Tuesday, April 26, 2005
how good he is
for wiley lott
3/13/73 to 4/26/05
typically, we grew apart as most youth do when adolescence rears its head, and the stench from lower regions (read: hair on your nuts) starts dictating what we did and how we did it. in our freshman year, he told me, "how come you never call me back when you say you will?" to which i still blew him off in that nonchalant kinda way. i never meant to remove myself from his life or have mine removed from him...but that's what happened.
after high school, he enlisted, and the rest is history...two histories never crossing paths except for attempts that ended with either me not being at home when he came around or him not being there when i just so happened to call him.
a few years ago, i don't know how it happened, but he supposedly took some pills in which he had some type of reaction to them...sleep turned into a coma that lasted for too many months for me to count. but one day, he came out of it, though changed. a former 20-something became a 9-year-old minded boy who only remembered his mother and his grandmother. still, i didn't go see him...so busy caught up in not wanting to feel what i was sure to feel at the sight of him; only having the memories of he and i making puppet shows with people made from cut-up slips of paper with their character names written across them where their feet should've been. he was a barney miller addict; me, the artist on the other end of the spectrum, loved "fame" so when we'd reenact these shows with our little puppets, my shows were always "to be continued" while his had endings. he even made his own tv guides, as his imagination wasn't limited to one or two play-shows. we had a great childhood just being little men who would create and crack jokes all day long.
wiley: why will millie jackson never fall in love?
me: wiley?
wiley: cuz for her, love is a dangerous game...you get it?
me: yeah
those were the kind of jokes we'd tell, and we'd laugh because the cornier the better. but we weren't even in the 2-digit ages yet, and by 14, we had split. we were lucky...most of our peers never completed their first year of high school, and in some cases, hadn't even graduated from 8th grade. wiley and i: both only sons to our mothers. we'd beat the odds and lost one another in the growing and showing that life hands everyone in some form or fashion.
we used to sneak and watch porno movies when his mom was gone. movies with such titles as "king dong", which made us crack up laughing all the time. we were barely eleven, hairy and full of what garp's mother called "lust". we learned what cock and cunt meant at the same age, totally disgusted yet fascinated by what they meant and how the actors/actresses in those movies called their members by these names. and wiley could reenact a story like no one else.
...obviously, the man was talking to much to the lady at the train station, so she started telling him about himself. the man wasn't helping the situation either, and i guess he couldn't stand it no more, so he says to the lady, "lady, you want your ass whipped?" to which she said all sassy, "hmmph, you mean get'cho ass whipped! baby, you don't want no parts of me!" it was the funniest thing, know.
that was just one of many stories i remember, but not even half of those could touch all those we will never get to share at this point in our lives. it hurts right now, because he was my last link with the place we both called home for years. we lived in the same housing project--his family lived in 502 and we lived upstairs in 602. on weekends, we'd talk on the phone while watching the twilight zone, tales from the dark side and the outer limits, both of us too scared to go to the bathroom. this was before cordless phones, so we would listen out for one another's footsteps, and if anything happened to one of us, the other one could call the police. sometimes, we used to tie a scarf or one of my sister's jump ropes to a bag and pass things back and forth from our bedroom windows. had our parents known this, we'd have gotten the taste slapped from our mouths for those stupid acts, too. but we never got caught, and the feeling of accomplishment at getting away with it just made us move on to newer, more dangerous acts--like throwing rocks at the public transportation buses, or attempts to throw rocks on top of the seven story building we lived in (until i broke out mrs. karen's bedroom window on the second floor).
in third grade, he stuck mrs. gordon in the ass with a safety pin...now that was classic! she shook the shit out of him for that, though.
it's funny that the last time we almost hung out was the day i came out to my mother--or rather she called me "out". after that, we really only kept in touch through my younger sister and my younger half-brother. after he came out of the coma changed, we all were affected, but we rarely talked about it. i now will have buried two relatives in less than three weeks time and i am truly fucked up right now. with all the shit going on daily, i'm barely breaking even, but i'm still here...so as cree summer says in that song "deliciously down": i'm not supposed to be for nothing.
wiley used to make these tapes of his singing and rapping back in the day. i wish i'd have kept them, because they were funny as hell. everything was about "i'll rock you, baby" and "watch out, now", but it was the way he said these things that i heard the man in him trying to get out: from under his mother's overprotectiveness, out of the shadow of his father's leaving, and out of the projects we both lived for a good part of our lives.
now he is out and free and just above my head...the place i will continue to look towards just to see his smile reflected in the moon's glow.
and he smiled at me
when he turned to me
& he said to me
how good it is...
