Reginald Lockett

Endless Ports Of Call
for my father, Jewell Lockett, SDCM, USN (Ret.)

With retirement back there
almost twenty years ago (and that gig
with the school district fourteen of them),
he's still very Navy. My father,
who at twenty-three walked away
from the straight and narrow poverty
surrounding his father's East Texas farm
to the straight and narrow routines of galleys
and officers' mess halls on cruisers, destroyers,
supply ships and carriers through three wars.
Even after snapping to attention and saluting
for the last time aboard the man 0' war Ranger,
it continues to be the scrutiny of some authority
hovering there, in the back of his mind,
that keeps the hedges trimmed, the lawn well
manicured,
the steps and sidewalk swept, the rows of
vegetables
in the garden in meticulous, arrow straight lines,
and the house never in need of paint. Is it
being forever ready for a sneak inspection
that keeps every pair of shoes he owns
spit shined and the blues, grays, tans, blacks, and
whites
he strolls so erect in on Sundays cleaned and
neatly pressed?
Yes, it's still "swab the deck" instead of "mop the floor,"
"secure the door" as opposed to simply locking it,
and "break out the chow" when "serve the table"
will do. And what
of those years of me fronting, wanting to be one
with those
who talked that talk and walked that walk,
doing a continuous dress rehearsal of fantasies
that were popsicles melting and evaporating
under the heat of hot, blazing realitie~ How many
times
did he suddenly, unexpectedly appear
in geometry, history, or English Compo
in full Navy dress blues with the gold chevron
of a master chief steward and five hash marks
on the left sleeve a show of authority
and years of service, and that grin
just like the one Scatman Crothers wore,
the whole ghetto classroom in awe of him? I,
a budding Slick Draw McGraw, would slide halfway
down in my seat in part shy, timid pride,
part adolescent disgust because my facade
of daring-do, cool con man bravado
had beeh blown in full view of my homeboys. This
man,
this sailor, my father would sit quietly
and attentively two, three seats behind me,
pushing me, urging me
beyond the loneliness of tight, steamy kitchens,
above the lunacy
of another man's glory, onward to other shores of
the senses,
where the boats of true warriors set sail
to endless ports of call.

SONG OF FIRE

Like Ogun, father of iron,
who went from the sight of men,
way up into the heights
Oke Ori to make weapons
the world had never seen,
Eric Dolphy ascended into
the mountain of his wisdom
to create music,
sweet, sweet music the world
had never heard.
Sounds that've endured
all the depravation & degradation
of this ice age
that lingers here.
This age, this age
that has brought so much death,
so much sorrow, so many tears
to our mothers' eyes.

Armed with the knowledge
that too many sounds, words & pictures
move,
pass through our minds,
go up into the air, never to return,
the Iron Man forged
musical spears of fire

as sharp as the sun bird's beak.
Flaming spears too strong.
Flaming spears too swift.
Flaming spears too much
for closed eared, empty headed,
short sighted listeners whose minds
went out to lunch and
never came back.

This son, this son,
this son of Ogun, who
like his brother Bird before him,
who like his brother Prez before him,
handed the tools of his craft
to his brother Trane,
saying,
"Take my hammer and my anvil,
but don't tell the cap'n."

The Movement

Thangs weren't always like this.
We were circuit riders of Garvey's whirlwind,
workin the rhytms of blues drenched streets,
jazz soaked nightclubsand gatherins
of houngans and necramancers committed to struggle,
breathin the fire of Malcolm's words.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Way was Grove Street,
and no children stood on corners
speakin the language of doom and hawkin
the wares of self-doubt and destruction.

Fillmore was alive with the comins and goins and doins
of a people dancin
across collard green floors and hold in up cornbread
walls
under buttermilk skies,
pawin, clawin, dreamin, schemin, screamin. . .
gettin up, stand in up, and flyin, dyin, cryin, conivin
their way towardsfewer tomorrows.

Good brothas and sistas on the speedboat
of revolution, our sights set on this thang
called freedom.

Thangs weren't always dismal and dank like this.
We were cosmic griots takin the point,
searchin infinite perimeters of sights and sounds
from the funky four corners of existence,

talkin smack by the boatloads and gettin one up
on the would-be grafters of our dreams,
slippin and slidin through concrete bayous
in urban undergrowth,
the bloodhounds of oppression, repression,
and suppression .
snappin and bayin at the iridescence of our heels.
Some of us drank gallons and gallons of Red Mountain
or shortneck after shortneck of Ripple
under the harsh glow of red and blue party lights,
and held tight to women blacker than forty midnights,
suddenly beautiful,
gettin the R-E-S-P-E-C-T and do rightness
Aretha demanded in that brand new bag
James Brown shouted and hollered into our thoughts.

Thangs weren't always crazy like this.

Incarcerated in the desolate barnyards of Amerikkka,
we were fast and slick in the way we saw ourselves.
Cutsie tootsie roosters wearin our crowns
a good fifty degrees to the side,
and laid, sprayed, and ready to get paid
in plummage of silk and satin,
we kept the hawks of our misery confused and
perplexed
beyond cocaine and cognac tainted perspectives.

We were keepers of the eagle's eye view,
on the watch out for the cutthroats of reason
and the backstabbers of sanity

on these long, windin and twistin highways and byways,
bookin midnight flights of fancy
on the music of Trane, Albert, and Pharoah,
the teachins of Fanon, Mao, Che, and Huey,
and the m~es of Baraka, Sonia, Askia and Larry,
tryin to get back home to Ditty-Wah-Ditty*
in a nick of time to call winners
and cash in all the chips
in this game of chance called life.

Sharp and Lethal

Three summers before the Watts riots,
my aunt's second husband
Conwell allowed his toe nails
to grow long and curved
Rip Van Winkle style.

They curled under
thick and jagged
like the claws of a bear
or the talons of a hawk.
He had to buy shoes
two sizes too large and cut holes
in expensive, perfectly crafted
Stacy Adams to give the corns
on his baby toes
breathing room and relief.

East Gage Avenue
"'was where gangs met in combat
and neighbors in their anger,
jealousy, and drunkenness
argued, cursed, and fought.

When Conwell
and his friends drank
whiskey, rum, or gin
until tempers and profanity
ruled the moment,
reason took a stroll
up the block,
and one of these men
challenged him to a fight,
Conwell would slip out
of his shoes, raise a leg
like a Sumo wrestler,
and take wide-arced swipes
at his foe, sometimes
leaving deep, bleeding scratches
on a forearm or cheek.
One encounter with those feet
was enough to dispatch
his adversaries to living rooms,
kitchens, and bedrooms,
or distant corners of the city
and county of Los Angeles.

Copyright © 1999-2007 by Reginald Lockett

Cover Design: Joseph McNair