the blues keep feeding in the rhythm
(what is this upon my heart
it make me burn inside this dark)

bags

these veined dark hands they shrivelling
in the hungry plundering
of her old crooked fingers
her shopping cart loaded it full
of rescued things
tied up in the arms
of her many little strings
silver aged trolley whose shine done gone
mumbling words grumbling ‘round
in thick lipped jaws wit snuff dripping down
‘neath the smile smothered there
in the still abandoned yearning
of her tir’d brown eyes
her losing what her finding
in the belly of this night
‘cause the wheels wobbling ‘round
us bumping here ‘gainst the ground
her squat’n there by herself
nobody somewhere
big wide bottom hips fart’n bare
for all those flies they hurrying there
looking on they going pretending no care
swallowing the syrupy spell
of this vulgar smell
slobbering mouths their hands dripping full
holding our breath
while her moving her bowels

the blues keep feeding in the rhythm
(what is this upon my heart
it make me burn inside this dark)

the grave

this armless night is swollen in silence
and sudden echoes of broken glass
muffled in lowly mumblings
of drunken body screams
twisted dark faces surrender
frozen in the pain of having to breathe
and no one is ever here or even near
the ears are closed for all to hear
eyes they stare and on they stare
always there at what they stare

the blues keep feeding in the rhythm
(what is this upon my heart
it make me burn inside this dark)

ghosts

the echoes of what there used to be
and the tease of those smells they bother me
dusty toes dressed in calloused corns
stomping and praying on dirt pour’d floors
and them hands dark hands they clapping hands
here juke joint druming in rebok shoes
shadows of fires and fat blow flies
syrup they knots tied here in my head
the taste of things they holding me still
they keep on coming here humming
and drinking my time

keep on coming here humming
and drinking my time

coming here humming
and drinking my time

Copyright © 1995 Asili Ya Nadhiri

*Preface

     People 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 do we become invisible when our physical presence is clearly evident?

Impact and collision seem essential in establishing our presence.  One observing may be readily convinced of the presence of another by means of their senses—without the assistence of mirrors, cameras, or other such aids.  Of course, we (in the absence of non-human aids) may experience our own presence by means of the impact of others on us or ours on them.  How, then, do persons who are literally present in human society become invisible to others and themselves?

Invisibility is most remarkable in its deception.  Sleigh of hand is so essentially natural for it because nobody is smelling the deathing in the staining of our under-thingings.

*From the novel “impoverishinged-ing (the sunging of the prey mantis)”
Copyright © 2000 Asili Ya Nadhiri

water coloringed

they spreadinged and swallowinged on
in this low droning stare
of who this who in here
who for they selfing
purpled grey splotchings aloninged
wrinkling and drying on out on one another
growinged hard too soon

welfaringed moments
they chanting and caressing us all
bleeding on through the veils
of invisibled-ling faces
running on out here
all over us all

they spreadinged and swallowinged on
in this low droning stare
of who this who in here
who for they selfing
purpled grey splotchings aloninged
wrinkling and drying on out on one another
growinged hard too soon

Copyright © 2003 Asili Ya Nadhiri

*dissolving here inside this soliloquy

there something else in here
much older than the rest
aloned
it barely whispered
through the plaque filled gaps
of tobacco yellowed teeth
and nothing is seldom said
there no clear thoughts now
left here in this head
just shadows
in syncopating motions
!i hollar
and it quickly rolled up
in tiny crumbed morsels
for making believe
lulling me on
wrapping voodoo charms
all around up inside
the muscles of my arms
making me tird
and my children
and they children they too
these hands
my hands!
they paddy-paddy cake patting
on the tom-tom drum
stuck here in the mud
on the potter’s wheel
spinning ‘round and ‘round
trying to get theyself
some-some
dark eyes they shining
they shining dulled
frozen wide in the midst
of thick africaned lips mumbled on
in us fingers
it in here caking
the clay that it baking
and more slowly it pouring on
in this moulding again

Copyright © 2003 Asili Ya Nadhiri

en-swallowing 

in the morning
and here we is
already standing out here
talking ’bout how
what it is dat’us all gon be doing
when just as soon
as us getting out here
in the morning

Copyright © 2000 Asili Ya Nadhiri

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

Copyright © 1995 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

*a-bet-ty-ing-d

soft dark berry
dark berry plum lips
whose succulent smile
never leaves their horizon

baiting eyes they posed
in a desperate silence
shouting!softly
to some thing where
inside in your self

scared and wondering
in the straw figurines
you floating all around you
in on your way going
your aging brown fingers
tracing out the tiny circle
in which you dissolve

Copyright © 2003 Asili Ya Nadhiri

in those low enchanting humms*Artea Mae Beamon

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 seen-ing her but never minding
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

Copyright © 1993 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 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 drouthing
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