Erykah Badu, "Orange Moon"
3/13/73 to 4/26/05
typically, we grew apart as most youth do when adolescence rears its head, and the stench from lower regions (read: hair on your nuts) starts dictating what we did and how we did it. in our freshman year, he told me, "how come you never call me back when you say you will?" to which i still blew him off in that nonchalant kinda way. i never meant to remove myself from his life or have mine removed from him...but that's what happened.
after high school, he enlisted, and the rest is history...two histories never crossing paths except for attempts that ended with either me not being at home when he came around or him not being there when i just so happened to call him.
a few years ago, i don't know how it happened, but he supposedly took some pills in which he had some type of reaction to them...sleep turned into a coma that lasted for too many months for me to count. but one day, he came out of it, though changed. a former 20-something became a 9-year-old minded boy who only remembered his mother and his grandmother. still, i didn't go see him...so busy caught up in not wanting to feel what i was sure to feel at the sight of him; only having the memories of he and i making puppet shows with people made from cut-up slips of paper with their character names written across them where their feet should've been. he was a barney miller addict; me, the artist on the other end of the spectrum, loved "fame" so when we'd reenact these shows with our little puppets, my shows were always "to be continued" while his had endings. he even made his own tv guides, as his imagination wasn't limited to one or two play-shows. we had a great childhood just being little men who would create and crack jokes all day long.
wiley: why will millie jackson never fall in love?
me: wiley?
wiley: cuz for her, love is a dangerous game...you get it?
me: yeah
those were the kind of jokes we'd tell, and we'd laugh because the cornier the better. but we weren't even in the 2-digit ages yet, and by 14, we had split. we were lucky...most of our peers never completed their first year of high school, and in some cases, hadn't even graduated from 8th grade. wiley and i: both only sons to our mothers. we'd beat the odds and lost one another in the growing and showing that life hands everyone in some form or fashion.
we used to sneak and watch porno movies when his mom was gone. movies with such titles as "king dong", which made us crack up laughing all the time. we were barely eleven, hairy and full of what garp's mother called "lust". we learned what cock and cunt meant at the same age, totally disgusted yet fascinated by what they meant and how the actors/actresses in those movies called their members by these names. and wiley could reenact a story like no one else.
...obviously, the man was talking to much to the lady at the train station, so she started telling him about himself. the man wasn't helping the situation either, and i guess he couldn't stand it no more, so he says to the lady, "lady, you want your ass whipped?" to which she said all sassy, "hmmph, you mean get'cho ass whipped! baby, you don't want no parts of me!" it was the funniest thing, know.
that was just one of many stories i remember, but not even half of those could touch all those we will never get to share at this point in our lives. it hurts right now, because he was my last link with the place we both called home for years. we lived in the same housing project--his family lived in 502 and we lived upstairs in 602. on weekends, we'd talk on the phone while watching the twilight zone, tales from the dark side and the outer limits, both of us too scared to go to the bathroom. this was before cordless phones, so we would listen out for one another's footsteps, and if anything happened to one of us, the other one could call the police. sometimes, we used to tie a scarf or one of my sister's jump ropes to a bag and pass things back and forth from our bedroom windows. had our parents known this, we'd have gotten the taste slapped from our mouths for those stupid acts, too. but we never got caught, and the feeling of accomplishment at getting away with it just made us move on to newer, more dangerous acts--like throwing rocks at the public transportation buses, or attempts to throw rocks on top of the seven story building we lived in (until i broke out mrs. karen's bedroom window on the second floor).
in third grade, he stuck mrs. gordon in the ass with a safety pin...now that was classic! she shook the shit out of him for that, though.
it's funny that the last time we almost hung out was the day i came out to my mother--or rather she called me "out". after that, we really only kept in touch through my younger sister and my younger half-brother. after he came out of the coma changed, we all were affected, but we rarely talked about it. i now will have buried two relatives in less than three weeks time and i am truly fucked up right now. with all the shit going on daily, i'm barely breaking even, but i'm still here...so as cree summer says in that song "deliciously down": i'm not supposed to be for nothing.
wiley used to make these tapes of his singing and rapping back in the day. i wish i'd have kept them, because they were funny as hell. everything was about "i'll rock you, baby" and "watch out, now", but it was the way he said these things that i heard the man in him trying to get out: from under his mother's overprotectiveness, out of the shadow of his father's leaving, and out of the projects we both lived for a good part of our lives.
now he is out and free and just above my head...the place i will continue to look towards just to see his smile reflected in the moon's glow.
and he smiled at me
when he turned to me
& he said to me
how good it is...
Erykah Badu, "Orange Moon"
Monday, April 18, 2005
somebody somewhere
"...at first i just stood there bewildered,
maybe i had gone through the wrong door..."
Carleen Anderson, "Ghost In My Bed"
were you ever that
"somebody somewhere"
you should've been
but weren't?
the one over there
where your friends
found crisp dollar bills
in the playground you
religiously went after
school
except that day
(cuz you were on punishment)
or can you recall how much
fun everyone had at school
on the last day, except you
(chicken pox kept you in)
...i still conjure them & him:
that "somebody somewhere"
in my mind, making
real all the times i knew
him & he knew me
& we just knew we
weren't just somebody
else's problem or someone
else's excuse or responsibility
jesse said we were somebody
but we already knew that,
though the cycle of silence
as known as age 12 through 29
is still keeping time with
proud mary on the dancefloor
& i'd ask him to dance
were i sure that it wouldn't
be an issue with getting him
to notice me amidst all the
other some-bodies somewhere
who are under 30
& have perfected poses
of youth i've long since outgrown
somebody somewhere might
long to be that someone brave
enough to go where
we've never been
somewhere else to be
somebody else while
all you have is you
leaving me remnants
of scents & nonsense
shouting from the indoor
corners of my house
maybe i had gone through the wrong door..."
