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

in closing
(last letter from Mama)

the words were simple
stumbling through the strokened mumblings
of someone whose life had been spent
in the loneliness of unwanted places
and the bitter taste of something surrendered
and lost in years of unanswered giving
sitting there waiting in a room
a long way from where she was born

Copyright © 1993 Asili Ya Nadhiri

entropy-nate’n syncopate’n
(aint no body aint they feel’n
what is it is dat is dey feel’n)

shaking rainbowed colored asses
all up they is in all the faces
con-juring mixed con-jur-red mixing
there fingering here
in all the places begging
tongues waggling up
they on the stages
wet poot’n louder fart’n louder
fart’n louder fart’n louder!
fart’n louder!! fart’n louder!!!
strategizing hypnotizing
abortionating paralysing
desperating desperations
perpetrating perpetrations
impersonated flatulations
inflation-nate-ting personations
distorted ego ‘xaggerations
filled fulling fulled
of yesterdays
of yesterdays’ invaginations
dull shining canned mastur-ra-bations
engenderinged-ing
pronominals profoundly bound
sancti-fi-sighing ‘side the sound
that sanctified here humping ‘round
harry pottered elaborations
juvenilla fabrications
increasing in the crouch
of wall streeted perver-se-nations
us simulating emulations
emulating simulations
snapping fingers auctionating
trying to sign on time
shuffling lips kaleidoscoping
so make the motherfuckers rhyme
shaking rainbowed colored asses
all up they is in all the faces
con-juring mixed con-jur-red mixing
there fingering here
in all the places begging
tongues waggling up
they on the stages
wet poot’n louder fart’n louder
fart’n louder fart’n louder!
fart’n louder!! fart’n louder!!!
strategizing hypnotizing
abortionating paralysing
desperating desperations
perpetrating perpetrations
impersonated flatulations
inflation-nate-ting personations
distorted ego ‘xaggerations
filled fulling fulled
of yesterdays
of yesterdays’ invaginations
dull shining canned mastur-ra-bations
engenderinged-ing
engenderinged-ing
engenderinged-ing . . .

Copyright © 2006 Asili Ya Nadhiri

collaging collagings
(smearing-duh-ing-ing) 

strolling thick dark lips smug mug’d
scared ofay ophidians desperationing
iberian populat’n cannibaliz’n politico
and the other hues clawing in between
they all leeching us all who’re sopped
’cause we sopp’n in here just like them
‘round ‘n’round and on back on around
every one at a nother just like any other
holding onto the nipples of abused agenda
petrify’n in the mouth of legacy mongerers
so aint feeling how this one size it fitting all
“!!so what mother fucker!!long as i git’n mine!
aint this here the greatest greatest there is!!
so powder your nose where the camera it on
and  just gone requisition yo’ ownself some”
dastardly scrabbled by clamoring babblers
in doodaded stalls full of tird prosaic altars
and amended amens there amen’n aloudly
“this all like’it is cause dis how it all is-ing”
wearing our own  posturationing norms
tatoooos disguising our emptying arms
delusive porn of this invisiblin karma
aint no body screaming being heard
in the grand callousive numbing
of this mastur-a-bationing om

Copyright © 2012, 2014 Asili Ya Nadhiri

aloning 

feeling inside this daunting
is falling on into its snares
no mattering ’rounding around
so comforting in this darkening-ness
wandering illusory morsels
are tossing themselves to me
with their hands begging too

this then in here is when
in some where else
breathing is by lots
doling out in seldom jolts
the ground is ever softening
all motion is retarding

here in my head
my mouth is seemingly saying
and nothing is being heard
what i believe i’m thinking
is never in need of words

