blood on the keys
for beverly anne gaines

tranes a comin
an i'm a hummin
cuz I's hurtin real bad
but
what else is new
kinda blue
no burnt
describes it better
but diz said it best
nappy as a nite
in tunisia
couldn't even please her once
but
tranes a comin
cruisin on down the track
trip switched
through a lite haze
heaven can't be but a
double-dutch
skip jump away
and i wonder
when
where
why can't i share this
gretchen like grief
with someone other than my
micro-mini stereo
stylistics kickin love ballistics
twistin my
heartaches like earthquakes
in a
southern cali beachfront town
so damn down ups
way below sea level
see
love don't love nobody
lessin it's a LOVE SUPREME
not the bein but the feelin
cuz that's my god
hard grey slate taste
which roams in my mouth
when i ain't spoken
to A/nuther pair of eyes
in days
trane plays
like my baby lays me
down at dawn
gone
like every woman
since the birth
of my mother's death
requesting happiness
is a hollow hurt
haunting my every waking desire
didn't i blow your mind
this time it would end and begin
at the same moment
not on the outside but inside
where wrong is that
which frightens me most
more than mom's ghost playin
guess how many jellybeans
are black and broken
and he was only jokin when he screamed
"YO MOMMA!"
"his moms dead
and i'll kick all you niggers ass
if the shits said again"
then
i couldn't hang
had to hold my tyrant tongue
air lungs in
other ways
created a creature of habit
this heroin robot
controlled by the fear of
thinking alone
i'd become a
full blown home grown emotional paraplegic
in search of foreign lesions
in the
wine bottled confines
of lafayette park
awash in the shadow of this
rustic slut
decked in decadence
fenced by a force so foul yet invisible
it resented it's own
makeshift shallow reflection
introspective/indigestive/pseudo-nouveau diet
kinda like a
sly stone quiet riot
righteous
rebellious
religious beliefs
but they was always laughin
at my two front teeth
bucks like the dollar two
crazy glue
could'nt keep us together
SHE
the better half of a whole wheat note
miss mammy wrote
sayin i was sick
but i was just sad
my moms passed
"put that broom down
you ain't clean shit
while she was around!"
brown sugar melted
oatmeal lumped
bumped my head fallin from the back
of a speeding truck
lucky i ain't die
U/mun/gus KnoTT plus
two blue-black eyes
for my trouble
bubblegum stuck
to the end of a stick
nit-pickin fishin for coins
corrupted
conceited
nick/named special ed
shared a spring with three
but my pop's moms
had the
nerve to call it a bed
head had holes
when i woke
told to shush
before i spoke
which caused tears to roll like
roaches crawlin up the wall
in a room with no door
we wasn't poor
sure
i wore bernie beckles clothes
but everybody knows it wuz cuz
his moms was madd nice
franco american chicken gravy and rice
for breakfast
baloney and butter on wonder
for lunch
dinner
pot lucky if anything was in the pot
but i got over it
made it on through cuz
kinda blue
soothed my soul
satanized my sAtanized ears
punk my years
groovin to
africa brass
a shape a jazz to come

had some sorta reason
to be be beleivin
be alright
gonna
be alright
ev/ra/thing is gonna
be alright
and now at night
though i see blood stained keys
dancin in my head
no more spring
bed now called futon
and i've gone
way beyond
my most morbid expectations
trippin travlin
taste/N bits a culture
i never knew
still
skyin with bird
scattin with billie
rarely feelin kinda
blue is the light
which illuminates
the darkest steps
leading to my dog/war dawns
light
like my moms words
when she said
every good-bye
ain't gone