Carleen Anderson, "Ghost In My Bed"
were you ever that
"somebody somewhere"
you should've been
but weren't?
the one over there
where your friends
found crisp dollar bills
in the playground you
religiously went after
school
except that day
(cuz you were on punishment)
or can you recall how much
fun everyone had at school
on the last day, except you
(chicken pox kept you in)
...i still conjure them & him:
that "somebody somewhere"
in my mind, making
real all the times i knew
him & he knew me
& we just knew we
weren't just somebody
else's problem or someone
else's excuse or responsibility
jesse said we were somebody
but we already knew that,
though the cycle of silence
as known as age 12 through 29
is still keeping time with
proud mary on the dancefloor
& i'd ask him to dance
were i sure that it wouldn't
be an issue with getting him
to notice me amidst all the
other some-bodies somewhere
who are under 30
& have perfected poses
of youth i've long since outgrown
somebody somewhere might
long to be that someone brave
enough to go where
we've never been
somewhere else to be
somebody else while
all you have is you
leaving me remnants
of scents & nonsense
shouting from the indoor
corners of my house
Friday, April 08, 2005
catching posthumous feelings
for kyle long (1960-2005)
genes & blood didn't completely
relate us, as you were the older
brother who looked at me six years
ago & said
"here's my number & address...
come see me or call me, lil' brother"
his brothers & sisters were
mine & so we played this
dance of sorts where no one
really called or wrote or
stepped outside of comfort
zones & homes
& as brothers & sisters of
parents who didn't push the
envelope to have children
know one another because
relationships ended & pride
built the greatest walls of all
it is now i cry because the thirteen
plus years that separate you & i
stops here...
45
& phone calls ago i have learned
that 46 will exisit only in my mind
as will the subsequent years
that pass until we all meet again
because as brothers & sisters of
parents who didn't make sure
that we knew one another i now
have to create a memory of you
all my own
one where you are getting ready
for 46, 47...
& there are no walls between
you, my brother,
& i
rest & finally live
no tears/hymn sangin'
genes & blood didn't completely
relate us, as you were the older
brother who looked at me six years
ago & said
"here's my number & address...
come see me or call me, lil' brother"
his brothers & sisters were
mine & so we played this
dance of sorts where no one
really called or wrote or
stepped outside of comfort
zones & homes
& as brothers & sisters of
parents who didn't push the
envelope to have children
know one another because
relationships ended & pride
built the greatest walls of all
it is now i cry because the thirteen
plus years that separate you & i
stops here...
45
& phone calls ago i have learned
that 46 will exisit only in my mind
as will the subsequent years
that pass until we all meet again
because as brothers & sisters of
parents who didn't make sure
that we knew one another i now
have to create a memory of you
all my own
one where you are getting ready
for 46, 47...
& there are no walls between
you, my brother,
& i
rest & finally live
no tears/hymn sangin'
Monday, April 04, 2005
road warrior--pt. II
(for granddaddy)
daylight savings time has
pushed the day ahead one
hour later for mornings &
evenings &
i am still moving in my mind
contemplating how springs forward
& falls backward
i have moved enough to still be stuck in the
same place because mountain moving is only
in my mind & there where i am moving is
the moments in those hours of light i'll get
to finally live in just after the thaw
the past days haven't moved
much though time has moved
where the mountain moving
in those moments of light
is clearly there
trees old as
time next to gas stations
barely a month old
where open land & silos
& farms & concrete spew into
roadways across daylight savings
time & time zones where
the moments of light one hour later
for mornings & early evenings
are still the same: recorded purposes.
across miles & turns & songs & stops
at gas stations barely a month old
we saw that tree
different
but the same one
we might've hung from
we skip mississippi goddamn
on the cd player & collectively
drive the miles in our minds
to increase the distance
between ourselves & that tree
different
but the same one
we did hang from
daylight savings time has
pushed the day ahead one
hour later for mornings &
evenings &
i am still moving in my mind
contemplating how springs forward
& falls backward
i have moved enough to still be stuck in the
same place because mountain moving is only
in my mind & there where i am moving is
the moments in those hours of light i'll get
to finally live in just after the thaw
the past days haven't moved
much though time has moved
where the mountain moving
in those moments of light
is clearly there
trees old as
time next to gas stations
barely a month old
where open land & silos
& farms & concrete spew into
roadways across daylight savings
time & time zones where
the moments of light one hour later
for mornings & early evenings
are still the same: recorded purposes.
across miles & turns & songs & stops
at gas stations barely a month old
we saw that tree
different
but the same one
we might've hung from
we skip mississippi goddamn
on the cd player & collectively
drive the miles in our minds
to increase the distance
between ourselves & that tree
different
but the same one
we did hang from
