telling stories
a few times each year
i am convinced of the end
of singleness, the beginning
of a singularity, i become convinced
of the infinite curve of love.
my grandma, like all Black grandmothers
perhaps, told me do not tell stories,
by which she meant do not lie except we couldn’t say “lie,”
which was a curse word in her house.
my grandma, like all Black grandmothers
perhaps, told me stories about where we were
from, & who we were from, & the unbroken string
of happy accidents & hapless miracles that made us possible.
my grandma used to say worse thing in the world a liar or a thief,
& i know i have been both these most deplored before.
my grandma used to say i love you.
my grandma gone.
my convictions gone too.
does that mean an end
to the long curve of her love
or mine?
does that mean i love you
is always bound to end up
a story? if so what kind?
the worst thing or
one of the small impossibilities
that put us here.
the best story is about home because that’s the story part
so tell me what you call me when i’m not around.
—Noname
often i be out &
about the words
moving quotes to the folks
like a fix.
don’t understand?
feel me this way:
the other day i was walking
through the old hood to see
me in the cheap duplexes
& all the wrong houses were
vacant &
some of our board ups
were blooming with new boys.
the last time i went to the church of my birth
all the old folks looked the same kind
of hard starched sharp they always been
& i been gone so long nobody
asked where i been.
look, every time i show up
at the function
it’s a surprise
party to my homies.
all i call my people
is what i say in they absence.
peep the props i cop from how hard
i represent the spots i hardly hit
but hail from.
feel me: she told me i didn’t
give her my best hours & i told her
here’s more & started pulling clocks
out my pockets & she said it’s time
to go ‘head on.
slave grammar
Lol Chicago slang be dumb as hell
Whole time & don’t nobody be knowing
how to explain what it mean
we all just got a understanding
—@_GOMP on Twitter 27 Jul 2014
this not proper,
this people.
this a failing school
meet a magnet program.
trick question,
they kin.
this no question,
this answer—
ancestral.
this be habitual.
this the dirty words
lined up in they baddest fits.
this that this that
bad meaning _____
you know what i mean.
you know what i’m saying
whole time i’m bending the language
like a bow every arrow is spinning itself
a new sharp tip. whole time
i’m writing this down its obsoleting
itself. whole time we talking we ain’t got
no dictionary we guessing the spelling
we deciphering the phrases through
our slurs we slurring like we ain’t sure until
we murmur a sure vow. whole time
we blur the whole thing
we make shambles of their standards
we stand on them
& fashion an abolition
in diction.
with thanks to Sean DesVignes