sucking on the sugar titty of vicariousing
(elegy for most all of us all) 

who is this i ‘m pretending i’m being
the one outside through whom i’m seeing
or somebody else i’m wishing i am
what’s this i’m feeling that i cannot see
this hole is the one here inside of me
now is i the fault for how i be
or this scared wrapping here
all around my knees
and what else can i be supposing to do
if nobody’s still seeing nobody in here
not even me
how else i going to be feeling me warm
‘cept wallowing over and over
in fantasizing every day and yesterday
so how come we’re still themm ones
who always be having to cry
and why it’s never nobody else besides us
who’re the ones who’s supposing to die
who’re the ones we’re supposing to die
who’re the ones we’re supposing to die

Copyright © 1993, 2004, 2018 Asili Ya Nadhiri

friday night quiet’n
(a portrait)

this dark it fulled
of longed africaned legs
they done-d running on
there is no distant drumming
no thickened plum lips they humming
no sundown peopling
laying sun
it going-d

grey worn abandoned-ning corners
they smooth angular neckbones standing
rubbing together dry grinding
in this low loud bellowing silence
of themm-d rhythm-mated cold
they soft body tones

no shadows to mark the time
on and on and on go passing
ancient ghosts they give no shelter
for the bared naked asses
the dreams there is
none brung that waken
the eyes who wide they dozing

this dark it fulled
of longed africaned legs
they done-d running on
there is no distant drumming
no thickened plum lips they humming
no sundown peopling
laying sun
it going-d

Copyright © 2003 Asili Ya Nadhiri

Complicitationing

Ask: Why am I so persistently and consistently aiding and abetting that against I am pretending to be protesting? SELFIE-ING!SELFIE-ING! SELFIE-ING! Most all of us are consciously and unconsciously complicitationing.

the all impoverishing arms of legacy chasing
(aint nothing but a “selfie-ing”)

we’re just flies disguising here
laying eggs in this parasitic abiding
wooing on in the fawning eyes begging
of those echoing all around we all
hanging on to us here
like us doing to them and us too
inflationating everything we’re doing
swelling up but never growing at all
except here in our desperate exclaiming
“I’M this special one”
who auctionating other souls like me
into new little shiny old what-nots

politely embalming seditious thoughts
of another some ‘nother body else
sitting here magistrating after me
if this is no more i’ll have nothing left
but what about us who propping you up
by grabbing on close all up around you
we gon be left here hymning by our self
‘til the next they coming along like you”

it doesn’t matter this how we gon stay
floating like straws scattering everyday
clinging on to whomever’s drifting by
dutifully touching-up my fading smile
on chanting pallets of your mouths
‘cause we aint letting you be forgetting
how you knowing this what you knowing
“all you ALL YOU supposed to be
is just grateful little memorials to ME”

Copyright © 2016 Asili Ya Nadhiri

our lensing echoings

here losing us in our self-ing-ness
hers and hims are othering thems
this is the cadence
to which we’re marching
so you better be watching
‘cause you aint never knowing
what who is whom-ing then
every thing is we every thinging
begging for a compass to somewhere
in this ghostly serpentining serializing
of our mathematizing imperializing

no no no no it’s just what you hearing
we’re surrounding ourselves
with all our floating borderless cliches
holding on to the loudening shouting
of our boisterously silencing pomposity
yes we’re the progressing emptying-ness
trying to calibrate our recessing
in bubbular mansioned expansions
of opiated ostentatious dimensions
and why aint we seeing this aint
grounding our armless propoundings . . .
‘cause all is numbing all that’s numbing
even the humming’s numbing its humming
in this synthesizing drumming mung

of course there’s no wonderous coming
oms are entangling for using their om-ing
there is no anger brooding nor wishing
just a swallowing festering arresting abusing
and the numbing and numbing
aloning in our no otherwise-ing

Copyright © 2015 Asili Ya Nadhiri

silencing-d loudly 

this what was been foretold’s
still there stilling on
in little eyes wanderinged here
in the flat hollowinged bowls
of our your-rue-bar-d masks
drowning on where it bound
in a low swollen sound
down inside in words
they vamping so loud
that it hardly ever heard
DOOOM DOMP DA’DOMP DOOOM DOMP
DOOOM DOMP DA’DOMP DOOOM DOMP
DOOOM DOMP DA’DOMP DOOOM DOMP
DOOOM DOMP DA‘DOMP DOOOM DOMP
DOOOM DOMP DA’DOMP DOOOM DOMP
DOOOM DOMP DA’DOMP DOOOM DOMP
DOOOM DOMP DA’DOMP DOOOM DOMP
DOOOM DOMP DA’DOMP DOOOM DOMP
DOOOM DOMP DA’DOMP DOOOM DOMP

Copyright © 2004 Asili Ya Nadhiri

such a familiar collaging collage 

sounds rebounding
in ways only found
in words wraping ’round
them trying to be frowning
mix’n all in there with just
a li’l bit’a clowning
for so hiding here inside
this body’s some body
or even smaller ones squirming
and teasingly yearning
conjuring-up to distort
a dash of learning
wanting to churn inside
a holy taciturn
out of which they never
cannot can squirm
just ’round and ’round
and ’round in term

Copyright © 2015 Asili Ya Nadhiri

lonely-ing-ness 

for way long too long
you been never impounding
those pleasing surrogations
teasing in the lap of your wanting
that keeping on sipping you slowly
from the same cracked cup
of all your stone grey mornings

en-wantonly
you’ve went going bemusing on
in desperate machinations of momentary ruses
as cold armbouchures of this numbing reposing
they swallowing you up   erasing you on
in dark vicarious doses
of fondling schemata

and you abiding a little less
each time than before
regressing over and over
in your own behesting
there wrapping up inside all
your pretended pretendings
of what you thought
was meant for you

you all alone in there
in all by yourself
with nobody else
not even you

Copyright © 2010 Asili Ya Nadhiri

Nancy-ing

swirling there chanting and softly swaying
in the braided wailing of brisk grey mornings
is the haunting mumbling of a little prayer
wondering and nervously waiting
in the wrinkled curling of wilting petals
a simple and singular taste here begging
to dance the moist winds of warm billows
in the dry and parched lips of lonely echos
a quiet melodious humming drumming
and carefully musing on
across forever

Copyright © 1993 Asili Ya Nadhiri

pedal tones
(reflection of Miles’ “Blue in Green”)

you alone drawn as praying fingers brown
is a taste savored sweet in my plummed lips
and gently breathed back in you
is me in you

a word in me toned from dark brown ground
is heard and caressed in your nippled breasts
and slowly poured back in me
is you in me

a tear honed waiting near your eyes brown
is a soft silence heard and grown in me
and quietly sown back in you
is me in you
is me

Copyright  ©  1993 Asili Ya Nadhiri