a tear is here
breathing softly
in round brown eyes
covering things you don’t reveal
and singing in the word songs
roaring quietly there inside you
and pouring on in still waters
waiting and waiting
for the flow of rivers
fat dark preacher hands
and preying ivory smiles come near
grabbing around you in silk white gloves
and smooth rhythmic pears formed
in the chant of dark plum lips
so close you come in stubborn hungers
drumming the echos of hot throbbing sounds
tempting parched lands
of a moist underground
and then
after midnight you bathe
and begin your prayer again
in the syncopating rumbling there
in the throats of dark men sweating
swallowing water from the mouthing
of clear mason jars cooling
in the lapping of hot tobacco fields
and in the evening smelling full
of charcoal women plump frying fish
popping here in round black belly pots
on bright red embers burning slowly
there’s this low steady hummming
here telling of a hungering there deep
and praying in the rhythmic cradling
of a real fertile soil
in the words sunging there
through cocoa hands rubbing clothes
‘cross the rusting ribs of old washing boards
in Miss Glossy promenading
here git’n along in her white uniform
proudly laughing at another day’s done
there’s this sweet belly tasting
of something round and a real dark brown
growing in here in a rich delta ground
that’s making me real hungry
and wanting all this sump’n more
in what 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 worm spawning bellies
of Jonah’s splangling slave whales
there carrying us on here
through savannas of preambling sands
perversenating in the palmings
of pomp and rapacious hands
nowing here we’re there-ing then
in the canniballing drouthing
of colding and lonelying desert forms
invisibling wanderings in our wondering
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”
we vitiating in abetting addictionings
riding sterile blinging loins
of our automated things
seducing everybody else
on in here with’us too
greasy hands so rapaciously gorging
aint even bothering defecating no mo’
look at how pompously we’re pretending
hustling ourselves with proverbial potions
in slippery metaphorical illusionings
and flatulating resorting fabulations
we making us all want’n to be
the one who up there on a stage
dancing lips syncopating enthralling us all “♪hey! it is what it is how else can we do it’s all ‘bout the me aint nothing ‘bout you we aint needing no redeeming just mo’ scheming and seeming♪”
on’n’on we’re impetuously harrowing
endlessly ‘round ‘n ‘round
judiciously eroding ourselves
serpentine cultivation of this fertile ground
we swallowing our tails strangulating
sopping here bursting from constipation
pompously strutting disputatiously cussing
“just tell me what else goddammit
should everybody be trying to do!!”
here standing there waiting in lines
for cold runny leeching retchings
of our debauching vitiationing gluttony
in abetting addictationings
to blinging automated things
seducing everybody else on in with us too
and all us all gorging so frantically so
aint nobody bothering defecating no more
and we hustling with proverbial potionings
slippery metaphorical illusionings
“the world is your oyster for the eating!”
we so pretensiously shooting in our veins !AAAAAAAAAAA! swallowing our tails strangulating
running ‘round and ‘round on around
serpentine cultivating of this fertile ground
claiming this a totally new anthrop-rebooting
and flatulating resorting fabulations
of being the one in the eyes of all the others
here on their knees praying for the same
enthralling us all with up there on stage
in a slow low mo’ anesthetizing Om “♪we aint needing no redeeming just be mo’scheming and seeming hey! it is what it is’ how else is can we do mute and nobody they aint listening too DOOM DOOM DE DOMMY DOOOM♪”
but we all just sopping here bloating
from constipation bursting holding on
and you prancing contentiously asking
“so what this it is that you supposing
we should oughta be trying to do”
cornerings (is a must so very difficult to realize: finding one in a bubbular world void of gravitational appeal)
loving you for myself
with whom i have sat through many songs
and walked through the fires of many tribulations
with whom i have grown a many new seed
and seen their bones buried out there in the road
at whose face i never was looking
‘cause i saw myself there
was so satisfied
i remember how you use’ta say
and when’you’did’yourself there in such a way
and i always loved the thangs you done
and the sound of how you said
“the smell of your dreams
they was always trying to whisper for you”
at whose face i never was looking
‘cause i saw myself there
was so satisfied
and when we use’ta hold each other’s hand
you said this was always there in the way
and how they never let us come to the end
i never paid no never mind to what’your words
‘cause i coming so good when i rub’n wit you
at whose face i never was looking
‘cause i saw myself there
was so satisfied
and you passed on you left me here by myself
asking these walls what’you said to me then
and sucking the floors wait’n there in the hall
if they kept anything that you spilled on’em then
every night laying here on your side of the bed
smelling for the whispering that i never heard
i’m trying to come to the end
