 Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for being here. It's so great to see all your faces in person for our program today. Put on my glasses. I'm Shawna Sherman, the manager for the San Francisco Public Libraries African-American Center, which is in the main library, and we are so happy to be in this astute with this esteemed group of current and past poet laureates, Dr. Devora Major, Dr. Adelaide Enzinga, and Tongo Aisin Martin, with music by Destiny Muhammad. Before we get started with our program, I want to acknowledge that we are on the unceded ancestral homeland of the Ramay Tushaloni, who are the original inhabitants of the San Francisco Peninsula, and continue to live and work and play here today. As the indigenous stewards of this land and in accordance with their traditions, the Ramay Tushaloni have never ceded, lost, nor forgotten their responsibilities as the caretakers of this place, as well as for all peoples who reside in their traditional territory. We wish to pay our respects by acknowledging the ancestors, elders, and relatives of the Ramay Tush community, and affirm their sovereign rights as First Peoples. And as the African-American Center, and following the lead of our city's reparations task force, we also honor the gifts, resilience, and sacrifices of our Black ancestors, particularly those who toiled the land and built the institutions that established this country's wealth and freedom, despite never being compensated nor fully realizing their own sovereignty. We acknowledge this exploitation of not only labor, but of our humanity, and are working to repair some of the harms done by public and private actors. Because of their work, we are here, and will invest in the descendants of their legacy. So for those who don't know, the African-American Center, as I mentioned, is on the third floor of this building, and we were born at the same time as the library, this main library was built, around more than 25 years ago, and for so much of that time, I want to give much gratitude to Thomas Robert Simpson, actor, director, producer, and writer, and the founder of Afrosolo Arts Festival, for working with us for a majority of those years. He's hosted the exhibits at the Center. Yes, thank you, Thomas. So we are happy to be partnering with him on this program today. I should have said that at the start, but I spent a while since I've done this in person, so I'm a little nervous. Sorry about that. And before I turn over the mic to Mr. Simpson, I want to let you all know that he has concentrated on showcasing black art and culture through solo performances and the visual and literary arts in San Francisco, and in the process has presented over 100 artists in our community. He's won the Coveted Bay Area Jefferson Award for Public Service, and in 2009 he was awarded a prestigious Certificate of Honor from the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, and has been recognized by the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, Black Brothers Esteem Program, the Reggie Williams Achievement Award, and the Oakland Supper Club for his contributions to our community. Again, thank you so much, Mr. Simpson. Thank you very much, Shana, for that wonderful introduction. I'm going to speak from down here because I got some leg issues as I get a little bit older. Welcome. And she mentioned this being a live performance or a live event. This is our first live indoor event in two years. So you're welcoming us back live. So I'm very, very grateful for your being here for that. I'm also very grateful for our artists who are here to showcase their works, and I believe that you're in for a real treat. You're in for a real treat. As I thought about this event and we talked about it being a poetry month, we wanted to have an event that related to poetry. And like Afrosolo does in most of our events, we like to honor those who've gone before us. So I'd like to honor by calling their names of some of the poets on whose shoulders we stand. Langston Hughes. Maya Angelo. Gwendolyn Brooks. Phyllis Whitney. Zora Neale Hurston. Claude McKay. Paul Lawrence Dunbar. James Weldon Johnson. Conti Colton. Intoshaki Shang. June Jordan. And there are many, many more. This is just a tip of the iceberg. As I said, we like to stand on the shoulders of those who've gone before us. I'd like for you to think about others who've become ancestors, who you think might enjoy this event today. And if you like, we'd just like to invite them to be here in spirit with us to help make this event a success. And the way I like to do it is we just call out their names. Amiri Baraka. Laura Simpson. Elroy Simpson. Huki. Junior. Thank you. In making this even possible, we have several funders who have been very, very kind to us. Now, Cheryl might talk a little bit about the dreamkeepers. I'm not sure, but the dreamkeepers is one. San Francisco Arts Commission. Grants for the Arts. California Arts Council. Zellabock Family Fund. Reynon Foundation. And there are a few others, but those are the main ones who've supported us and helped make this event possible. So, now let's get on with why you're really here to hear these fabulous poets. And you may have heard Destiny. How many of you were not familiar with Destiny's plan to harp before today? There are a few people who may not know you. Destiny is, I was going to say landmark, but that means something that's stable. That's not statute in the Bay Area as a harpist. Jazz harpist, she plays all around the city as well as the state, as well as the country. She has performed on a number of Afro solo events. So, let's give Destiny a hand. Now, did you get some water? Do you need some water? Just up there? I would like some water. Okay, please give Destiny some water. Thank you. And the other poets, if you need water, we have water for you also, if you like. All righty. To help kick us off, again, thank you for being here. Out on the table, there's some information about upcoming events. And we welcome you to those also. I am so happy to introduce our emcee for today, Dr. Cheryl E. Davis. She probably would want me to just say she's Dr. Davis and she would get up here and might not say anything else. Because she has achieved so much. I'll talk a little bit about her in terms of my personal experience. I met her around 2005 or 2006 when she was running a program called Mo Magic. I went to a Mo Magic meeting and in this meeting there were about 40 people sitting around large tables. And I was struck because once someone told her their name, she remembered it. And I was like, how did she do that? You know, people