i always thought sound was meant to indicate a kinda genuine, authentic, absolute individuation, which struck me as A: undesirable—& B: damn near impossible. whereas sound was reality in the midst of this intense engagement with all the sound you ever heard. sound shaped within a climate inciting performance as black matter .or. anti matter, as in against. sound a central body of “sonic” whereas you struggle to make a difference, so to speak, within that sound—& that difference isn’t necessarily about you as an individual but more simply trying to augment & differentiate the sound around you getting closer & closer to a never-ending where you are the proletariat in somebody else’s melodrama as both spectacle and spectator—as the drama unfolds—hold—hold on.

At the end of every holocaust film I’ve seen and there

are not that many

they show real life survivors and the lines are

Never Again

and some of us like me/stare into these films

down long tunnels of history

wondering how it could have ever happened at all

that a leader and his minions could be so toxic, poisonous

you’d turn against your neighbors

and you could be so oblivious, brainwashed, scared

desperate to be superior or to survive

you’d do anything-or almost.

They say never again

but it is again

as I look at the deportations

round ups

I’m reminded of Idi Amin when he cast out foreigners

and Forest Whitaker in the film The Last King of Scotland/when he played him.

And to see it is again

at rallies, at protests, they show the coat hangers and crude instruments

women were forced to use in back alley abortions

We say never again but taking away women’s choice

and Planned Parenthood it is again.

Today started out in an argument with a so called fan

who didn’t understand why I mentioned race so much in my new book

and that white man is not the first/a black woman

asked too.

I wanted to scream HELLO haven’t you seen the news?

Didn’t you see what happened to Stephon Clark?

unarmed and shot in the back six times by police

And no one even cares what happens to women/

Black lesbians or lesbians of color

There’s no public outcry.

A student once wrote to me in an academic paper

that a parent forced her to stop playing sports

because they said sports made her more of a dyke

It murdered my student inside because she was an athlete

Yeah so the white guy I argued with about my book

said he was just giving me some good advice

from his experience as an empath

I said I don’t need your advice

I have reasons for talking about race and gender in the interpersonal

He said he was just trying to help me.

I’ll offer this non-sequitur

Winnie Mandela died a few weeks ago

She had great impact on me

I read she was nobility

But then of course the difference between her and say

how Princess Diana was treated

Everyone accepted and loved Diana’s silent/passive status

She was allowed to be gorgeous

No one ever associated her with that dirty colonial stain

There are moments in that recent Winnie Mandela doc that stand out to me

where she buried her face in her hands and screamed out

as I have so many times, “I’ve been betrayed”/the other moment

was when she said she was the only ANC member

brought to TRC and made to testify

Also that Nelson Mandela forgave a nation

but he could never forgive her.

I think what was done to Winnie

is also done to other Black women and working artists

Black women fighting to give language/resistance

but it only matters when a celebrity says or does it.

At Cape Coast Castle in Ghana after you’ve passed

the door of no return

there is a plaque donated to the Castle by Black tribal elders/it reads:

May we never sell ourselves into slavery again...

But it is Again.

 1. Because man’s place is the armory.

 2. Because no really manly man wants to settle any question otherwise than by fighting about it.

 3. Because if men should adopt peaceable methods women will no longer look up to them.

 4. Because men will lose their charm if they step out of their natural sphere and interest themselves in other matters than feats of arms, uniforms and drums.

 5. Because men are too emotional to vote. Their conduct at baseball games and political conventions shows this, while their innate tendency to appeal to force renders them particularly unfit for the task of government. 

I use a trick to teach students
how to avoid passive voice.

Circle the verbs.
Imagine inserting “by zombies”
after each one.

Have the words been claimed
by the flesh-hungry undead?
If so, passive voice.

I wonder if these
sixth graders will recollect,
on summer vacation,
as they stretch their legs
on the way home
from Yellowstone or Yosemite
and the byway’s historical marker
beckons them to the
site of an Indian village—

Where trouble was brewing.
Where, after further hostilities, the army was directed to enter.
Where the village was razed after the skirmish occurred.
Where most were women and children.

Riveted bramble of passive verbs
etched in wood—
stripped hands
breaking up from the dry ground
to pinch the meat
of their young red tongues.

