Brown Read online

  & tithing. We offer

  our voices up

  toward the windows

  whose glass I knew

  as colored, not stained—

  our backs

  made upright not by

  the pews alone—

  the brown

  wood smooth, scrolled

  arms grown

  warm with wear—

  & prayer—

  Tell your neighbor

  next to you

  you love them—till

  we exit

  into the brightness

  beyond the doors.

  FIELD RECORDINGS

  Dearly Beloved, we are gathered here together to get through this thing called life.

  —PRINCE

  THREE

  Night Train

  James Brown at B. B. King’s on New Year’s Eve

  The one thing that can solve most

  our problems is dancing. And sweat,

  cold or not. And burnt ends

  of ribs, or reason, of hair

  singed & singing. The hot comb’s

  caress. Days after

  he dies, I see James Brown still

  scheduled to play B. B. King’s

  come New Year’s Eve—ringing

  it in, us, falling to the floor

  like the famous glittering midnight

  ball drop, countdown, forehead full

  of sweat, please, please,

  please, please, begging

  on his knees. The night

  King was killed, shot

  by the Memphis moan in a town

  where B. B. King sang, Saint

  James in Boston tells

  the crowd: cool it. A riot

  onstage, heartache

  rehearsed, practiced, don’t dare

  be late or miss a note

  or you’ll find yourself fined

  fifty bucks. A fortune. Even

  the walls sweat. A God-

  father’s confirmation suit,

  his holler, wide-collared, grits

  & greens. Encore. Exhausted

  after, collapsed, carried

  out, away, off—not on a gurney,

  no bedsheet over

  his bouffant, conk

  shining, but, boots on,

  in a cape glittering bright

  as midnight, or its train.

  Fishbone

  [ CHUCK TAYLOR ALL STARS ]

  I found your first

  record yesterday—

  it looked like the past

  & sounded

  like the future—

  that combo platter I love best

  of all. The black grooves gave

  way to moans

  of horns, yelps,

  bass that leapt

  like you did

  on the cover—bald,

  mohawked, knotted

  & dreaded, bespoke

  & be-hatted, daytime shades

  & handkerchiefs

  like a bank robber—

  plaits & plaids on tweed

  like gangster professors.

  One of you grins,

  most the rest

  in mid-air soar.

  [ CHECKERBOARD VANS ]

  The apocalypse sounds

  like this—

  black men breaking in

  to steal back the thing

  once stole

  from them. A drum

  trash talking, trombone

  tossed from off

  stage into Angelo’s hands

  less slid than shoved—

  swift notes

  swim past—then he throws

  the horn back

  like a salmon

  into the wings, careless,

  rehearsed. After Murphy’s Law

  & the Beastie

  Boys open the show

  even Fishbone’s keyboard

  player dervishes,

  his body flung

  like an epithet

  into the fourth row’s

  wishbone arms.

  [ CREEPERS ]

  Declaring nothing,

  we’d cross customs,

  dreads tucked

  under our hats—

  once inside

  Spain or Paris, London

  or some club, we’d let

  loose & dance.

  Give me the cheapest

  thing they have,

  says Davíd

  so I bring him bitters

  which even the bartender

  declares undrinkable.

  Davíd refuses

  to say so, tries choking

  down the pint

  like pride. We never ate anyway

  sitting down, Davíd always

  looking for a cheaper

  bite elsewhere, our stomachs

  knotting & our hair. Eyes

  mostly open,

  Philippe & I drank & swam

  through the dark waters

  of Camdentown, high

  on spliff & curry

  our new friends cooked.

  We black folks

  invented all music

  say our Australian-

  Pakistani-British

  friends. Everything then

  shone in the blacklight—

  our teeth

  turnt violet.

  We drank at the End

  of the World,

  pints three quid

  & bitters far less—

  would catch a taxi home

  with those suicide

  doors, watching the dawn

  leak early above the low,

  unopened buildings—

  facing backwards

  in the cab black

  & shiny as a hearse, staring

  at the wherever

  we’d been, we slid

  at every turn.