tell me their name and five seconds later I have to ask them again. But I thought that was so impressive. But that was just the beginning of my being impressed with her work in the community, her work with kids, her work with people who are going through difficult times. She also wanted to improve herself. So she went back and got her master's degree from U.S. Self. From there, she went back and got her Ph.D. She's now running the San Francisco Human Rights Commission, which is one of the very, very important commissions in San Francisco. And as part of that, she's the head of what's called the Dream Keeper Fund. Some of you may know that our Mayor, Mayor Breed, I won't say took, how would you say? She changed some money from the police department. There was a time people were saying take money or close police departments down. She used some of the police funds and the sheriff's funds to create a fund for black people. To the tune of $60 million for two years. We are in our first year and some exciting things are happening and more and more exciting things are going to happen. And I don't think it would have been as successful as it has been or as it will be if Dr. Cheryl Davis were not heading it up. Please welcome Dr. Cheryl Davis. I just, I first have to just thank Thomas for that wonderful introduction and vote of confidence. I really appreciate it. Cheryl Davis with the San Francisco Human Rights Commission, really grateful for the opportunity to participate and be with you today. I know you are here to hear from some amazing poets. And so I will begin that conversation. Thomas asked if I would say anything about the Dream Keeper Initiative. I would just say that it is $60 million a year. It has been annualized. The Mayor and the President of the Board of Supervisors has made that commitment. And so really grateful to see that money be informed by black community and go out specifically to black folks. And then I wanted to just recognize our librarian here, Michael Lambert. Who is the, I always mess it up, Chief Librarian, Head Librarian, Best Librarian of San Francisco. He's got to be the best. And then with regards to why I'm so excited about being able to be a part of this program, Thomas has been able to be in spaces with me, yes, where I remember names. And I would say the only reason that I've become good at remembering names is because I was a kindergarten teacher for a very long time. And there is nothing wrong, nothing worse than being in a parent-teacher conference with kindergarten parents and not remembering their child's name. And so that became the importance of really knowing who folks are, being able to identify them and show that you value them and you appreciate them. So in that same spirit, the love of poetry as a tool, as a mechanism to share information and to kind of inspire and motivate folks is what I've grown into over the years, just a real love for poetry and anyone who does that. So I have the good honor of introducing our poets for today. And first will be Dr. Ayadele Enzinga. She is Oakland's first and current poet laureate. Yes. Yes, Enzinga. Enzinga is variously described as an arts and culture poet, playwright and well-being to foster transformation in marginalized communities. She is the founding producing director of Oakland's lower bottom players, INC. The company's at that patients move among ebonics, classic Shakespeare and the spoken word to express graphically the anger and anguish of living in violent communities. I will say I did a little looking up in what I was moved by in, I believe it was an NPR interview. And in that interview, just the pure passion about poetry, but more than that, the commitment to use poetry as a tool to transform and to elevate and amplify the voices of community. The idea of using music and song in the way that she does, the commitment to using words and to begin this process of being multidisciplinary, but actually knowing the power of words, whether it's in music or song or spoken word is what touched my heart. And so I can, I really look forward to hearing from Words Langer today, which is her name and I think power within that. So welcome to the stage, Words Langer today. So Mr. Simpson asked me to, Laureate are charged with the literary representation of their cities and their communities. And they're also a curious bunch. Most of the laureates I know are known for being bad ass big mouths. Not quite sure how that happened, but yeah. So yes, I like to move people, furniture around. All right. Oh yeah, this might work. I brought a piece called Standing Our Growl. That title is informed by the commission. This piece is a sermon length piece of poetry. And this is the first time it's ever been heard by anyone. So I'm gonna need y'all to walk with me. I'm gonna need you to walk with me as we ponder the thesis here. The thesis grounded in misconceptions of my reality. Walk with me. I want you to walk with me out past the things we think we want. The things we think we know. The things we have been told so many times, we believe them true. These flawed fantasies, this white, iced, crazy, serve neat without a napkin. You see, it makes some people prone to the fallacies fetch forward in clumsy war like made for Americans English. So I want you to walk with me. Walk with me through red summers. And fragments of dreams blown sky high in Philly. Vaporized in Oklahoma City. Burnt to the ground in Rosewood. Walk with me. Because stillness eludes me. Because movement, movement is life. That's what the shark said. Buddha says, suffering follows want. Give me this break. Give me this day, my daily bread and freedom, freedom. We still want freedom. Freedom to live and die natural deaths. To become, to be, to breathe without fear. Give us free. We still want free. I am giving to movement. Traveling instructions found inside dreams. Rising from unmarked graves. Survival is motion. Movement is the ballast. Ain't no resting place in this sorrow land. Newborn black babies come home from the hospital and track suits and Nike shoes. My feet rarely touch the ground. Before birth, North Star bound on runaway sleigh. Bone on my bone, blood on my blood. Spirit of Claude McKay came with me today. Try to hold me on a page so you can see me clearly. But honestly, mostly, I'd be in the whirlwind. I dreamt last night, skittles in iced tea. Confederate flags, Edmund Pettus Bridge, red cloth, jungle raids. The Lorraine Motel, mid-Julips and whips. The altar bomb ballroom, blood pooled on the streets in the lower bottoms. We're dancing, Jesus, better not dancing no more. Harlem of the