Suite One
(JazzCrusaders/And Then There Was The Blues)
Non Catholic
Afrikan Men Women Children
Until we remember their names
There will always be The Blues
He sat floating on
His board
Before the sun rose
This warm April morning
Wetsuit half on half off
Sat with the drum circle
Barefoot black guys
From ghost town
Shoreline Crips
Smoking good weed
Gotta go
To UCLA
Number Theory class
Choas Theory next
Didn’t get the internship at NASA
Barefooted he goes into the library
And hears
The Verdict is coming in
He cycles
Back to Venice Beach
The Boardwalk clears
Oops upside your head
Florence and Normandie
Naked at
The tattoo shop
April 29th 1992
He gets a brand
On his honey colored ass
Top right cheek
The infinity sign
No justice no peace
Writes in his
Black and White composition book
When will this shit end
He tears the page out
Tosses it on the grill
Cargo shorts on barefoot
He cooks hot dogs
Smells the ocean air
Only great cities burn
Suite Two
(Grover Washington Jr/Mr Magic)
…smoke fire teargas abs keloid welts…
Sunday morning he wakes up
Naked in his bed his tattoos
Were the same
Padded into the kitchen
Made coffee stretched
Smelled the rumors of
A sexual tryst
From last night lover gone
Some warriors need sex anger too move
Ahead be bold
Prove them selves
Hot hot hot water whirlpool soak
Mug empty
Sun getting up now
Drives to stadium
Well dressed under San Francisco sky
He smiles with teammates
Listening to 2Pac
California knows how to party
Jockstrap put on
Uniform tight
He comes
Out the tunnel
Any given Sunday
He go play ball
The line up
Suited up
They stand up
HE TAKES A KNEE
Fired not hired
Knee to neck
8:46
That’s how long
You took a knee
He put his on our throats
Shamed us til dead
Crying out to our momma
Crying out for freedom
Stripped buck broke lynched
A public execution
Televised on the evening news
You got fired prophet
Son of Medusa
Scrounged
Told them
Cops stop killing us
Under an American Flag
Not hired
Fired up
Revolution seed in them balls
Low hanging
Lynch tree fruit
Knee Neck Complexities
Low hanging
Lynch fruit
Burned BLACK body swaying
Knee Neck Complexities
A public execution
8:46
Let Freedom Ring
Smoke fire teargas
Smoke fire teargas
Suite Three(John Coltrane/A Love Supreme)
CosmosBlack
The distance between stars
The space from west african shore MAAFA
To
…southern shore djimbe broken memories
Noon day sun
Auction block
…naked sold… naked bought black bodies
… draft day dressed … Not For Long
Have you been in the boy’s locker room
After the game is won
Not scared of their bodies then…
Cutoff cuffs to tight. … basketball court fled
Hot summer night pavement sizzles
Gun shot.
Stripped searched
Friday night. Weed smoked
Choke hold smart mouth nigger boy
Baton used
I got next.
…
they seemed to be saying
A war of terror on Black Boy Bones
Scattered gun shots
Shot down
Strangle hold
Bleed brother bleed
Long time ago
You rode a white
Ass into Jerusalem
Then you was hung
We walk destiny
Ebon muscled
Barefoot in times
Birth pain wails
Funeral songs
Don’t moan Mary
Tell Martha not to
Soon we go. Wake up singing
Tyranny gone
You ain’t never been
To a blue light basement party
Black boy dancing
You scared for his body then
Tatt’d
Tear drop
Tariq
C-walked
Down Pelican Bay
Corridors
Prisons are slave ships
Spaceships that don’t float
Spaceships
In between stars
Cosmos
God handsome
Naked
Black
Man
Body
Buried
In between
The stars
Images by Upfromsumdirt :
1. Banner: “Many Rituals” a digital collage
2. “Untitled” a visual collage
3. “Awaken” a visual collage
4. “adam-futurism1” a visual collage.
Onan Wright was born and raised in St. Louis MO. Has lived in Los Angeles and London is Harvard Divinity student working on his dissertation when God found him and gave him poetry on the side of the road stopped by the police. He survived. Today he is working on A Brave Man In A Wet Towel it’s about inmates/school of prophets on lockdown after a prison insurrection at the Donald Jesse James Federal Maximum Security Penitentiary Volcano Springs location. It explores their hopes dreams fantasies and who will escape on Twitter. It’s a blended chapbook erotic experimental political farce poetry collection. Publisher find me. Twitter: @OnanWright
upfromsumdirt thinks himself a troublemaker but he’s just a poet; a lowdown, filthy poet. a new collection, To Emit Teal, is set for an August release. twitter: @upfromsumdirt. Website: upfromsumdirt.com
IceFloe Press 