Poems In Honor of Malcolm X

Beauty

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

And I be holding beauty

When I glance upon them

Theoretically shaping

The future into an afro

Concentric sharpness

That shook

The white power structure

Into confronting

A black consciousness

Organized with a mandate

And a mission

To dismiss

That old time religion

That said

Everything in its place

Especially the black race.

A new paradigm of blackness

Rooted in a community soliloquy.

Ghetto equals colony

And racism is the bastard child

Of fascist economies.

Fanon, Malcolm and James

Became antidotes

For antiquated theologies

And anti-social pathologies.

In the belly of the imperialistic beast, In the microcosm of prisons And the macrocosm of the streets A new paradigm for blackness, A paradise of struggle Was created by young soldiers High school students, Whores and pimps, Drug dealers and NASA employees, Doctors and number runners Heady Ready And willing With Fuck that shit.

Far too many fires lit

From Watts to the Congo

Whitey gotta go

Burn baby burn

No ashes in the urn

Time for the tide to turn

And put an end to the yearn.

Discern

Panther power was here

Turned the police into pigs

And nigs into blacks

Figuratively burning effigies

With tactics and strategies

That earned them freedom's mind.

Obituary of a Revolutionary

He is beautiful in death

so much more beautiful than he was

in life

because he no longer speaks

no longer tells the secrets

uncle tom whispers to aunt jemima

in their martha’s vineyard enclave

and other not-so-secret

sanctuaries.

In death, he is wrapped in words of royalty.

No longer an ill-bred charlatan, he is now

their shining black prince

far removed from his garveyite father

his coke fiend days

and bullet-like words

shot out of his mouth

with more love than eros’ arrow

could ever accomplish.

Now he can enter their enclaves

and sanctuaries

even if he only enters on a stamp

that is still handled carefully

by the sender and addressee

for fear of anthrax poisoning

because his words outlived his life.

His words resurrected him

from the death that attacked

in front of his children

and pregnant wife,

shattering the princely eulogy

reminding all who loved him

and all who hated him

who he was:

a strong, principled working class Afrikan man.

Flora and Fauna

I wanted to bless my eyes this morning

with flora and fauna

so I came in from the cold

of a dream full of unrelenting rain

and opened my eyes to what is customarily

my second sighting of the day:

My ideological father

shot down in the Audubon ballroom

where the only bird observed in motion

was the misappropriated eagle

until the phoenix rose

from the ash of a murderous minstrel show

and transformed into a panther

which prowled

oakland to wounded knee

philadelphia to palestine

roaring revolution

until every generation

generated an evolution

of the message

thought to be dead forever

by those who are as white as the bones

of the myriad numbers of people

whose deaths they are accountable for.