Dead As Stone

today i ate real mexican food
made by latinos
in this town, a playground
for rich people
after 3 months, i can call san francisco
mine
i spent more money on books
than on music or clothes
and pity the people who
ride in limosines
how boring they must be
to hide behind tinted windows
to get attention!
all kinds of girls i see around town
orientals, latinas, whites, and sistas i see with men, with other women
kissing and speaking to each other softly
but i'm afraid to trust anyone freely now
ever since i left behind a woman in ohio
who said she loved me
wanted to see me successful
but became a bitch when our love died
ten years worth of writing on computer discs
most of them, i left behind
i'll never see them again
i mourned my loss as if they were children
but i know i'll always write
as long i'm alive
i don't think about the street people or tricksters
who find freedom in nothingness
i just thank god he takes care of me
i ride the train listen to opera and classical music
and know beauty has its own language
at my place i see men down the hall
talking to a white man
later my neighbor told me one of the tenants
O.D'd on heroin
that was the first time i ever saw a dead body
outside of a funeral
at grandaddy's funeral, my dad and uncle ferdinand
cried all over themselves, blubbering
that was the ONLY time i saw the men in my family
feeling vulnerable i didn't tell my dad i loved him until i was 25
i go back out into the streets
knowing that words will always be my salvation
that i'll never be like my father and uncle
or the man placed onto a guerney
sheet covering him into darkness
Dead as stone

Oasis

she had the beach all to herself
yet her soul
was empty as death
void as the ocean
all of her money could not hold her
could not tell her she was beautiful
desparation hid behind a face
pale as winter
until he took her hand and told her
her bitchiness could fade like the waves
that an oasis exsisted
they could share
all she had to do was follow him there

Potrero Hill ( For Daddy)

Daddy has been to Cali before
he was in Oakland during his Airman days
before shipping out to Japan
I talk to him from a pay phone
on Potrero Hill
Looking at Downtown San Francisco
as it slopes down at an angle
his mind has tricked himself
into believing the birthday phone call
is a annual ritual
so i let him believe
its easier for me to let go
to just hold him to me
and feel his gray whiskers brush my cheek
and love him in spite of what he is
forgetting the weeds in his soul
I tell him San Francisco
is not a cheap town
a run down efficiency
will run you a grand a month easily
some people work full time
and live in shelters
because they cant afford a decent room
but Dad didn't damn my dream this time
we both agreed Chicago was too cold
and too much like New Orleans
he laughs at me as i laugh at myself
I have inherited his wandering feet
and his taste for life
the way we both appreciate the pronounced
curves on a woman
and Al Green singing his Love Jones
on a quiet storm jam...
Daddy accepts me as I am
and I do likewise
We come to know the essence of grace
which is loving the sinner
but hating the sin...

An Old Black Woman Reads Her Poetry

wearing an old brown hat
and frumpy brown check coat
she recited words
she wrote as a teenage girl
instantly, i was impressed
someone once so young,
was so deep
i was not put off
by her downtrodden,homeless look
she was a storyteller
lighting my way through the madness
I came closer, so my ears
could feed on the morsels she gave
her voice fed me
reminding me of how black she was
and how black i needed to be