MiPOesias Magazine 2007 ~ Guest Edited by Evie Shockley

TALLAHATCHIE LULLABYE, BABY
—Emmett Till (1941–1955)

cattail cast tattles Till tale,
lowing low along the hollow;
cricket chirrup and ribbit-lick-up.
what’s chucked the ’hatchie swallow.

up skimming skin upon pond scum skiff-ish,
going slow along the hollow.
now may mayfly alight brown brow.
what’s chucked the ’hatchie swallow.

maybe bye baby bye baby by and by,
lowing low along the hollow.
we will slip the knot not slip will we?
what’s chucked the ’hatchie swallow.

who’s a bruise to blue hue ’hatchie,
going slow along the hollow?
whose a bruise to bruise hue, ’hatchie?
what’s chucked the ’hatchie swallow.

Kodak flash tattles Till tale
going slow among the hollow.
who’s a bruise to bruise hue?
swallow what the ’hatchie chucks.

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“We got some hats now, motherfucker.”
—Fear of a Black Hat

THE CRUEL, CRUEL CITY

cruel, cruel city, that stetson. all stank eye gas light; bodying
row house; blue nigger rag. unborn bullet trains
express from the broke windowed convenience stores
of Gonna to the sweatful, unlit flops of I Did; ever
on time like nothing else. odd-end of Stag’ for Stagolee;
you wide brimmed tenement; mothballed and boxed alley
dead ending; light blocking: cruel, cruel stetson.

when the songs font over dark guitars,
those wounds of sound, heavy, jangled, the stetson
is like a woman, prize for two tore-back pimps, neither’s bottom,
but new booty hoodoo, stakes for a hand of spades.
when they slash the song out of air, Billy Lyons
lying at the end of a barstool, as though a pistol said: “Roll
Over!” tame-ass Billy, reclined in the Bucket of Blood, bleeding pale,
emptied like he was full of dirty water. Billy the Lion
just now releasing the jacked stetson hat and Stag’s new brown suit.

there weren’t no new brown suit. the running red running out
William de Lyons from a different jig of monkey
and pawn shop~~and not different at all~~back to stank eye
gas light, back to bodying row house, back rag nigger blue.
—wanksta-ass poet, them whiteboys made an ape outta—

the gangstered stetson
hollered to its revolver lover. people don’t
kill niggers, niggers kill niggers, and “of course you realize,
it’s a white man’s world” a saintly white lady once whispered me,
like I ain’t know people don’t kill monkeys, monkeys
kill monkeys. cruel and cruel city, nigger manhood
—rather, that damned hat, thus passed betwixt a lion
and a riverboat, and bloody ditty doo-wah,
structured row of doo wop gennimens and afflicted ballet of diddy
bop thugs to this wanksta-ass poet who can now:

• eat a ton of dog shit without getting sick.
• dance underwater and not get wet.
• fuck hot pussy til it’s cold.
• paint the white house black.

or

• fortify that old time vita.

you know how Douglas do. you do know how D do!

next week, I’ll stand, damned hat—rather, manhood in hand
like a cover letter (…do…he do) in those blanched offices, declaring:

I should like to publish in your little magazine!

however, this morning, the mirror said to me, que sera, sera, sera.
whatever,
wanksta.
born a leo, I was, like most of we Bs. at last grasping the hat (rather—)
only to be recorded by white boys, our monkey killed nigger,
an almost bullet train right on time.

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SWIMCHANT OF NIGGER MER-FOLK (AN AQUABOOGIE SET IN LAPIS)

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