Shanice+Braxton

//"Poetry is the most direct and simple means of expressing oneself in word." -////Northup Frye

The 125 route took me to the mall. Crowded and fill with faces I look out the window Plug my headphone up to my ear And turned up the music//
 * Ode to My Scarf**

Forty-five minutes passed. When I stepped off the bus A gust of cold wind hit me in my face. No scarf No hat No gloves.

My legs paced their way into The mall to discover some warmth.

Walking from store to store I discovered just what I needed Hats Gloves And scarves. Black, white, gray, red, multicolor Regular, fluffy, squares, circle patterns

A pink, off-white, brown shimmery cotton set was my purchase from the bunch.

One, popped the tags off the scarf (not really worried bout the others). Two, wrapped around my neck with a brand new And three, a feeling so warm and comforting surrounded me with a brand new scarf.

Ball of embarrassment Trapped in my stomach Questioning myself, Why? Why? Why? Why she had to go down there
 * //Flying Shoe//**

An intense feeling circled room Unpleasant eyes looked at my with a sneaky voice

Even more nervous than I was before. What is she going to do? Oh my God I’m gonna be on punishment again raced through my head rapidly.

…and here goes the yelling asking me questions I don’t have answers to.

Is she crazy, insane, deranged She must be all of them to … to throw a shoe at me

Rift

Sonnet

//**Three Poems by Etheridge Knight

The Idea of Ancestry**// 1 Taped to the wall of my cell are 47 pictures: 47 black faces: my father, mother, grandmothers (1 dead), grand- fathers (both dead), brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, cousins (1st and 2nd), nieces, and nephews. They stare across the space at me sprawling on my bunk. I know their dark eyes, they know mine. I know their style, they know mine. I am all of them, they are all of me; they are farmers, I am a thief, I am me, they are thee.

I have at one time or another been in love with my mother, 1 grandmother, 2 sisters, 2 aunts (1 went to the asylum), and 5 cousins. I am now in love with a 7-yr-old niece (she sends me letters in large block print, and her picture is the only one that smiles at me). I have the same name as 1 grandfather, 3 cousins, 3 nephews, and 1 uncle. The uncle disappeared when he was 15, just took off and caught a freight (they say). He's discussed each year when the family has a reunion, he causes uneasiness in the clan, he is an empty space. My father's mother, who is 93 and who keeps the Family Bible with everbody's birth dates (and death dates) in it, always mentions him. There is no place in her Bible for "whereabouts unknown." 2 Each fall the graves of my grandfathers call me, the brown hills and red gullies of mississippi send out their electric messages, galvanizing my genes. Last yr/like a salmon quitting the cold ocean-leaping and bucking up his birth stream/I hitchhiked my way from LA with 16 caps in my pocket and a monkey on my back. And I almost kicked it with the kinfolks. I walked barefooted in my grandmother's backyard/I smelled the old land and the woods/I sipped cornwhiskey from fruit jars with the men/ I flirted with the women/I had a ball till the caps ran out and my habit came down. That night I looked at my grandmother and split/my guts were screaming for junk/but I was almost contented/I had almost caught up with me. (The next day in Memphis I cracked a croaker's crib for a fix.) This yr there is a gray stone wall damming my stream, and when the falling leaves stir my genes, I pace my cell or flop on my bunk and stare at 47 black faces across the space. I am all of them, they are all of me, I am me, they are thee, and I have no children to float in the space between.

Hard Rock / was / "known not to take no shit From nobody," and he had the scars to prove it: Split purple lips, lumbed ears, welts above His yellow eyes, and one long scar that cut Across his temple and plowed through a thick Canopy of kinky hair. The WORD / was / that Hard Rock wasn't a mean nigger Anymore, that the doctors had bored a hole in his head, Cut out part of his brain, and shot electricity Through the rest. When they brought Hard Rock back, Handcuffed and chained, he was turned loose, Like a freshly gelded stallion, to try his new status. And we all waited and watched, like a herd of sheep, To see if the WORD was true. As we waited we wrapped ourselves in the cloak Of his exploits: "Man, the last time, it took eight Screws to put him in the Hole." "Yeah, remember when he Smacked the captain with his dinner tray?" "He set The record for time in the Hole--67 straight days!" "Ol Hard Rock! man, that's one crazy nigger." And then the jewel of a myth that Hard Rock had once bit A screw on the thumb and poisoned him with syphilitic spit. The testing came, to see if Hard Rock was really tame. A hillbilly called him a black son of a bitch And didn't lose his teeth, a screw who knew Hard Rock From before shook him down and barked in his face. And Hard Rock did //nothing//. Just grinned and looked silly, His eyes empty like knot holes in a fence. And even after we discovered that it took Hard Rock Exactly 3 minutes to tell you his first name, We told ourselves that he had just wised up, Was being cool; but we could not fool ourselves for long, And we turned away, our eyes on the ground. Crushed. He had been our Destroyer, the doer of things We dreamed of doing but could not bring ourselves to do, The fears of years, like a biting whip, Had cut deep bloody grooves Across our backs.
 * //Hard Rock Returns to Prison from the Hospital for the Criminal Insane//**

Shiny record albums scattered over the living room floor, reflecting light from the lamp, sharp reflections that hurt my eyes as I watch you, squatting among the platters, the beer foam making mustaches on your lips. And, too, the shadows on your cheeks from your long lashes fascinate me--almost as much as the dimples in your cheeks, your arms and your legs. You hum along with Mathis--how you love Mathis! with his burnished hair and quicksilver voice that dances among the stars and whirls through canyons like windblown snow, sometimes I think that Mathis could take you from me if you could be complete without me. I glance at my watch. It is now time. You rise, silently, and to the bedroom and the paint; on the lips red, on the eyes black, and I lean in the doorway and smoke, and see you grow old before my eyes, and smoke, why do you chatter while you dress? and smile when you grab your large leather purse? don't you know that when you leave me I walk to the window and watch you? and light a reefer as I watch you? and I die as I watch you disappear in the dark streets to whistle and smile at the johns
 * //As You Leave Me//**