West, slung-setting. Southern refugees on the highway again. Fresno, Stockton, Antioch, back down south again. Mostly, I'd be in the whirlwind. All my shoes is traveling shoes. At tenorith, landless, rented rooms. Great aunts and uncles traded horse, flesh, sweat, and the ground they grew on for the city. Neon education had changed nothing. Failed to make them white or safe. Only ate the ground, rocks, and all left nothing to stand on. Grounded up in misconceptions, trying to get inside a dream. We buy things we think we want. We've been told so many times, we want to believe flawed fantasies. Still bleeding the need to be free. Give us free. I still want freedom. I got a home in a graveyard. Bottom of the ocean. What a child on fire in the service of the house of Olokun, the keeper of the deep memories and promises, rhythm, faithful sun and moon rise, ebb and flow. Daughter of the tides, I know movement from west. Across the ocean, south, south to east, east to north, north to west, sharecropping, shucking and driving, chitlin, slick survivors, refugees, press down the pouring over, help mamas everlasting hands, undigestible, stolen fruit, uprooted, paved the roads, worked steel mills, slaughterhouses, strung the telephone poles, died in every war, washing America, raising its kids, moving, moving, moving, swing down chariots to the land of whistle tips, where the Orisha speak ebonics and cold switch and some of them say, saying, who you think? I say, oh, palm oil and Florida water baptized me in the Atlantic Ocean. Lift me up above prison walls and ghetto halls, perpetual grief, street sweepers in cheap dope, swallowing the land on which we stand. Across 110th, the jungle in Compton, the Fifth Ward, the TL Oakland, there has been no rest in this cancer. We fester here in the image of God's star dust and tears. Can't see the can't see, Magnolia scented shapeshifters, navigating, niggratude, livin' the blues, jazz intersected, soul touch, gospel pour, collard green, funky, thank God and granny's prayers, we still here. We beautiful. Black power, baby. Movement is everything known for doing it moving. You can catch me in whirlwind, translating the underground, overstanding the necessity of motion, not melted in a smelting pot, ever and always more fluid than that hungry thing that call itself white. The hungry, hungry moan of empty whiteness, sucking up everything, afraid of drums, want to write all the music down, need to fix it in cement, sniffing it next to suck the blood of what come next. Can't hang around here too long. Fugitivity, that suit fit me. A runaway retired slave, I'm unlikely to pack, unpack all my bags anywhere. Trauma keeps some boxes packed, I be quick to bug out after bugging out. I keep duct tape on the closet full of skeletons named after dead boys, buried and open in clothes and without coffins, too many names for anyone to know and keep playing like they're saying, so I don't play no more. My feet rarely touch the ground. And sometimes, sometimes my soul fly up out my mouth, I've been seen it hovering over the yellow line on the freeway, dancing at the edge of the graveyard, at tea intersections, slipping into the forest with a red rooster, a bowl of honey and a sharp machete, comfortable on the edge of nowhere, invisible, known to pack in the night and reassemble after the smoke clear. Ahead of the riders, out beyond extradition, walk with me as we ponder the thesis here of standing ground while black in North America, grounded in my reality, past misconceptions obscured by the fallacies poured forth in clumsy warlike English made for Americans. Walk with me, stillness and the Buddha's lack of desire elude me. I am given to movement and thoughts of double-headed axes, razors, reparations, reciprocity and freedom. I still want freedom. Walk with me, out past things we think we want, the things we think we know, the things we've been told so many times, we have wished them true, believed them true. Stillness eludes me. So walk with me, out past the white, iced, crazy, poor, neat serve without a napkin. Freedom looked like an open road. Oro! Oro! The road is open and we want free. She said a sermon length, I felt like I just left church. I felt like, you know, when she said walk with me, I could hear somebody in the back say, walk with me, Lord, walk with me. I just want to say that that is the power of poetry. The message, the freedom I think about for me, the experience of learning poetry, didn't learn it in my era during class. I learned it on the front of a stage in church when I had to learn it for Black History Month, Maya Angelou. I know why the cage bird sings, sings for freedom. I want to thank Werslinger for that moving and amazing. Then give her another round and I think I left my thing. So next we have DeVora Major. Give a round for DeVora. DeVora Major was born and raised in California. Major sixth book of poetry with open arms was released in Italy in 2019 as a bilingual edition. Her poetry collection, Khalifa's Daughter, was released as a Willow Press editor's choice in July 2020. In June 2015, DeVora's poetry play, Classic Black Voices of Nineteenth-Century African-Americans in San Francisco premiered at the San Francisco International Arts Festival. She also speaks on CDs as a part of Daughters of YAM. DeVora Major performs her work nationally and internationally and without musicians. Major has performed her poetry in France, the Bahamas, and Germany and is often presented at poetry festivals in Italy, Belgium, Bosnia, Jamaica, Venezuela and other international events. I was moved by a couple things. First, I saw Marie and I hear you were in Amel Park in the beginning and appreciate that legacy. Give a, yeah, that's right, Marie. But I think as a teacher what I appreciated was the distinction between page poet and performing poet. This idea of someone who writes but there is something about writing but then being able to bring it to life. I appreciate and respect and thank you for that. So now let's welcome to the stage DeVora Major. Indoor's on this beautiful day, so thank you. I really love working with Afrosolone with Thomas and he always starts with the ancestors. All right. Oh, now I can hear it. Sorry. He always starts with the ancestors, so I thought I would too. I'm blessed to have family from the Bahamas, Andrew Makeup at the family I know is from the Bahamas. And this is not particularly my great-grandmother's story except for the part of Obia that is her story. But other than that it's not, but it was me thinking about what would an ancestor from the islands who's over here and taken root in