star gazing: under the lens (from Sleeper Cell)
the gaze is upon me
and I am all petri dish specimen
to be inspected
and made spectacle of
I am ancient skin under modern scanner
my flesh folding in forested mystique
beneath foreboding eye
baobab tree trunk
trumping your dry season
with hidden waters
so in this age of
modern wasteland and urban decay
you know not from whence comes this flow
…nor how deep runs this well…
didn’t I tell you I’ve known rivers?
perhaps you weren’t listening
too busy watching
for how star shine crept through me
it leaked from every crevice
poured through every pore
but you only noticed it in my teeth
from minstrel grin to platinum grill
or in the tapping of my feet
yes I’ve been dancing man, laughing man
have gyrated hip like knee jerk reaction
made snake of my spine and slithered
out of the confines of narrowed lenses
too slender to properly render the expanse
of my being, your scope too micro to hold
the infinity within my frame
your cameras have never been able to capture me
too much Africa for your aperture
too much astral for your projection
of black face upon me
my skin, as dark and vast
as the canvas of night itself
so yes, paint me in broad strokes
of your blurred perception
your star-crossed eyes
too riddled in fear-fueled awe
to notice the details of my composition
i wax precise as lines on vinyl when I shine
wane nebulous on the clouded
vision of unfit eyes
my rhyme arching back to a time
before invasive eyes knew me
so the flow be whirling dervish
to make my space a little more Rumi
and them ancient rivers swirl within
until my purpose consumes me
I’ll till the muddled soil of my past
until my present blooms me
…
when the woes of the world had me beat
i got down to it and made a song
my serpentine sounds slithered out my mouth
until the whole world sang along
…
I have always been the black
I have always been the night
I birthed the stars
and I can swallow them
whole
last poem from my second book of poetry, Sleeper Cell
