Eugene B. Redmond 
3 Kwansaba Tales Tall as Maya
"You want to know how it feels
to give birth, my dear brother? Imagine
pulling your upper lip over your head
like a stockin' cap" . . . mid-80s/church-
theater & Maya's serving slices of Winston-
Salem/house-talk to me & the
sister-ring: Ruth Love & Dolly McPherson. . .raising an after-repast glass we share
a mid-70s memwar from Sonoma (California)
Wine Country: a Paris-born/ e epistle from
Jimmy Baldwin: "writing is like shitting bricks."
Then an Africa-aged pause, quake-filled
-& quiet-as a poem's pounce, as
a San Andreas or New Madrid Fault. . .another after-repast glass segues into
another 70s mise en scene: Marie Collins,
star of Sacramento's Oak Park School of
Afro-American Thought-& the public heart
whom Maya called "an awesome mental machine,"
a title I badn't heard before-&
haven't heard since, except to parrot it.
Troupe of Kwansabas for a Bloodsman of Tropes
So what's blood worth to you, Quincy?
Watts of jagged images that main-line
veins of your canvas like ritual-dancin',
bling-slung zombies? High-fivin', lowjivin'
homeys boardin' juju's of conch-us-nests
while you songify river skulls & ocean
hulls-& ask, Hoo wants to gno?How blood be, QT? A vamp re:
vessels of styles ala Satchmo & Miles?
Kindred saints chuck-walkin' ntu doo-wop?
Ellison's blues-maze to end visible angst?
Or Ish's sync-phonic Legba/ba liturgy? Sowhat, if Jimmy's straits filter Marquez &
Morrison thru Dumas' ankh-with no chaser?Poets, jazzers & rebels ain't orphans: just
pariahs in the wheres of some: but
blood keeps boardin' express Tranes to mothers,
muses & Cherokee Lovers; flyin'Jubas &
Daedaluses back to myth nests, hippin' to
catch hops between sacred tomes & flatted
pomes that shay shay with veve-dig?
Pilgrim Age
For Sheryl Johnson
(1955-2007)Yours was a pilgrim age to narrate
a page, orate a stage, create a
sage-filled anl& ship of kush-lighted
airs & heirs: Hetshepsut!-she-king's nom
de plume-you singer of hajj in
groves of poet-trees: stretch, diva-vine,
you statue-as-queen-who wholes us.
Earth Angel & Nature Boy Leapin' Clouds Of Joy
(Earth Angel/s & silhouettes silhouettes of doo-wop rhyme:
With Maggie Freeman, Eugene Haynes, Wyvetter Younge& Reginald Petty as compasses
Dreamers, tall as a tree named Harris, on souljoums--East Saint Love to Paris.
Between mud-brown river & slaughtering houses
we mid-sectioned an America belching scents
from the guts of foundries & unperfumed spouses.Ready as Emmett Till & Little Rock 9,
& Exalters of the Star of Rosa Parks,
we joined Hank Ballard & Midnighters' grind
as Stagolee iced Billy in the dark.
Some were "prisoner/s of love," but all were hostages of East Saint's railroad hub:
Cadillacs & Dynaflows, Pontiacs & DeSoto's, Eighty-Eights & cats on skates,
ice-coal-banana carts--& even high falutin' sorts--halted at altars of tracks
as box cars & flatbeds sped or slithered by with goods, graffiti & snacks.In the paradoxical sea, fantasy & history floated like life jackets or debris. . .
AME & Fisk Jubilee. . . "Lift Every Voice" & "Swing Low Sweet Rolls Royce"
Mary Bethune &hallelujah June! . .. limp/hip bop &Scotia's Shrimp Shop
jelly jelly jelly in a bowl of Lead Belly. .. cotton-pickin' dues &Miles Davis' "All Blues"
Heirs of Buck & Wing ("gimme that swing"), Juba, Ball the Chain, Charleston,& Jitterbug
("hug the jug"), we Mashed Potatoes & Slopped the Madison, Twisted/Jerked/Cha-Cha'd &
Hitchhiked the hurt away, Swimmed the Fly &mimic'd ya'll-know-who with the Robot-at Rush
City's Red Top-- then Boogaloo'd, Shot Gunned, Praise- &Line-danced till the broad dazed light-(2-steppin' from chemistry labs & BBQ slabs, girl-looms & teenage grooms, gang-bouts & hangouts--
to college & wine, Swift Packing & swift night runs, baby factories, strife's trajectories, :
secretary & social work, civil leaders & hog feeders, ministry & medicine & military. . .)--Fifty-Seveners in Sixties' JFK/MLK, marches/war/s/riot/s, Sweet/Sour Hour of Black Power!
Seventies' Chocolate cities & cinema--& Vanilla disco; TV's "Roots" & cocaine toots.
Eighties' Huxtables, Jonestown, Kwanzaa & Uganda, computer pad & transplant fad.
Nineties' Desert Storm &Jlip Hop's swarm, Oklahoma City & OJ-giddy, JJK & Columbine-day.
Two Thousand Seven's high-priced Iraq & terrorist attack, Imus & Andy & Eye Candy.Along our chain of pain & intermittent joy, we loop links of sanity, against New Age vanity:
Anointed & anointer, elderific in horrific times, we shine at baby showers & commencements--
(Earth's Angel silhouetted by Nature Boy, Petticoated queen & Stacy Adams clean.)
Angel-dreams grew human beams & now we row the paradoxical dry sea from
flo' -show to go-slow to slow-see, unearthing new angels & nature toys: Clouds of Joy/s.(While on our grand &great-grand parental trip, dig this tip: We're still hip with a dip.)
©2005-7 by Eugene B Redmond