that way have to say. One woman speaks of tongues. They took my words, all of them. Not knowing that in my home I spoke many languages, not only to family traders and voyages, but to hawk and chimpanzee, sandpiper and dolphin. They took my tongue, gripped my throat tightly and commanded me to use only their words. Yes, sir, madam, please. Limited ideas that did not tell of spirit or legacy. We will not speak of the bakra who as we tossed in the belly of their demon ship tore into me like a spear chasing the neck of a lion spilling my blood yet leaving inside the seedling of a son. My son whom I taught all my remembered languages until he understood wind and star and smoothed his freedom road whistling the birds to quiet their song as he passed by. Sending a raven to my window to let me know he was now a man unfettered. Some call me Obea woman ask me to make juju so they could become invisible so all the bakra would dry up and die so we could return home. But now I only know the gift of healing song and the gift of animal languages and learned words the invaders would not teach me like survive, struggle, surmount. Renovations after surviving the worst of COVID when you're talking about standing on ground one of the things is what do you do after COVID how do you make it work? Well this is what I decided. I'm gonna clear those rocks out my road feeling and smooth though the ruts in my trails I'm gonna renovate myself renewing my ideals and refreshing my politics while I muscle up my limbs walking in the sun through the highways and byways of my life. I'm gonna lay a new foundation for my home feeling earthquake formed cracks making it deeper and stronger than it was before I'm gonna take my words knock down some walls that were holding me back replace them with smooth smudge free wide pane windows and carefully carved doors that open easily to other galaxies on the walls that are left I'm gonna paint some green leaf plants and purple petal flowers and thick blue skies and even a few silvery winter rainstorms to cleanse my rivers and fill my reservoirs build some bridges so I can safely cross over dangerous chasms and maybe even learn how to hang glide so I can start to understand what birds feel like when they ride on the wind I'm gonna unmask my dreams and bring love into my heart and home I'm gonna renovate myself say I'm gonna renovate myself making my old new again I'm gonna renovate myself and I'm starting right so you know most African descent we didn't start out in cities unless you're gonna go back to whatever was happening in Yoruba land and like that I don't know where their big villages are but it's like me I can say I was born in San Francisco my dad was born in New York that's a city okay my mom in Chicago that's a city but my dad's people all came from the islands they didn't come from a city there's one stoplight on the island of a Lutheran so this is a city scan for the for all of us who came to the city to know the city we come to the city of concrete brick steel and toil country people know in the earth see they're reading the tides gambling people holding jokers and spades we come to this city hard life and we sob wailing praying celebrating people bending and sweating we come to this hiss crack slap snap siren whirl holler electric zip and burn city round in bustling corners banging our head against destiny and crumbling brick walls of confusion we come we come to this city that can cage us and rage us deny us revile us turn us from friend and family into prey and predator we reclaim our neighbors in the hood who keep our hearts beaten with the rhythm of the drums we come to this city and we name it ours I decided to do this piece because of war because there's a war going on in Sudan because there's a war going on in Palestine and yes there's a war going on in Ukraine but I went to office depot and the little machine came up it said do you want to donate to Ukraine and I said well can I do donate to Sudan the guy said what so this is for war but I don't want you to just think of Ukraine because the planet is on fire the planet is on fire and war in the 20th and 21st century means civilians die what is left but the shoes shoes scuffed and torn no longer having feet to carry them shoes empty now work boots still bearing mud from the last field that he had plowed with his father empty now red sneakers with white stripes brought back from America by her oldest son given to her youngest both of them immediately running outside kicking the soccer ball back and forth the older one ruffling the younger's hair after a well-aimed goal empty now heavy and white they were the first pair of shoes she ever walked in the first she had learned to untie so that she could wriggle out and once again feel the sand sift between her toes empty now his work boots were resold many times next season he would have bought a new one or perhaps the season after that but these old ones dark and from the soil had become supple and familiar they knew his feet grasped his ankles kept them strong empty now she had smiled when he offered her the embossed leather pumps made for in Italy from the pattern he had carefully traced around her narrow feet long toes tapered in perfect symmetry empty now regulation boots smooth by sand salt crystals seeming to be so much a part of the desert they had walked the inside soles showing imprints of thick heavy feet empty now and these handmade slippers were a vanity only a grandmother silk flowered kiss that never touched the grand because as her father's favorite she was still carried everywhere empty now the red heels she saved for the brown loafers passed down the sandals strapped and tied oh empty now the flesh gone the blood gone the legs gone all gone always a pleasure to be honored to share a stage with her so you know you know they still do the news at like dinner time you know so this poem is kind of a like that but I just want to tell you a little bit about the end of it which is about the African bees now you know African bees are hard working bees but they are fierce and European bees they kind of lazy but they're mild this is a true story incidentally so this British geneticist said I'm gonna take me some hard-working fierce African bees and I'm gonna mate them with some lazy mild-mannered European bees and I'm gonna get some mild-mannered hard-working bees come to find out no surprise to me when I found out African bees stay up later than European bees true and when do bees mate in the evening and the queen flies up higher and the first drone that gets to her that's who mates African bees fly higher than