WordUp - kalamu’s words

the butterfly of love emerges from the cocoon of desire

            (for anyone & everyone who has experienced how love

            unpredictably comes when and wherever it does)

the husky electric dark of your tender laughter thrills

like the incendiary potency of lightening shards sharply,

silently illuminating the distant tops of far off mountains

the slight chill of rain aroma soft hangs hopefully within

the intimacy of our speeding car as your charcoal shaded irises dart

between desert road and the open emotions of my expressive face

outside's swift night wind sings elegantly against the taunt drumskin

of my inner ears and as your slender brown hand, never quite landing,

briefly dances across the surprise of my thigh, i turn to face you

and even through seriously blurred eyes i can see the intensity

of your radiant glow, a heavy trembling indigo night flower heaving

petals fully open beneath the quiet undress of moonlight -- thoroughly

moved i do not speak except to reveal the shiny of two happy tears

slow weaving sweetly through the salty tangle of my masculine beard

—kalamu ya salaam

yes, i'm afraid

i am so serious abt this

my eyeballs vibrate w/h each heartbeat

when i go to you, you do not know all

the history i carry in my open hands

to kiss you i must drop my shield

to embrace you i must let myself go

will you blow your nose on my smile

and toss it aside like a soiled tissue?

i am so serious abt this

i am embarrassed

please don't laugh

at me

—kalamu ya salaam

Sand Cycle—Black Shine Rising

(a turning/for Cassandra)

i do not desire to be ordinary nor special

what i seek is the irreducible simplicity of relevance

i am what warm sun is to planted seeds

cloistered in dark earth

do not mistake me for conventional ground

for i am light

i might never reproduce but my transformation

is its own birth

movement is the essential property of my luminosity

i can no more be confined than can a sunbeam be boxed

though despair sometimes assails me, like every good african

i rise from conformity's floor singing, dancing even when

my face be awash with pain tears my shining lucidity remains

free, thank god, of self pity's enchaining tyranny

—kalamu ya salaam

photo by Alex Lear

Open Skies

/for Ua/

even though every body has a nut to crack

some of us are exceptional souls, indigo-shaded fragrant

diaphanous flower petals rather than violet machete fingers

what carnivorous capitalists call weakness is instead the quiet

honor of our refusal to carry their shit inside our smiles

for some of us rejection of the status quo is not a choice

but a necessity by any means necessary

even if we have to flow out the window leaving pre-measured

medication untouched as our silent bodies stay behind

swaying in front of a perplexed battery of physicians

vainly trying to ascertain where to do escaped black minds go

they'll never know the healthy stealth of an  ex-slave

fleeing hell on earth by hurling her spirit straight

into the welcoming blue warmness of open skies

—kalamu ya salaam

knife in hand, new orleans

is an ardent oyster shucker

seeking not pearls but rather

the eager consumption of

tart juice & slippery succulence

if your psyche is tight

big easy will pry

you open and suck,

swallow your inhibitions

without chewing

just after slathering

hot sauce on the chilled

goose-pimples

of your disrobed flesh

shivering beneath the artificial cold

of air conditioned discomfort

folk not from here

say we nasty

wrinkle their nostrils

in our presence

but keep coming back

slipping betwixt the warmth

of our nights where brazen shadows

couple and dance with abandon

how can we ignore the specter

of a drunken politician french kissing

an underage paramour or the exorcism

of an unfrocked priest

kneeling in a bathroom stall?

—the answer is simply

to accept the rawness

embedded within each human breast

to unselfconsciously embrace

the amoral appetites

of our predator hearts

as each of us searches

for ways to satisfy urges

civilization may suppress

but which nature will not allow

any of us to fully deny — or,

as one lover

said to another:

bon appetité

—kalamu ya salaam

photo by Alex Lear

he gets off at 4:30 / it's 6:09 now

here...   

an unencumbered softness

my naked breast / taste me

the luminous curve of crimson

lips eager to flutter

across bearded dark fullness / kiss me

the form fitting expectancy

of tense eager arms / embrace me

a moist tangled crescent

immodestly blanketing

my fertility / enter me

none of me is mine

all of me is yours

here am i / where are you?

—kalamu ya salaam

photo by Alex Lear

"I Don't Want To Go There"

A man was lost. Everywhere he went, no matter whom he met, he remained lost. He grew tired of not finding his way but everyone he asked where was the way would tell him something different. One said, it is far away, over the mountains, across the seas. Another said, no way exists, we are all lost. A third, smiled and said I am searching too, do you want to come with me. And so on. The search was frustrating.

Finally, he asked a child where was the way? The child asked where do you want to go? The man said to a better place, a place where there is no hunger, no war, no greed; everybody shares and lives together in peace and harmony. The child replied that sounds like heaven but I don’t want to go there. The man was stunned. And why not, he asked the child. Because you have to die to get there and I’ve just started to live.

