everybody’s just suck’n on the drying
nipple of everybody else’s be’n scared 
so making’it be’n just like all us all
here do’n is just romance’n the dance’n

the ruse’n ruse of free falling
(there’s always something in the way)

embalming legislationing in marbled dens
raffling cud chew’ns for suburban moles
incarcerating in stalls nick-named malls
 by cling’n on like this aint nothing but dance’n!
braided hair doos and mosaic coiffures
tennis shoe blues and ivy covered walls
digesting in the jaws of bespoken protocols
 by cling’n on like this aint nothing but dance’n!
dented beer canned packs hunting in squalls
spit’n chewd tobacco on lonely vog walls
in trailor park limosines on wagon wheels
 by cling’n on like this aint nothing but dance’n!
dissipating memories of breadbasket tales of
cattle’d ranges hailing plush amber fields
warming in “ya’ll jes be a’coming back soon”
 by cling’n on like this aint nothing but dance’n!
and them unwashed bodies discarded here
rolling-up incarcerate’n in the crowded mould’n
of filthy’n concrete streets as public toilet stools
 by cling’n on like this aint nothing but dance’n!
we’re all absurd pixelationing delusionaires
 wandering addicts on vicarious potionings
 so make’n like us aint just here being scared
 by cling’n on like this aint nothing but dance’n!
 by cling’n on like this aint nothing but dance’n!
 by cling’n on like this aint nothing but dance’n!

Copyright © 2023 Asili Ya Nadhiri

our incessant cling’n on to this ruse
of just cling’n on is so numb drumm
drummm’n’cause we still aint never  
ever give’n dem ancient drummers 
still everywhere talk’n’walk’n
the wisdoming wisdoming 
of this perspicacious some some
. . . now you jes be telling me howcome

our plague’n of wannabe’n wannabees

  all us all jes still here spinning ’round
in our methodical just rolling on up
 constipationing on mythological turds
pandemize’n this synthesize’n paralyze’n
 monopolizing scrummm drumming
numb’n all us all here raising-the-roof
. . . muffling abortioning screamings of 
 zombian mirages guzzling bogus notions
in disguising potions so making like
we’re always be’n some somebody else
sanctifying by camouflaging in
our braying hee-hawing amens

and here run’n still so dastardly scared 
contending in our pretending
howcome whatever it is it aint even so
beg’n one another’n’all them other others
 who baptise’n in the prowling infestering
of this ominous absurding absurding of
bland ad hoc’n liturging public litanies
to just be celebrating in the anathematic
swallow’n of stale bales of molded words
like they’re the keys for all them doors 
 of our vested barracoon’n tomes
legislationing the auctionationing
 in this slithering misanthropic OMMM
always everywhere wantonly lurking
and perversenationing on’n’on’n’on
in incubationing wombs of rabid
pixilationing plastic norms like these

Copyright © 2021 Asili Ya Nadhiri

“O ALLAH
if You must take my mama now
please give her the paradise
and bless me to be living so this time
we’re being with each other forever” 

Mama                        

I’m here always still being there
on the threshold of the room where
you’re lying there waiting for me
by yourself all alone with no cover
on a bed that you’re renting—
something you’ve always owned—
just to be being here . . . closer to me
your lips are majestically purple-ing
in their eternal proclamationing
the purpose of your life
keeping me forever
safe and warm
in your arms

here we are Mama at last
leaning on the horizon
of our mutual embracing
in this pausing momenting
of all my chasing
my tears are cleansing my soul
so my eyes are seeing you now
and I’m hearing the sommoning
of all your lonelying tears
that I never made time to wipe away
by just being near to see

Copyright © 1990, 2015, 2020, 2021, 2022 Asili Ya Nadhiri

then is when and when is then
and now is always ever being

Orbiting
 (Scared!!! addicting in the serpentining
 jaws of just begging to be seen)

we’re just robotic manifestationings
of staged reality celebrationings of
coffling lips suckling on plastic
sugar titties with cultiferous eyes
lock-stepping in our terror of any
critical theorizing of the
existential whys consciously
actualizing the social ritualizing
of our misanthropic perpetratonings

the mass of our anthrophic body is rapidly
diminishing from the alternatating
diet on which it’s being fed
the illusion of a visible dred
or all the other loathing potions
brewing here in our heads
we’re having no desire for knowing why
our eyes are no longer able to cry
as our oceans are rapidly rising high
and butterflies with elegant wings
are no longer daring to fly

so on we’re plunging aloning all alone
weightlessly feeling no pathway home
just a zero or one on some itty bitty chip
pixelating the oracular mosiac of the
anthropic failure burrowing in our demise

