as school children
by teachers
who didn’t care
there were murdered
by policemen
who didn’t care
they were murdered
by welfare workers
who didn’t care
by shopkeepers
who didn’t care
they were murdered
by church people
who didn’t ca
re
they were murdered
by politicians
who didn’t care
they didn’t die at Jonestown
they went to Jonestown dead
convinced that America
and Americans
didn’t care
they died
in the schoolrooms
they died
in the streets
they died
in the bars
they died
in the jails
they died
in the churches
they died
in the welfare lines
Jim Jones was not the cause
he was the result
of 400 years
of not caring
Black folks do not
Black folks do not
Black do not commit suicide
legacy
for Anastasia Jean
‘Anything handed down
from, or as from an
ancestor to a descendant.’
Prologue
There are those who think
or perhaps don’t think
that children and lesbians
together can’t make a family
that we create an extension
of perversion.
They think
or perhaps don’t think
that we have different relationships
with our children
that instead of getting up
in the middle of the night
for a 2 AM and 6 AM feeding
we rise up and chant
‘you’re gonna be a dyke
you’re gonna be a dyke.’
That we feed our children
lavender Similac
and by breathing our air
the children’s genitals distort
and they become hermaphrodites.
They ask
‘What will you say to them
what will you teach them?’
Child
that would be mine
I bring you my world
and bid it be yours.’
I
Addie and George
He was a small man
son of an African slave
his father came chained
in a boat
long after the boats
had ‘stopped’ coming
his skin was ebony
shone like new piano keys.
He was a carpenter
worked long in the trade
of the christ he chose
six days a week
his hands plied the wood
gave birth to houses
and cabinets and tables
on the seventh day
he lay down his hammer
and picked up his bible
and preached the gospel
to his brethren
led his flock in prayer
when he was seventy-nine years old