that i missing with you then
***************
corners
the softly stabbing sadness
of long worried nights
laying here waiting across my face
and the memories i swallow then yesterday
is what i lean up against
here in my head
these things they stay with me
this how i know i aint dead
when things i do they shackle me
my blood it pourd so endlessly
and this air so thick
it smothering me
is what i lean up against
here in my head
these things they stay with me
this how i know i aint dead
notions of you
that i’m too scared to dare
my other little thoughts
they going no where
and the nipples of things
that i wish they could be
is what i lean up against
here in my head
these things they stay with me
this how i know i aint dead
she been walking here
on the other side of the road
since way back when
can you still remember then
mumbling to herself
in those low enchanting humms
thick dusty braids they crown her head
with eyes looking there in the yonder
in old clothes that never fit just right
her long bony legs they bowed
by people they saw her but never minded
her long melodic stride drumming here
in the squalor of splattered dark shadows
wallowing in the vomit of they drunken baptisms
mumbling to herself
in those low enchanting humms
and in the snare of a joke we poisoned her dead
burying all the words never did form on her lips
a moment’s reprise from our jealous despise
in the wake of her sordid demise
is all that she was ever given
mumbling to herself
in those low enchanting humms
and we go keeping on laughing trying to hide
from the festering guilt she bleeding here inside’us
with the strange haunting flaying of her eyes
and’us still standing around sitting
just like her seen’us here when
she coming along marching in a soldier’s splendor
dancing underneath her heavy load
that lightning stare daunting and cadently thrashing
scolding loudly in the silence of a mother’s care
at the swallowing enlarging of this numbing retarding
in which we all be always leaning on one another
just be leaning on one another here wait’n
and passing on all alone in her daily roam
mumbling to her self
in those low enchanting humms
we’re all swirling rapidly on down in
vulgar wenchings of our consumptioning zoo
luring everybody else on in with us too
with blinging embalming automated things
who sirening our stenching false lettings
we aint worry’n ‘bout camouflaging no mo’
everybody full aint defecating when they can
‘cause aint nobody no where here willing
for being them who wiping asses no mo’
hustling with proverbialing potions too
so doing dis for dat so making dat like dis
gagging !ahhhhh! swallowing our tails
going ‘round all the while coming ‘round
in this serpentinial desecrationing roam
beholding all of its bloody unfoldings
claiming this some great new dawning
—the teasing convulutioning rusing
we celebratorilly shooting in our veins
we run’n on’n’on flatulating fabulations
on bending knees praying to be up on stage
in front of some endlessing fantasy line
obediently correctlying just like us told
as we’re rabidly erasing each one the other
in our scumbling synthesizing Om-ming
“aint ever no redeeming redeeming
‘cept in scheming and seeming
and seeming and seeming” “hey! but what can we do mute’n’ nobody they aint listening no how and so damn invisibling small” you in here with all of us participating
in magistrating this bloating constipation
and asking “WHAT IT IS THAT WE CAN DO!!!”
We (all of us) are in the jaws of swelling fear and desperationing, and a rabidly swallowing carnivorous invisibilizing.
—Asili Ya Nadhiri—
author of the unpublished novel: impoverishinged-ing (the sunging of the preying mantis)
*Preface
Phenomena are usually described as invisible when our senses are not able to perceive their physical presence—even though a mental perceptibility may exist. How then does one become invisible when a physical presence is clearly evident?
Impact and collision seem essential in establishing presence. One observing may be readily convinced of the presence of another by means of their senses—without the assistance of mirrors, cameras, or other such aids. Of course, they (in the absence of non-human aids) may experience their own presence by means of the impact of others on them or theirs on others. How, then, do persons who are literally present in human society become invisible to others and themselves?
Invisibility is most remarkable in its deception. Sleight of hand is so essentially natural for it because nobody is smelling the deathing in the staining of our under-thingings.
wandering here in this dark where it eating up the light (for Ralph Ellison)
i hear no words
but these that mine
mouths open they wide
they make no sound
where my hands is they bound
i cannot find
in the bottles and cans
throwd here on the ground
who’s in this bag
what i totes for me
howcome me when they cut
they always see
something bleeding in here
that it never is me
aint i this shadow i supposed to be
dear god can you ever gone deliver me!
from inside here
where i’m supposed to be
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 ‘hind of 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
trying to hide here behind these old 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
nadhiriwrites 