1. 	It bejins in Berlin
	
	A Historical Case
	Study 
	In Disappearance + Cultural Theft:
	Exhibit YZ:

	Brinj back to me Nefertiti 
      Her 
	Bust

Take her
From behind 
	the vitrine 
	
	For I know where to find her missinj eye
	
	Then put a woman in charje of all antiquities. 
	She-law: just because somethinj is beautiful 
	doesnt mean it was meant to be consumed; just because there are
 	tourists doesnt make it an attraction. 

2. 	everywhere anytxme atm her
	vxolatxon: guaranteed.  sxlence bought             or your settlement
 	money back. objectxfactxon xn the mxrror xs closer than xt appears.
	please mxnd the wage gap. cautxon: not chxld resxstant to open hold 	
	down 	and turn away squee geez use daxly, mornxng, and nxght
 	supported by an aroma of certified organxc heavens:

	for every gxrl who grows 
	xnto a woman
	who knows
	the best threat’s: 
	one she never 
	has to make
	
	she sublxmates your sublxmxnal
	even your affectxon has been xnfected


3. this poem cant go on without hex i mean 
	hex 
	heeee x
	hex
hex and hex
		hex 		hej heq hez hex

she was stolen bought sold lost put undex buxied alive at bixth she was dxagged in blue bxa duxing a xevolution with vixginity tests she waits then she doesnt she sh sh sh shh she left you she the best thing that happened to you then she lilililililiiii she intifada she moves with two kinds of gxace she ups the ante aging by candid defiant elegance she foxgets but nevex foxgives 

She-language complex 
she complex she so complex she complex got complex complex

4. she spends her time anxious because she knows she is better than 
you rang to say she died from being tired of your everything she knows she is fiyne; gorgeous but she hates it when she infuriates and when she jigs and is kind she minds her own business except when she is new and nervous though she is origin previous and impervious she wont stay quiet she is razor sharp and super tired she undarks, vets, wanes, and xeroxes; yaks and zzzzs the day she dreams 

5. Me tooa B  Me toob Me tooc R  Me tood Me tooe I  Me toof N  Me toog G  

Me tooh                 them 

Me tooi B  Me tooj A  Me took C Me tool K  Mem too Men too Me tooo 

Meep 

too                 Meq too 

Mer too Me too Me too Meu too Mev too Mew too Mex too Mey too Mez too 

            Me     ((too)) Me                               ((((((((((((too))))))))))))

(“My wife is against suffrage, and that settles me.”—Vice-President Marshall.)

I.

My wife dislikes the income tax,
   And so I cannot pay it;
She thinks that golf all interest lacks,
   So now I never play it;
She is opposed to tolls repeal
   (Though why I cannot say),
But woman’s duty is to feel,
   And man’s is to obey.

II.

I’m in a hard position for a perfect gentleman,
   I want to please the ladies, but I don’t see how I can,
My present wife’s a suffragist, and counts on my support,
   But my mother is an anti, of a rather biting sort;
One grandmother is on the fence, the other much opposed,
   And my sister lives in Oregon, she thinks the question’s closed;
Each one is counting on my vote to represent her view.
   Now what should you think proper for a gentleman to do?

(“I am opposed to woman suffrage, but I am not opposed to woman.”—Anti-suffrage speech of Mr. Webb of North Carolina.)

O women, have you heard the news
       Of charity and grace?
Look, look how joy and gratitude
       Are beaming in my face!
For Mr. Webb is not opposed
       To woman in her place!

O Mr. Webb, how kind you are
       To let us live at all,
To let us light the kitchen range
       And tidy up the hall;
To tolerate the female sex
       In spite of Adam’s fall.

O girls, suppose that Mr. Webb
       Should alter his decree!
Suppose he were opposed to us—
       Opposed to you and me.
What would be left for us to do—
       Except to cease to be?

            ^{After reading a letter from his mother, Harry T. Burn cast the deciding vote to ratify the 19th amendment of the U.S. Constitution}

My parents are from countries
where mangoes grow wild and bold
and eagles cry the sky in arcs and dips.
America loved this bird too and made

it clutch olives and arrows. Some think
if an eaglet falls, the mother will swoop
down to catch it. It won’t. The eagle must fly
on its own accord by first testing the air-slide

over each pinfeather. Even in a letter of wind,
a mother holds so much power. After the pipping
of the egg, after the branching—an eagle is on
its own. Must make the choice on its own

no matter what its been taught. Some forget
that pound for pound, eagle feathers are stronger
than an airplane wing. And even one letter, one
vote can make the difference for every bright thing.