European bees so they got a whole lot of African bees that were pretty fierce and they broke free in Brazil and they crossed Costa Rica where they killed a cow and went through Mexico got to Texas and so there's a lot of African bees around wreaking some havoc so when I get to part you'll know why they're there newscast death is dropped onto my plate each evening pressed between big game scores and electronic weather report abbreviated newsprint punctuated with glossy photos cut away to open graves large spiny mouthfuls of my dead relatives are stuffed between my clenched teeth and tight jaw tears run from the corners of my eyes they ask me to eat my dead swallow them whole neat hundred year old bourbon distending my belly leaving no waste they asked me to consume my dead and maintain my peace my place each evening the days counting is brought out skimmed across the globe platters of dried and delicate babies mixed with brittle forgotten elders next to terrains of impaled mothers those who only needed to eat those who rotted from man-made diseases those who imploded because their body simply refused to fight anymore a roster of those killed and wounded in battle civilizations unavoidable casualties a portion of suffering piled high presented with a flourish cacophony of applause now open wide to cut to commercial but I have been taught about eating the dead that it is not to be done it is the heart for valor the muscles for strength the soul for forbearance the mind for history eating their expendable their unneeded their discarded the bones cracking between teeth scratching holes into lungs this modern day cannibalism is always painful so I've begun to feed on life watch the African honey bees who move and move migrating across continents gathering building and stinging all who dare exploit the sweetness of their honey I come you see from peoples who have lived for eons making peace with deadly bees while harvesting their lush syrups yes I have begun to feed on life which tastes bitter at times and sticky like melon juice sharp like tree bark feeding on life in bees learning to sting fashioning a stronger high and so this one I wrote with Thomas asked us each to write a poem and I was thinking of standing our ground and holding the line and so this is called lining up because we all have to take a position and even if you think you didn't take a position that was your position so we go line up get in line where's the line Congo line electric slide slide dance line smooth across the floor right a line line please make a line rhyme the line not this time hold the line tight now acknowledge the tearful first line parade to the brass field second line dancing back from the graveyards of memory of the lost and forgotten of the martyred and murdered in front of police lines military lines death lines don't tow the line slip slip below the line forget forget about the border line this land knows no lines is owned by itself unseated by the indigenous caretakers who knew no lines between sea and mountain desert and valley except the fault lines hidden beneath earth's mantle causing the land to crumble and crack don't cross the line be the line the family line the ancestral line hold it tight move it push it forward do not ignore Confederate lines drawn in divorce devotion to an endless war composed of thick armed lines white on one side the rainbows promise on the other cut that line move to the front of the line battle lines formed by those who love humanity cherish our colors celebrate all bloodlines relish all the lines we share and cross hold the line against those who spew hate and ignorance sprouted like skunk weed fouling the air our future lines are determined by our strength not not jive lines trying to catch someone on the sidelines not phone lines full of static and weak connection but by freedom full lifelines existing without flags or doctrines inside drum lines beaten out sustaining rhythms to our soulful song lines. Thank you Dvorah Major. Give another round of applause for Destiny Muhammad and Dvorah Major. Next up we have Tango Eisen Martin. Tango is San Francisco's eighth and current poet laureate. He has been described as a necessary voice for those who are disregarded. Announcing him as poet laureate in 2021 Mayor London Breed said his work on racial justice and equity along with his commitment to promoting social and cultural change comes at such a critical time for our city and county. Eisen Martin is an educator and organizer whose work centers on mass incarceration, extrajudicial killings of black people and human rights. His published poetry collections include someone's dad already, heaven is all goodbyes, waiting behind tornadoes for food, blood on the fog. He co-founded the black radical publishing group Black Freighter Press. I just I want to make this side note because so often folks talk about their commitment to social justice and cultural change and they take it to the academic institutions and they center on working with educators but what I really appreciate about Tango is the commitment to actually work with people, to work with folks with the lived experience and not talk about how to transform the justice system without actually talking to folks who have been incarcerated or still incarcerated. So I celebrate the move from just raising awareness to actually working to cede the power with the folks most impacted. So I appreciate and respect and thank you and honor you for that work. Tango, please come. Short man. I talk facing away from the dead. They replace me with the change in my pocket, a penny that's yet to be invented. They say you have to know how to cut a throat on the way to cut in the throat. After sleeping on a mattress made from two garbage bags of clothes I became content with the small gestures of plantation fires. I mean playing with couch ashes I realize how weird the universe was. It exists in so many places, so many random things. It interrupts me while I'm trying to dream. Like your clay correspondence Lord. To be transparent I have 20 books next to a bullet like an old man giving advice at the beginning of a revolution. I've really done it Lord. Explored the mumbles of my mind. Explored what's naturally there and I found no brainwashing. I found my life in a circle Lord. I have a future. It takes place in the diasporic south. I have morning possessions. Modern militancy. I'm in windows to the south. I'll walk on a missile for food. I guess you will not want flowers for a few years Lord. Will I be tired face to face with the country I murder merged with this Lord. An old medal versus a