it's raggedy. pls feel free to comment and critique at will

Roger discovers the blues

after Cornelius Eady & Joy Harjo

I am a black poet – plain and simple

black first. I do not know

if I am a poet before I am a man

or a man before I am a poet.

I come from a people who have

ways of telling such things.

I come from a people

whose history is inside history.

Some day, if we manage

to still have days then

there will be a great tale told

of how 500 blackbirds fell out of the sky

the day I discovered this

or maybe it’ll say 500 crabs

surrendered their bodies to shore.

I live in an age of martyrs;

of bodies declaring themselves to heaven.

Sometimes these bodies fall

from the air – sometimes wrap themselves

in shrapnel – other times they press

the backs of their heads into speeding bullets.

None of these ways will claim

me. I am confident

of this. I’ve been singing

to save my life since I was born.

My song has always been heard.

I have a drum in my throat.

I was black before

I was a boy.

There is record of this

in the air under a fire which consumed

a Brooklyn nursing home.

I come from a people

who remember such things

who tell stories inside

the stories we are told. We are told

we are not a people of history

but I am a black poet

so I know better.

I’ve been there for the beginnings

of things, so I know better.

I was coming over a mountain-top

in Trinidad when hip-hop was born

so I know better

My people tell several stories

about the supernatural. My grandmother

was once threatened by a ball

of fire in a coconut tree. I believe

her story. it might have been word

of my coming.

The lagahoo dragged its chains

around our yard. A woman whispered

an unholy magic on our steps

and my grandmother’s foot swelled

to the size of a tree-trunk

a woman whispered an unholy magic

into a bowl of cucumbers

and my grandfather fell

deathly ill.

My grandmother survived.

My grandfather survived.

My mother survived.

I survived. This is how

I know the birds flinging

themselves onto rooftops have

something to say. This is how

I know I will not die by bullet

or fire – how I know

I am a black poet.

My great great uncle Obidiah was hobbled

for running. He ran as a way

of spell-casting. He bit a man’s

ear clean off. This is also

a way of casting spells.

This is how he protects me

how I know I will outrun

every bullet. My mother threatened

my aunt with an 18inch ruler

to insist to her how black I was

My mother left me in a foreign country

She came back for me.

She came back for me.

She came back to save me

to tell me how black

I am – I know I am black

because the sky rains finches

& jackdaws in tribute to me

because the sea sings up

its carp & catfish, its crabs

& salmon to proclaim me

man, poet, boy, black, magic,

god, god, god, god,

poet, black, black, black,

black,

unkillable