On the Orange Line
some carried
boom boxes like briefcases
babies like groceries
and stout little bottles
like bibles
protected inside brown bags
from thumping
It’s about what people do
and what people say
On the Orange Line
On the Orange Line
I can see Michelangelo’s innerness
like the monk
the anonymous critic
who said, “The David”
is a homoerotic composition
a platonic love for the male body
that approaches erotic dimensions
On the Orange Line
with so little movement
on this human-scape
Clean and safe
inside the rubber doors
deliberately close to the gallows
David wanted out of his dirty world
When he described the disorder
Giovanni built cathedrals on his back
and rose windows with his hands for him
On the Orange Line
On the Orange Line
My father looked at me
like Noah looked at Ham
when Ham looked at Noah
as if he did something
ungodly and unplatonic
to him
In love so completely ruptured
Ham tried to stay
the flow of blood
with women too beautiful
for proverbs
Their eyes were
divining rods
for sex and dreaming
On the Orange Line
On the Orange Line
They beat him down on the threshing floor
he was too beautiful for words
They gave him something to cry about
and like the Egyptians
they sodomized him in turn
For the sake of the Orange Line
they made him their little boy
For the sake of the Orange Line
On the Orange Line
The housenegro in church on Sunday
said nothing about who would
be bought and
who would be sold
on the auction block tomorrow
and no one asked, and no one told…
What do you do when your enemy
goes to the same church you go to?
On the Orange Line
without room for rapture
or space for rape
I rested my stop on
my fingers
and the mad boy
the made boy
came on
Political obscenities abound!
The Million Women March
will reproduce
the matriarchal society
and transform it into what ~
new and improved Black Madonnas?
The Million Women March
legitimizes
the Million Man March
without the benefit of prudence
When the Million Man March
goes down in history
as an epic tragedy
you have facilitated
the perpetuation
of the sacrificial black woman
You risk the future
of born and unborn children
for generations to come
Duplicating unwise
and circumscribed politics
The fat lady is singing again
But this is not a corner stoop
in Harlem
and she is far too milky
to anticipate the social
and political implications
of a Million Women March
You cannot answer my questions
without trying to suckle me!
This is what I am afraid of…
Keep your blouse on!
Your ample bosom
is an integral
part of the problem
~ not the solution!
Do the black man a favor
take his body down
beat your heart
weep and wash his feet
wrap him in fine linen
and cover him with spices
Maybe if you mourn him
you can resurrect him
He might make an appearance again
Not only did the Black Madonna
leave him on the cross
she won’t take him down
Take him off the cross now!
Everyone else has
Maybe you like the view
from the ground
We are beyond Brown and Newton
we’re on fallacious arguments now
Where are you going
other than the ground
On the Orange Line?
On the Orange Line
I saw dog paws
tattooed on her thigh
and red daisies
on her boots
My prism came from
within
and landed on my skin
In random chimera conceits
I think
of blue nights and black mornings
The full moon in the white Winter sky
with pink Cirrus lips
demons and febrile mouths
Rimbaud, and blackbirds in epic simile
Squirrels that wait for green lights
Keisha!
and white girls
on billboards
on black streets
And the mad boy sang
“Ooh day Ooh day….
You got me humpin’…”
On the Orange Line
The station point
where esoteric beginnings
are setups
for sublime endings
Copyright 2004 by E Maria Shelton Speller, Explode. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
The Orange Line is inspired by The Last Poets’ On The Subway…