Ronald Palmer
Hom: (Age To Hip) Hop:
“In short, blackness is a political and ethical construct.”
––Cornell West, Race-ING Justice, EN-Gendering Power“Why is it that sexuality became, in Christian cultures, the seismograph of our
subjectivity?”
––Michel Foucault, Sexuality and Solitude. . . To be read in the voice of Busta Rhymes:
Coral te: rraces se: cure the logic
of our gla: cia: l nation so please be patient:
with my dam: penned carto: graphy.
I need your minds awakened: no lethargy:
Allowed: I’m black and I’m proud: not etherized by some dumb fable:
I’ll have you earthquakin off your seismo: graphy:
(AND be sure to b: rrrrrring evidence:
of humanity’s brief feeding: ––from motha:earth’s toxic table:
Instead of nursing on your ally’s false temp: tation):
Blink your ass back for re-seeding:
humans are here again: albeit a perp: etual visit: (Knock Knock:
Who is it?) I’m your nightmare’s last fidget:So Go On And Keep Breeding: And I’ll deliver the hollers: the holy rollers
(America: Why are your malls filled with strollers?)
I Think I’ll Send An After Thought: So somebody Gloss it!
I’m the one bleeding:
On and off: like a faucet
from my aching anus: Yo! grind back the gears: switch this bitch into reverse:
Look how the ice sheets (thick as four million years): mimic the universe:
This mind is perverse: I hear our traumatic mothers rehearse
Their fears: then jump up to reinvent the world for us:
wash the world with: their tears: chemically fossilized in deuterium:
My rhyme’ll lock you in: to: ward’s delirium:
With 10 gigga:hertz of memory: swallow the logic of darkness:
hege: mony era: ses your peri: phery:Now: tell me again your gang’s fanged fuss:
if y’all rappers was intelligent
you’d be genuinely dangerous. Yo I’m slippery:
With a weird arro: gance I unwind your treaty: with a salty hero-glance:
I ain’t pretty: but I got enough to plead the greedy:
(And don’t you think it’s about time a faggot got angry? I love you: you know
it: even though you’re homophobic.)(What? I can’t hear ya: come closer:
Did you say an: other sero-con: version?
whisper it here: right into sub: version’s con: front: ation:
Or better yet: into power’s subtler ex: term: in: ation.)
I’m high as an Afro: so where else can a poem go? Except Wrong: very very: Wrong:
But Shepherd already stole Beckett’s best song:So: should I make this: more Dr. Seusish: or more like Play-Dough?
Case: Dismissed: At least I got you thinking hard:
Your face: in twists
Maybe we should pause this: till I move to the city:
Till we stir in the nitty gritty: with Pity me: Pity me:
Now you gotta trust me: (Your body’s so easy to free!)
And I’m counting hour: by hour: beyond the logic of power:
Where every berry: gripes: then re-ripens to sour.