atlantic mooring

glistening sheets of scrolling waters
drumming on in resounding billows
wet humming oracles unfolding there
nourishing darkening trepidationings
reverently enthralling wondering tongues
in loud roaring echoes leaving their trace
undauntingly entangling on
here across your face

by the stark emancipationing of this moon
staring on through cavern crevices homemade
silently kneading assuaging this fear inside
wrap’n’round the musclings of our strides
so these bronze shackled imprinting soles
aint froth aloning for the leave of wet sands
drying scared in hubrisating emulationings
who here begging unbeknowingly awaiting
the mutual beholding of kindred hands
emanating of our native humane

obedient you feeding this tumultuous
flooding here in our wondering souls
with snarling notion-nings crashing there
attacking foreboding wallings of this hold
nourishing the epic will of all them daring . . .
when so quietlying on back out on into then
and now on your way forth on up here again
embracing us all in this womb with its sway
pronouncing on and on of this cosmic way

Copyright © 1983, 2014 Asili Ya Nadhiri

rolling eyes seamlessly drifting always shifting
fondling syllabating edges mumbling in our daring
bumping up against themselves grabbing for ballast
in rounding corners of this darkening-ness
they wilting repetitions chewing social-lations
from shuffling prisms of somebody’s else-ing
’round’n’round in the emptying arms
of our furthering impoundings

glancing om here dancinged on

robotic people warehousing sundownings
everyone ‘head of being behind the other
strutting on well-worn catwalks prancing
on out of the closets opening-up all around us
placebos colliding and too scared to stop talking
pushing this serpentining rubric  accelerating on
try’n to hide here ‘hind these olding undergrounds

this desperationing behind our prosthetic grinning
is terrorizing in the waving of its souring breath
digitizing pupils consecrated on altars of stealth
the rabid spinning of this limbo-nic prowling
is spreading here shrouding over all us all
herding us on in numbing re-runnings
swallowing us all on down inside
our desecrating caverning
of all us all

Copyright © 2014 Asili Ya Nadhiri

The exhortation “Do what I say, not what I do” is a most blatant example of the diabolical rusing of our serpentining perception of living.  Of course, it wilts and instantly dries up in the face of “one picture is worth a thousand words.” From infancy and throughout our lives the behavior we are molding is most decisively influenced by how we see others behaving—especially those we are convinced to recognize as leaders, heroes, icons, or simply attractive and colorfully acting kaleidoscopic fools. This exhortation to separate the morality of the person in their respective office from an exemplary high road moral portrait required by public service—and most essential in fulfilling our duty to always be serving our society—is simply absurd. Perhaps, if we start focusing more on the moral imperatives of the office rather than the contrived, perceived, envied, and desperately craved glamor of person(s) wallowing in the respective public limelight, we might begin to moderate the rabid rapidity with which our serpentining jaws are devouring all the checks-and-balances necessary for the survival of human societies.

invisiblinging-ning-ing–ing–ing–ing-ing …
(grinding in the night thighs covering our eyes
mathematizing the worms of our own demise) 

hooch’n dis hooch’n so’cause it hooch’n dis who
slow twirl’n regurgitating like every body else too
we snorting re-emulations each one of the others
here in the throats of our same dark holding
watchin the lips so how dey smooth slick snide’n
shuffling here on this stage keep’n’us all abide’n
hooch’n dis hooch’n so’cause it hooch’n dis who
slow twirl’n regurgitating like every body else too
hypnotized-ing pawns robotically swoon’n on
ensconcing here in the lap of abusing mis-usings
by hang’n on to denying that this what’us seeing
is our own selves here right there as our thems
yuh aint need’n no lottery ’cause everybody we in
us over dose’n fuh duh need’n uv feel’n “i win”
spin’n in the spin’n try’n to mask our giving-up
as this insidious pervers-a-nationing
is rabidly entangling all of us all
hooch’n dis hooch’n so’cause it hooch’n dis who
slow twirl’n regurgitating like every body else too
if i aint do’n dis what other else is i can be doing
superlatrating this desperationing pretending
here strutting all out loud in this distending OM
patty-cake patty-cake nursing the rhyme
step for stepping us all us here in time
swirling surging all around in the purging
of this swallowed-ing mime
hooch’n dis hooch’n so’cause it hooch’n dis too

Copyright © 1993, 2013, 2014 Asili Ya Nadhiri

nowing when in remembering then

in the syncopating rumbling there
in the throats of dark men
swallowing water from the mouth
of clear mason jars
in the lap of hot tobacco fields
and in the evening smelling full
of charcoal women frying fish
popping here in round black bellied pots
on bright red embers burning slowly
is a low steady hummming
here telling of a hunger there deep
and praying in the rhythmic cradle
of a real fertile soil

in the words sounding there
through cocoa hands rubbing clothes
‘cross the rusting ribs of old washing boards
and in Miss Glossy ‘cross the street
here git’n along in her white uniform
proudly laughing at another day’s done
is the sweet swelling drummming
of something round and a real dark brown
growing here in rich delta ground
that’s making me real hungry
and there wanting for sump’n more

but where then is it now-ing when
the low drumming hummming
sitting there on the shores of Sahara coasts
shading us here in the chains
of bone dancing brothers profaning
this what it wrapping us warm
in the serpentineous sinus-ing
of Jonah’s slave whales
and there carrying us on here
through savannas of preambling sands
pervers-e-nating in the palmings
of pomp and rapacious hands

nowing here we’re there-ing then
in this canniballing droughting
of colding and lonelying desert forms
invisibling wanderings in our wondering
how when in what then
am i be finding it now