new medal. Old medal versus a pool of meandering and periodless faces of multiculturalism of sorts. It takes place me with a comedian's chest cavity instead of a chest cavity held tight. It takes a violent middle man for me to talk to myself. Stories that travel through other people's stories. A song about a song and hemisphere about a hemisphere. Stories that travel through a conquered poet. My mother remembers Africa Lord. She killed on behalf of you Lord. I wore a machete all winter and no one asked me what it meant. I read 1,000 books in front of the world. What I do is fight poems and sleep through deck in San Francisco prayer circles. People play for post-working class associative surfaces of recreations of a governance desk. Ruling class art of utility flank plan. Find a sociopathic bureaucrat. A day some white people scare even easier. TV in the basket next to a ceramic baby wearing ceramic armor. Musket prosody fantasizing through the art of the poor. Their trendy latches locked before God. Black art hunted down like a dog and hand over my friends Lord. Lord I think I'm going down a war. Unelected white people in my small house like a blue song. No spiritual effect or dollhouse age bomb. A pony show near dead bodies. A part-time weddings that go right. Part-time white people who give birth to mathematicians. The spiritual continuity of barracks and police stations. A chemical interpretation of a Sunday trip to church. Church smells in their pockets. A river mistaken for a talking river. No autobiography outside of small personal victories of violence and drug use. Made in the image of God trinkets of white abolitionists confided in their children about. And chemical assurances that they will switch. From black artists to white artists. From black guy to white guy. From black worker to white worker. I think about you cautiously Lord. The same way I think about my childhood Lord. Foxhole Friday nights man most of life is new. A comedian points out a planters field to a priest. King sugar, king cotton, king revolutionary, the Bible is central. Containing all modes of shallow introduction introducing. An unlisted planter class speaking about fevers and balance sheets. And reassuring the masses that we could figure out our fathers later. A priest took my mother lightly Lord. Sitting in front of parishioners, re-ravelling fantasies about black art. Priest reading confidently before I broke him and broke his parallel. You know after the day I've never been a poet before. A little brother watches his big brother's friends. They lean rifles on shoulder walls. They agree with me and call it literature. It's a simple matter this revolution thing. It's a really lot of knowing. To keep nothing God like. To write a poem for God. I go to the railroad tracks and follow them to the station of my enemies. A cobalt-toothed man pitches pennies at my mug shot. Negative all over the United States. There are toddlers in the rocket. I see why everyone out here got in the big cosmic basket and why blood agreements mean a lot and why it gets shot back at. I understand the psycho-spiritual refusal to write white history and take the glass freeway. White skin tattooed on my right forearm ricochet. Sewers near where I collapsed into a rat-infested manhood. My new existence is living with feeding. In the kitchen with a lot of gun cylinders to hack up. House of God in part. No cops in part. My body brings down the Christmas. The new bullets pray over blankets made from the old bullets. Pray over the $28 next beauty mark. Extra-judicial Confederate statue restoration. The waistband before the next protest poster. Hey, by the way, time is not an illusion, your honor. I will save your death for last. You're a witty, your honor. You're moving money again, your honor. It's all you're writing one thing. Nine white cops in prison guard shadows reminded me of spoiled milk floating on the oil spill in neighborhood making a lot of fuss over his demise. A new lake before a black Panther Party. Malcolm X's ballroom jacket slung over my son's shoulder. The figment of village. A new noose to a new white preacher. All in an abstract painting of a president. Lost slavery is some time, didn't it? Attempted screeches of military bolts in election Tuesday. Claws of cold-blooded study and leg-ons proof that some white people have actually fondled nooses. And their sundown couples made their vows of love over opaque piece plastic in both-action audiences. The mid-gravel second is definitely my favorite law of science. Fondled news clippings and primitive methodists. My arm changes and periodisms. Simple policing versus structural frenzies. Elementary school script bursts even wider white spectrums. Artless bleeding and a challenge of watching civilians think. Terrible rituals they have around the corner. They let their elders beg for public mercy. I'm going to go ahead and sharpen these kids' hairs and their ears myself and see how much gravy spills out of Family Crest, Modern Fans Award. Well, well, well, well, well, with their T-shirt poems and T-shirt gill. And me having on the cheapest pair of shoes on the bus, I have no choice but to read the city walls for signs of my life. You know, first I should have apologized to the souls of the house because I'm wearing the cheekbones of the mask only. Like a pill bottle whose name is yours, named tagged on the side of a factory of wrists. I mean, teeth of the mask now. Back of the head of the mask now. A new phase of anti-anthropomorphism fended for real faces. Suck with one of those coaches that believes I chose this family. I mean, I'm not creative. Just the silliest of the revolutionaries. My blood drying on my only jacket. The police state psychic middleman evangelizing for the creation of an unmasked and unmetagored. Blood of a lamb less racialized or awesome prison sentence. Right angle made between a point on a Louisiana plantation and a five-year-old's rubber ball three feet high and falling like a deportee plane. To complete my interpretation of garden variety genocide. You know, I'm small talk about loving your enemies a little more realistically about paper tigers and all so gold. I need my left hand back. Broke my neck on a piano key found paradise in a fist fight. Maybe I should check into the Cuban line watching the universe's last metronome, some called Black Jackabins. I just wait, just wait. These religions will start resigning in a decade or two. Some colorfully, some transactionally in a cotton gothic society class betrayal on classes. I mean, ironically, my window started fogging over too as I was trying to figure