  [ DOC MARTENS ]

  Once I saved the bass

  player from Fishbone

  from getting his ass

  handed to him, but not

  before the fools bloodied

  his lip & turnt

  his pockets inside out

  like a wish. All because,

  Kendall, you refused

  to rumble in that late night

  chicken joint

  where Philippe & I thought we’d die

  as the regulars tried

  picking a fight

  with your bright

  red coat, dreads

  against your shoulder blades

  like epaulets. The club we’d all been

  now shut for the night—

  the one Philippe & I had waited

  outside of an hour, trying not

  to beg. No one’s getting in—

  then a posse with locks

  longer than us & worse haircuts,

  which is to say, cooler,

  part the ropes—

  Fishbone!

  in London to play a show

  so we sneak in

  behind them, for tonight

  just another

  of the crew.

  Every dread danced.

  Starving, after, we enter the shack

&n
bsp; to find you taunted

  by locals, loudmouths

  who nick your change

  & call you names.

  Yankee, one says, shoving you

  who refuses, you say,

  to battle another man

  who’s black. Once his crew

  jumps you & runs through

  the street, we reel you in,

  Kendall, stop you from chasing them

  into the night, insulted

  as much as anything

  to be alive—Back home, South

  Central, you say, I’d be dead.

  Your breath itself

  a rebuke, passport

  a passing memory.

  In the cab we hail

  & pay to ride you

  back to your hotel, pacifism

  gives way—

  wounded not just

  by the blows, you fume—

  angry at being

  here but no longer

  whole. In the lobby,

  we take your manager’s

  payback & his promise

  to leave us passes

  for tomorrow’s show.

  Was it shame,

  honor, or disbelief,

  didn’t

  let us go?

  [ JOHN FLUEVOGS ]

  Months later I caught Fishbone

  in New York at a church

  turned into a night club

  trying to film the video

  for a song I still

  don’t know. The one

  we’d saved now gone,

  decamped across Europe

  believing in something

  no longer. Neither

  did you all, it seemed—

  the gleam gone, everything

  upright, no diving—

  nothing cockamamie

  or incomplete. We clap

  on cue. Lip sunk, you must

  repeat the song over

  & over so the shifting camera

  can capture you. Where had all

  the altars gone?

  Even my girlfriend an ex.

  Even my memory like the mic

  sounds faulty.

  Feedback fills the air

  & we exit early, back

  to our little boxes

  before the song is done—

  come morning,

  our ears will still

  like church bells toll.

  Lead Belly’s First Grave

  is grey, plain, lowdown.

  You have to crouch

  near the ground to get

  your picture made

  beside it like Allen Ginsberg

  & Robert Plant did, pilgrims

  to where the music gave way

  or starts. The stone’s

  simple dates—birth, death—

  shade the close-cropped grass

  & the small pale flowers

  someone plucked & offered up

  or planted here beneath

  a tree. The stone, silvery,

  could be lead instead—

  soft & heavy as his voice

  & as deadly, slow.

  His new tomb’s

  tall almost

  as a man—black,

  sleek, costly.

  Alongside it James Dickey

  grins, elbow resting

  on the stone like the shoulder

  of a friend. The marker’s not

  inelegant, the sepulcher

  not quite the sheen

  of the suits Lead Belly wore

  soon as he threw off

  the chains of the gang

  for good, string-ties

  & not the prison stripes

  Alan Lomax would have him wear.

  Huddie Ledbetter’s

  second grave lists

  his legend, has this

  slab with a guitar engraved

  & a black gate

  to keep out the green—

  hard to reach, easy

  to read, there’s now

  no need to kneel.

  It

  It’s rained for days.

  He used to hate

  hanging upside

  down, now he can’t

  get enough,

  my son. At the bank

  of elevators he bets

  which one will arrive first

  & is most times

  right. He’s nine. Tonight

  another neighbor

  & good friend

  called him nigger. I hear

  the boys were all playing

  a game called Lovie—

  the point

  is to call the It

  names—bitch,

  motherfucker, ass, they say,

  & now nigger, who only he

  dare not be.