Copyright (c) 2022 Asili Ya Nadhiri

there aint never no magic words or wands
or mathematizing ruses for muting alarms
just the desecrating deeds of misanthropic weeds
or the existential freedom of humane performs  

just a piece of the pie aint enough . . .
(’cause anesthetize’n fantasize’n invisibilize’n 
hypocritizing’s in here roll’n our dough)

the eyes are betraying our coffling words  
tangling up in turds of beguiling absurds 
baptizing our bodies in talismanic tattoos
 and coffling alternatating hoodoos
 we’re syncophants here. . . aloning all alone
shot’n’up on reality hallucinationings of
being like our themmms up there on stage
who they all do’n the same just like you
 pixelate’n automatons wrap’n’up in the
echos of our orchestrating-ninged BOOOO’s 
so make’n like we’re be’n seen in this dark 
robotically amen’n the sanctifying of  
hypocritical theorizings so sanitizing
 misanthropic legislationings of
 genocidal manifesting destinationings  
 so this somebody we’re see’n enlarging
 in our mirrors on the walls and there on
the faces in our malling stalls is always
the fault of themmm other somebody elses
and them B.S.’n up our heads do’n the
same to themselves that they do’n to you
razzmatazz’n recycling recyclings of 
addicting automatons OMM’n on’n’on’n’on  
synthesizing masturbationing incantationings
of this same old same old serpentining ruse
still slithering here inside’us where it’s residing
rabidly swallow’n every soul that’s abiding this
rhythmic convoluting syncopationing vamp’n
here in the belly of this jonah’s slave whale

Copyright (c) 2021 Asili Ya Nadhiri

just a piece of the pie ain’t enough

*oracular

(in the belly of Jonah’s slave whales)

only the smell is raising up

from the deep tribal markings

on the dark bodies laying there

in they kin folk bowels

shackled down to the bottom

on this cold damp floor

in the belly of Jonah’s slave whales

!and we was told they was coming!

was told long long before

eating things for living they cannot name

scared about the night it filling they head

they listening for the drumming off yonder

low going lower it fading away fast

they left naked there humming

humming here alone

in the loud throbbing silence

resounding there

in the undulating rhythm of the ocean’s roar

a mama crying there gnawing on she baby throat

so he never! gone die here no more

they have to feed them ones

they burdened there my Lord to carry on

and sown here in this dirt

by many other hands

like it done been told

it was long meant to be

*Audio available at http://www.nadhiriwrites.com

Copyright © 1995, 2021 Asili Ya Nadhiri

this . . . is not just loneliness

wandering in here feeling
the feeling of not even feeling
the swallowing numbing
in this stall of no walls . . .
 there’re no sanctioning echos
in this abounding silence
just going ‘round ‘n ‘round
in a forever come’n ‘round

there’s no touching in this hold
fingerprints can’t cling to silence
despair is always distending
tauntingly baiting its prey
with helplessly holding onto
the abandoning delusion of sucking
on the dry titty of pretending to be
being embraced by the mocking arms
of this bare and carnivorous tomb

Copyright (c) 2021 Asili Ya Nadhiri

neurotic mirages weaning on reality shows
camouflaging our fears in fantasy flights
of serpentining blights mocking the harkening
omens of this ancient malady incessantly
progressingly ingurgitationing us all  

charading in this parade’n masquerade’n
(synthesizing a pandemic ambiguationing) 

we’re desperately cling’n on
to just still clinging on
to our syndicating stars masturbating
on stage right here ‘fore our eyes 
!!!THESE AINT NO HEROES, YA’LL!!!
they just genuflecting whores
hyperbolate’n boors
and syncophanting fidos
still vomiting stale dumbing notions of
holy manifest destinationing potions
so trying to be hiding the evolutioning
of this bane misanthropic devolutioning  

compassion is just virtual pantomime’n
profane’s a celebration of obscene in this
retarding same old limp’n that’s
no longer just lame but a swallow’n
paralysis catalyzing our selfish self-disdain
with this hypnotizing stupefying clamoring
that’s savagely and virally reducing us all  
to run’n on’n’on through long toxic days
into hopeless bouts with sleepless nights
of ever glooming foreboding forebodings
for tomorrows of hypnotically coffling on
in the jaws of pixellating moments
dissipating the ingratiating balm
of the sun’s philanthropic light  

Copyright © 2020 Asili Ya Nadhiri

Kano Women
(of Kano, Nigeria)

the women here have cocoa colored glances
always seeming to go somewhere else
their bodies are covered in long wraps of cloth
dipped in many colors bright
made out in the sun
walking tall along long dirt paths
child tied there on her back
a bucket full of water resting here on her head
her delicate shoulders quietly nestled 
smoothly flowing softly going 
in the gentle swaying whisper of her presence
here in this baked desert land cool
water she’s sipped pouring here through our hands
coming here in my eyes going there otherwise
everywhere and besides
so silent so heard
the resonance of melodious words

Copyright © 1990, 2015 Asili Ya Nadhiri