out which Haiti would get me through the winter. Which poem houses souls? Which socialist breakthroughs? Breakthroughs like taking ten steps back and finally trying steps. Like introducing Gabriel Prosser to the loneliest muck. I mean, I'll remember childhood. Remember the word childhood being a beginning. Scribbling on an amazing grace, I rented this body from some circumference of slavery. Remember being kicked out the Midwest. Strange truth theater, lithium in circuses, like-minded stomachs. I mean, the ruling class blessing their blank checks with levy phone, with opioid tea. Sentient dollar bills yelling to each other pocket to pocket. Cello stands in the precinct for accompanying counter-revolutionaries. My mother raised me with a simple pain. A poet loses his mind. Like the room has weather. A first-girlfriend gravity differs between me and you. The madness wants me forever. A pair of apartments defining both my family and political composure. Books behind my back. Bail money paved into the streets playing euphoria, euphoria, cliché. Racing for the medicine's recall. Sharing a dirty belly sounds to my friends. Black Jackabins underground topography of a grandmother's hand. Psychology of the mask now. Teeth of the mask again. You know, all street life to a certain extent starts fair. Sometimes with a spiritual memory even. Pre-dial soul clap, your father dying even. Maybe I pushed the city too far. My sensitivities in landfill, district thing in menstrual whistles. White supremacist graffiti on westbound rail guards all overcoming re-authored. Re-authored by Revolutionary Violence that chose its own protagonist from new stages of genius. The garbage is growing voices. Condensed Marxism. For warrior depressives underpasses in their pockets because they just might be deities of decent bid on the panther name. Immersive for Marxism. This disquieted home life of metaphor for relaxing next to a person who is relaxing next to a gun. I stared my father for a few seconds then returned to my upbringing. Returned to the souls of Ohio black folk. You know, revolution down in Pagan at this point. You know what the clown wants? The respect of the ant. Wants to interpret pain only. Wants to pull a 38 out of a begging bowl. Wants me to hurt my hand on this pain. I'm not tired of these rooms. Just tired of the world that give them a relativity. My only change of clothes that I executed to government finally learned how to write poems. Shoot out there, briefly a line. Then make up a parable. A parable is like, white bodies are paid well. Do white men even have leaders? All white people, white men. A rat pinch is a river. Can almost take the race of divide. Can almost roll the family members heading to a city hall legislative chamber. Knows who in this good book will fly me. All I do is practice, Lord. Decided not to talk out of anger ever again. Met my wife at the same time I met new audience members for our pain. We pass each other cigarettes and watch cops win. A city gone uniquely linear. Harlem of the West do a true universal. I'll always remember you in fancy clothes, my wife said. So here I sit, twisting and silk ideation. Rifle made of post-bellum tar. Targets made of an honest language. This San Francisco poetry is how God knows that it's me whining. Riding among the lesser respected wolves. Lesser observed militarization. Dixie list prison bookkeeping. I mean the California great coaster coming. Lynch mob gossip and bourgeois debt collection. I mean it's tempting to change professions. Men poem in the Chicago briefing. The white sergeant saying blank slate for all of us after this black organizer is dead. Standard academics toasting two buck wine at the table rate. Bay of nothing Lord. Just nuclear cobblestone's gun lined athleticism in the last of the inherited asthma. Children giving white dolls to play with in fear. Facial expressions barred from rich people's shoe strings. I can hear hate and teach hate and call tools by people names and name people dead to themselves. Knowing getting naturalized except for a legion soon. Carving the equator in a toast soon. Sorry to make you relive all this, Lord. All these pre-died monarchy friends putting up politician posters and snorting remainder at a pace. Mental scripts shoved into the walls by their elders. My children sharpening quarters on the city's ass. For these audiences I project myself into a ghost-like state. For these gangsters I do the same. Every now and then take a nervous look east. Sleep becomes Christ. Sleep starts growing a racial identity. Do you ever spiral, Lord? Has the gang age betrayed us? Be patient with my poems, Lord. So much pain is a point to crown. I mean it has to be a phrase. Traders come with it, Lord. Is that my revolver in your hand? You know, better presidents than these have yonder cages. Have called us holy slaves. Filled the school libraries with cop documentaries, baby. I don't have money for food. Shit. I don't have a present moment at all. Apparently, apparently too much of San Francisco was not there in the first place. This dream, it requires more condemned Africans, or put another way, state violence rises down. Or still life is just getting warmed up. Or army life is looking for a new church and ignored all other suggestions. Or folktale writers have not made up their minds as to who is going to be their friends. I mean, this is the worst downtown yet and I brought a cigarette everywhere. I've taken many a walk to the back of a bus that let on out the back of a storyteller's prison sentence. Then on out the back of slave scores, but this is my comeback phase. I left my watch on the public bathroom sink and took the toilet with me. Through that the first bus I saw, eating single mothers half alive. It flew through the bus line number then on out the front of the White House. I mean, hopefully you find comfort downtown, but if not, we brought you enough cigarette filters to make a decent winter coat, a special species of handshake. Let's all know who's king and what's the lifespan of a uniform cloth. This coffin needs to quit acting like those of birds singing. Rusty nails have no wings, have no voice other than that white world down there, book pages in the gas pump, catchy, isn't it? The way three nooses is the rule of the way, potato sack mask goes so well with radio calls of the way, condemned Africans fault they way back to the ocean, only to find ways made of 1920s, burped up piano parts, European backdoor deals, and red flowers for widows who spend all day in the sun mumbling in San Francisco. Red flowers, but what's the color? What's the