  The good thing

  about this rain is that

  his hair curls

  even more & looks lush

  & untamed. The bad

  thing: this rain,

  the wrong elevator

  dinging down.

  Ode to Big Pun

  I’m not a prayer

  I just wish a lot

  De La Soul Is Dead

  A ROLLER SKATING JAM NAMED SATURDAYS

  We were black then, not yet

  African American, so we danced

  every chance we could get.

  Thursday & Saturdays we’d chant

  The roof! The roof! The roof

  is on fire! We don’t need no water

  & folks’ perms began to turn.

  We had begun to dread

  or wear locks anyway, our temples

  we’d fade. We said word

  & def, said dang & down & fly—

  we gave no goodbyes,

  just Alright then, or Bet.

  No one was dead yet.

  PEOPLE WHO DIED [ JIM CARROLL BAND ]

  No one was dead yet.

  Not that some didn’t try.

  Often, friends of mine—

  These are people who died

  died—weekends drank too much

  then broke into the pool & swam

  though I was barely good at that.

  The bottom I never did touch.

  Home, almost dried, we’d listen

  for the dawn, or to Mista Dobalina,

  Mista Bob Dobalina—gloryhallastupid—

  doused in eyeliner or lycra

  & that was just the boys.

  Our favorite song was noise.

  JUNGLE BOOGIE [ 24-7 SPYZ ]

  Our favorite song was noise.

  Or Public Enemy turned up

  past 10, a hype we’d not believe.

  To get hype was the point—

  to light out as sexy Star Trek

  or as Scooby & his snacks, to chant

  Black Music—Black Music—

  & drop down as low as we can.

  Fight the Power. Fuck

  tha police. Break the grip of shame.

  We’re 24-7 Spyz—who the fuck

  are you. Tomorrow in flames,

  we’ll rouse & march—tonight, play

  Jungle Boogie, hoping someone will stay.

  IF I WAS YOUR GIRLFRIEND

  Hoping that someone would stay,

 
we readied tape decks & dubs

  that flipped over to play

  all night, like love—

  that word we didn’t dare speak.

  Why else did they invent drink?

  except to excuse each mistake,

  each deep kiss or steady rut

  who, for days after, you’d duck.

  Fire alarms were how we knew

  who was zooming who. Or whom.

  Morning’s for sleep; late night we’d talk;

  dinner was for getting dressed at last,

  anything, so long as it’s black.

  EVERYBODY [ BLACK BOX ]

  As long as it is black,

  the record cut

  like a dj track—

  those 12-inches we spin

  then quit dancing only

  to re-arm again. Everybody,

  Everybody, Everybody,

  Everybody, O Everybody—

  this was back when

  we were almost African

  American & black was just

  who you were

  not what you did. Or who.

  And the night was black too.

  THE SCENARIO

  The two of us, black, met one night

  dancing alongside each other to Tribe

  at a party in the world’s smallest room.

  Someone from Carolina brought moon-

  shine & over the beat, the clanking heat,

  Philippe leaned over his date

  to say, Hey man, we should be friends.

  What you know yo. And that

  was that. Popping the caps off brown

  Red Stripe bottles with his teeth

  he’d drink out the side of his mouth,

  sly. We heads kept ours dreaded, crowned—

  a decade later he was gone.

  The Scenario, our favorite of 500 songs.

  FUNKIN’ LESSON

  The Scenario. They Want EFX.

  Fu-Schnickens. PRT. X-Clan.

  The humpty dance

  is your chance. The Funky Diabetic

  Five-Footer rapping, I like em brown

  yellow Puerto Rican & Haitian—

  & Brazilian & Jamaican

  & Maori & half-Nigerian

  & Cablinasian & Perusian—

  we can get down we can

  we can get down. Queen