—kalamu ya salaam

HOW DID YOU THINK OF THAT?

every day i wear a new body & fervently pray

via my mother tongue for a fertile mind, i am rejuvenated

by the imaginative capacity to live beyond legislated boundaries

& i am blessed with the magnanimity of baby fingers on both hands

non-judgmental naiveté enables me to freshly finger

the personal rawness of my every intimate emotion

i am clad solely in the serenity of a hurricane's eye & limited only by

the holiness of death--the only reality that seemingly never dies

powered by the vibrant blue magic of our secular/sacred music

contextualized within the expansive blackness of explosive sunlight

i am propelled by forces and feelings deep as the red velocity

of shuddering sex uncontrollable as gut clutching conjugal climax

making my penis scream the semen of me spurting a million sperm

each seeking to pierce the egg of creative experiences

—kalamu ya salaam

don’t ever grow old

don’t ever grow old, he said.

i had stood aside for the lady i assumed was his wife. with a painfully visible effort she haltingly scooted out of the narrow seat. i had told her, “take your time.” and then, with a tenuous grip on the seat back, he excruciatingly  rose and looked up at me, hesitating. i told him to go ahead. he chuckled, his eye twinkled and he advised me, don’t ever grow old. from behind me a middle-aged lady wryly intoned, what other option is there?

he slowly shuffled down the aisle, i was behind him, taking half steps so that i would not run up on his heels. once off the plane i darted around the old couple, someday i will be old like that but i hope... what do i hope? concerning growing old what hope is there?

i stopped at the kiosk where southwest airlines had complimentary orange juice and donuts. while holding down the tap to fill my cup, this guy approaches, picks up a napkin, and tries to decide what kind of donut he wants.

“you ever wonder what your life would be like if you and carol had got together?”

what? i look up but this guy is not looking at me and doesn’t even seem to be talking to me, even though i clearly heard him. how did he know about carol, about the crush i had on her in 7th grade?

“you know there is a parallel universe, another place where the path you didn’t take continues on. if you want, i can put you on that road.”

i almost spit up the juice. this time i’m sure the guy’s lips weren’t moving, yet i’m also sure i’m hearing strange things.

“but if you go, you can’t come back. you only get one chance to live again. i know you think this is a joke, but it’s not. it’s real.”

at that moment, i thought the strangest thought--what if i could be with any of the women i have ever loved, would i take it?

“i can hook you up with carol.”

i turned away and said in a low voice, no you can’t. carol died of breast cancer about a year ago.

“you’re wrong buddy, what i mean is you could rewind and have a life with carol. it wouldn’t stop her from dying but you would be there until she died and, hey, afterwards, you could marry another love, and...”

i walked away. i am on my second go-round already, i don’t have to travel back to get here. bustling forward, i mull over marrying a previous love and am forced to acknowledge donut man has a point: choosing one love over another is disconcerting.

like the summer i declined to choose jean kelly. at the time, i didn’t even know i was making a choice or, as it were, ignoring a choice i could have made. i simply basked in the moment, giving no thought to what could be. in fact, as many males do, i thought i was fortunate to be able to enjoy without being forced to choose. but then again, if i was not ready to choose, how ready would i have been to deal with the results had i made that choice? i thought about jean because even now, decades later, the residue of her unerasable tenderness continues to reside in the marrow of my being at an address deeper than bone. why couldn’t i then recognize her permanence...?

i guess that guy was trying to offer me a chance to both keep and savor two love cakes from the ingredients of one life time, or..., or maybe i’m being sentimental. i always want every love to be true and lasting; don’t we all? or am i just being male and desiring every woman i’ve every wanted? shit, life is too short and too complex to go back.

i hang a right at the newsstand where literally hundreds of glossy magazines are strung out in come-hither displays featuring all the flavors of the month, particularly the female-fleshy variety.

a security guard gives me a cursory glance. no matter how individual i believe myself to be, i’m still but one of thousands of travelers she scans every day. and then in a flash i know: the most important life choice is not who we hook up with but rather which route we trod. on the road is where we meet our mates, to go one way is to reject another. boy, i can be a philosophizing fool while walking my ass through an airport!

on the down escalator i vainly try to gather up my thoughts. few of the travelers around me look happy. are they scowling in disappointment about dead-ended routes?

the terminal doors open automatically. i step into the dallas morning sunshine, gently sit down the black briefcase that contains my laptop, unsling  my carry-on from my shoulder, and lean back against a concrete column, reprising my monthly waiting-for-my-ride routine.

mr. donut passes without even a glance in my grey-bearded direction. i’m not surprised. when you’re fixated on the past, you don’t recognize the future. on the other hand, to truly know yourself, you must recognize everything and everyone you’ve rejected or avoided.

i probably looked somewhat silly, standing there beaming my crooked-tooth smile at life’s little paradox: all the things we are is also a composite of all the things we chose not to be? is this how it feels to grow old?

—kalamu ya salaam

IT'S TIME TO GO

(for Kysha N. Brown-Robinson)

in the morning the fog will lift, then we must rise

up out of our bed of desires, of dreams whether fulfilled or

unrealized, whether passing through alone or with someone

yes, the rowing remains hard, life's oblivious water is wide

treacherous crosscurrents of chance & circumstance run

deep across this river's seductive face, which

as langston knew, is always desirous of a kiss

this poem is about our internal intimacies where we hurt

bone deep & tremble joyfully, uncontrollably

to be human is to remain responsive to spring optimism

new days & the struggle to turn personal corners, seek & find

our way to a brightness suggestive as the sweet time just after dawn

when the dew is warm, the sun strong & nothing is before us

but open road & an itch to get it on

—kalamu ya salaam