Copyright © 2014 Asili Ya Nadhiri

*Carver Curbing 

coming slowly sitting there ones-by-ones
leaning ‘gainst the sides of this wall-less stall
monolithic in illustrious nefarious illusionings
they swaddling in a delusional mid-knightening
caressing the jaws of this carnivorous darkening
magnetic syrupy corners sticking sneaker-ing shoes
of elderless circlings hooching to a loquacious blues
plum lips sucking smoke as the gist of this tryst
all here so being there in a yondering no where
squat’n here scared roll’n’up in this rusing
spilling on into twilighting twilightenings
rapping so ‘cause they hearing no drums

they spinning their tales of wanton plunderings
for filling emptying bags of a desperate longing
arrested in the mouthing of vicarious sunderings
so being any where there but here some where
surreal enrapturing in knee-jerking vagaries
try’n to hide from the silence erase’n them here
in the addicting embouchure’ns embracing
here in this swallow’n womb

each turned-out pocket is a notion seen’n small
but the fate of one flag is the same for us all
reaching out in a traitorous enthralling gall
vociferizing mesmerizing scandalizing too
camouflaging in the swooning of supposing foils
they looking at one another for any other who
do’n a sump’n else so make’n them a special few
swirling in wondering scared of all alone
like most the rest of us here  we all doing too

 *A large neighborhood served by Carver Middle School
in Orlando, Florida
Copyright © 2014 Asili Ya Nadhiri

tha -inged-ing -duh-ing

in a grand mastu-r-bation
we all us all con-trivialating
in ethnicized configurations
that “it’s just all about me”
pander’n pandered hip-notic panderers
pump’n like this all that real
. . . but the coffle-linged eyes en-still-ing
they still betraying us all
the prancing stones we marched on
in a hummed-drummed marching

and every body hustling
shuffled on in the hustling
knowing that we knowing
that we knowing we all whores
rehearsing for the selling
in the sale sold selling
drivelling mouths scrolling fast
our consensual snide
in farting words trolling out
some big protuberating ass
propagating this numbing
perver-se-nation-ning om

swallowing all and we all
swallowed-up in the swallowing
he-s down-lowing him-s just
like the same as with her she-s
rainbowed feeling-s ‘round
in them-ed shadows
trying to pawn forbidden things
painful gnawing coalitions
of this unknowing retard

we all us all we every thing-ing
just trying to come back here inside
and always through an other
that’s this some nother body self-ing

Copyright © 2007 Asili Ya Nadhiri

! . . . ? . . . !

who is this i said was me
the one outside through whom i see
or somebody else i wish i was
what’s this i feel i cannot see
this hole it here inside of me
is i the fault for what i be
or this scared wrapped here around my knees
and what can i supposed to do
if nobody sees nobody in here
not even me
who dat gone come and rub me warm
’cause there aint no yesterday
so how come it i always have to cry
and why it never nobody else besides me
who’s the one that supposed to die

i’ve lost the way
of what there’s left
of me that i brung
in them ship how i come
in this room it dark
caint see where my face
caint tell who this is
caint find where this place
how far is i from
this here where i come
how long i must go
‘fore will i never gone know
 

Copyright © 1993 Asili Ya Nadhiri

circular groundings in bubbular spaces

sitting there on a curb
is a young man
propped up
by the strong sour smell of used piss
and the fecal odor of public toilets
in his long boney hands
is a big knappy head smothering
in dread locks and corn rows
and stubby little plaits
big eyes red bulging there in his head
staring down at things
floating there in the gutter

cross thuh street
is another young man
oiled and perfumed
on Egyptian sand dunes
wit curly hair do’s and Air tennis shoes
posing here
in mean hungry stares
cross pickled pig feet and lean limousines
tanning there
in wall street stalls and clean ivy halls
cunningly crossing over into somebody else

Copyright © 1988 Asili Ya Nadhiri

sho be do bopping

(meditations on Miles’ “Doo-bop”) 

old dark lips in red jump suits
is weavin orange colored tones
in rhythm words strut’n
in stumblin voodoo rhymes
for hypnotic brown hips
drum pumpin in
DO’DUMP DO’DUMP
DO’DUMP DO’DUMP
makin throbbin sounds of ghetto rapin
they lickin mo’ sugar sweet
to pink colored night people
with shiny new gold teeth
sleepwalkin bones
and sho be do dancin feet
DOOOM DOOM DOOM
DO’DUMP DO’DUMP
DO’DUMP DO’DUMP
DOOOM DOOM DOOM
DO’DUMP DO’DUMP
DO’DUMP DO’DUMP

Copyright © 1993 Asili Ya Nadhiri