color of a doctor visit? There are book titles in the streets. Book titles like, hero, you make a better zero. Or, hey, fur coat lady, the president is dead. Or, pay me back in children. Or, they hung up their bodies in their own, they hung up their bodies in their own museums. And other book titles pulled from a drum solo. Run here, hero, lie at the hiding place. All the bullets and 10 precincts know where to go. There's no heaven or any other good idea in the sky. Politics means that people did it and people do it. Understand that when in San Francisco and other places that was never really there, I bet this ocean thinks it's an ocean, but it's not. It's just 60 Mission Street. All know who's king. King of thin things. You know, like America, I'm proud to deserve to die. I'm going to eat my dinner extra slow tonight in this police state candy dispensary. You all call the neighborhood. No set of manners. Goes unpunished. Nevermind the murderers and Sony or the T cattle preparing everyone for police violence. You know, societies wander together like hopeful drops of a virus. Citizen testimony is bent on offering me a nation of breadwinners to hold me back. Like it's a brinks. I wrinkle the concrete sometimes like flesh. My Martin Luther King permanence turned away from a podium into the reeds like God is the dangerous twin. Black august to the mountain top balcony on my bedroom floor. You know, they steal you from the earth itself and suspend you when you're broken neck from their foolish euphoria. From the loyalty out of their great superstitions. Loyalty out of their agrarian reform. I returned to my mother completely disrespected for peeling the heat off of purgatory. They kill poets like me. Walk me away from my poems never to be heard from again. In this final industrial complex or bloodlines picked over, picked through a sporting spiritual death or you devil at least half made police become a pretty word. I'm reading a lynch mild shoestrings like they were tea leaves teaching you how to write about cities. It's the 25th century in the mirror people tearing the against your chump change and your chump to be mocked even with a gun in your car. Cupid of needlework spilled tune for the proletariat the relapse ministry. Towns of people curled up in a fetal position next to a diamond dime just another service day in the theatrics of tea house fascism. In a bouquet of surveillance cameras in the poverty of God. New blue eyes, corpses of water a newly potted presidency. A one big shiny coin if you ask animated capitalism another nonliteral voice killing his wife freedom. The deification of hyphens. Medicine bread and picture shows great protestors in L.A. guess of our ink. Drop kicking rose in the grave you are D.C. Mink like a stone torn in half the pen advances despite CIA guideposts despite non-African passing futures a metaphorical but not surreal day in the horn-ridden life. Horn player improvising king like a radio prize fight featuring Shango himself a real hand sweeps the land of racism may I return to the ground may I make progress with the gun on our mother Emmanuel they put on music that evening a swinging type body language feed a drink with four minute five dollar bills for your body language some applause my stomach lining neither a good thing nor a bad thing like being psychic on the way to a lethal injection it'll sit you down with Lady Day Lady Day leading you to surrender their souls to Africa too soon Polly Thor floating in a cup of water she saved me accessing my stomach accessing the love of the American lynched coat sleeves wooden avalanche into the wrist our mother Emmanuel avalanche into the sharp keys pain the deal you make with pain piano makes sense for them laying hands on the world gradually addressing the bend the next on the streets of the north traveler sailing in pain repeating pain in the north ten trigger fingers on that piano and harmony will have me putting a hundred fights on every direction over the Lady Day leaning on trees again recruiting the countryside itself saying let you plant out on this lightning make your poems the corner pocket of men I've greeted the blues itself America may clean my dead body but will never include me there goes the poet killing without killing never mind this painting of your language may I be a meaningful lynching a crow's passing good and dead by the afternoon what's up man yeah thank you give up another round Destiny Muhammad and Tongo Eisen Martin amazing I got I feel like I just was I want to thank Shana Sherman and Thomas Simpson for inviting us to the church of poetry today yes to witness the spiritual revolution and to be challenged to be a part of it so thank you so much Thomas and Shana for this opportunity and to the amazing speakers and poets today another round of applause as Thomas and Shana come thank you very very much Dr. Davis and as usual you did a fantastic job one thing I've come to learn from working with Dr. Davis is that she often winds have given more than what one expected or even what she may have predicted and that's been the case today also so thank you again we've kind of been through some trenches around health care and health fairs over the years so I really appreciate you and what you do and what you're doing now and did someone say you were a commissioner you're the city librarian introduce yourself everybody Michael Lambert I'm proud to be your city librarian thank you for being here today alright thank you very very much I would like to thank you do you have any closing words yes thank you for all coming out books are all available upstairs on the third floor in a special display so if you have time check us out on the third floor another thing I would like to say is I've looked at some of these photos in this exhibit as I wandered around and if you get a chance take a look at them do you know anything about this exhibit or is this permanent you're not sure okay but there's some vent do you know these photos are from the San Francisco History Center so these are historical photographs of the African American community in our city alright thank you one thing I'd like to do last before we go is we invited the spirits of our ancestors to come be with us we'd like to allow them and ask them to go back to their resting place so we do that by saying assay assay thank you so very much we look forward to seeing you at our future events if you didn't get an email about this event if you'd like to know more about what we do there's a place that you can sign up out of the table out there in the semi lobby alright thank you and have a good evening