Copyright © 1993, 2013 Asili Ya Nadhiri

paste-tings paste-ting paste-tings   

the laughing
is posturingly looking
at the fear crawling here in our faces
formulating these few visceralizings
so make it being just like “we all this!”
like they all be world synergizings

we strutt’n ’round n ’round here tweetering
in barren arrogationings swelling
greedily ravishing our bleeding tail
in depravening cogitationing swallowings
of the long bony malversationing arms
in this bemusingly numbing
serpentine-ing be-ruse-ing

so tediously we choreographing desperating
to smearing hands cheering in public ejaculationings
we hypnotically wallowing and rolling on up
in this festering debauching seductively spawning
in the pixellating tongue-ings of our m-oxy-morons

dry mouths are drying exacerbating carnivoring
just cofflying so ever so correctlying
we acting just like all this   it aint even being so
sanctifying the longing of our wanton groan
we’re wonderings here in wanderings
ducking in and out each one another’s clones
crashing into ourselves just becausing
becausing because we’re unknowns

Copyright © 2010 Asili Ya Nadhiri

hustling our absurdings in place

this enlarging letharging retarding em-barge-ing

is sopping my blood!it won’t leave!

how come this is that it lasting

when everything else it all changing so fast

                                                                                   just won’t you try and suppose too

that what if i’m still just might be left

some where here in here too screaming loud!!!

wanton-ly silenced . . .

silencing in our never ever minding

just like we all made making us all coming to do

                                                                                  and so blatantly we letting us plundered

fetal cowarding in grand pretensious flauntings

plundering on in public vicarious fondlings

en-strangulating as we’re swallowing this tail

of our own beguiling serpentining guile

                                                                                                  just won’t you try and suppose  too

                                                                         that what if i’m still just might be left

                                                                 some where here in here too screaming loud!!!

                                                             wanton-ly silenced . . .

silencing in our never ever minding

just like we all made making us all coming to do

                                                                    and we’re all just rainbowed colored desperatings

peeping out of each other

 syncopating in laughter syncopated

posed posing posed for disappearing on

in the bubbular pits of our own omnivorating arms

waiting scared! with nothing else to make last

 ‘cause everything all it all changing so fast

                                                                              just won’t you try and suppose too

                                                                         that what if i’m still just might be left

                                                                 some where here in here too screaming loud!!!

                                                                   wanton-ly silenced . . .

silencing in our never ever minding

‘cause this what we all making us all be coming to do

Copyright © 2009 Asili Ya Nadhiri

(aloning aloned we’re wandering
wandered on in this just wandering
on the edge of our beach
by the stones on its shores
knowing knowd un-be-knownst the unknowing
where now that it’s was this there) 

help! is a most aloning call to ever be trying to be making
(requiem in purple for Vi and Maxie) 

“to what do we wish for you  my friend  to be blinded
in a innocent most kind of your never even minding
what do we wish   to be lost for you
so politely that it be   be never ever founded . . .”
that no end knowd us then for us to be bounded

“laying here in these bed sores   mindfully sequestering
trapped inside this traitorous body despised
way beyond the pale of any surmising                                                                                                  —damned so-called friends going on otherwising
i’m holding on to your voice in our memories of you
all alone by my self in a veiled demising
like our Dr. Maxie in there   he’s en-festering too
‘tween the neutering walls of municipal-ling halls
swaddling there swaddled just swaddling on
then going home to the family of a stranger’s bed
where he died there all alone by him self  like me
in the plastic charms of another armless wife
—his own children they left    there standing outside”

“all themm-d infantile whims we wedded
when we knowd they were all just greeding
breeding rows of thick vixened brows
that we cuddled too close to our bosoms
servants we were to the toying behest
of their plundering bedeckoned calls
now we both of us here  all together
in the wake of this confess
and the resignating plea
that’s all that’s left of our selves
. . . there just won’t enough time
just won’t enough time . . . for us left”

Copyright © 2007 Asili Ya Nadhiri

if when is then
and then is when
and now is on and on
what then is now
what now is when
and when is ever then
and where in when and in what then
do stories we tell they all begin
and do they ever ever end
and what it is they all intend 

now then in here wave-ing here when

in here i’m bound then for most never found
‘mongst a public litter that’s more renown
and this numbing i’m feeling in here when
keeps being spreading on out all over
dissipating your children aborting them now
raping us all on deeper mo’ deeper mo’ deeper
in the languishing retard of vicarious simulations
and you keeping on marching on just like you told
never minding ‘bout this something
you done’n’nicknamed it me

crowded in crowds you aloned   aloning all alone
syncopated hallucinating in your own plastic arms
advertising patronizing emboldened perverse-nations
leeched you leaking on into a same one another
you wanting other but you scared   you so scared!
of the feeling little left that you feeling it’s leaving
and you never ever ever make’it so you be seeing
what you wanting i’m always waiting in here waiting

but you keep on sucking on them-ed used sugar titties
cunningly consumed in the daunting consumption
of your own hypnotic and callous-ive consuming
you hallowing the hustlers desecrating your time
swelling your heads with masturbating rhymes
auctionating in palladiums of a popular clime
and you erasing me on mo’ furthering on away
smothering in spells of a boundless dismay
then sewing up into things of animated clay
as nows and thens and ever whens
keep keeping right on entangling

Copyright © 2007 Asili Ya Nadhiri