First off, I reserve the right to blaspheme, to excise unpopular expression, to juggle and justify rejected utterances, , to uproot, topple, transplant, this or that un-abbling notion into the minds of right thinking people.
To use whatever poorly occupied space found, score that space
And have considered ( by the Client) the world may work in other ways.
For instance What if I started with
A title: The Cock Accountant
Started with remarks about black men holding their Dicks to protect themselves against theft, ( this comes from an old Pryor joke).
That could work.
Think of That
An all day, everyday, after night shift, day-job as a premise for a work could work.
And
A black man
with the steady job (other than care for self).
Great,
Ok, now
Let’s make him an accountant.
Lots of offense there.
( you know,
because
that joke talks out its’ ass,
describing a kind of a check in, a taking stock of, engagement with a kind of in-kind, creative accounting)
( hence the title you see).
You see
For all the
times
black men are said to be concerned with their possessions
: attitude, appearance, dicks attitude.
There must be multiples.
(Yes, keep this notion going. It’s full of cultural, social and historical offense ( strike that/)
possibility.
Think of it,
Life without the accountant.
The horror!
unaccounted for dicks everywhere.
Lost dicks,
Loose dicks,
stolen dicks,
repossessed dicks,
Worst of all the unwanted,…
there are so many
The horror
And
The possibilities !
(Hold on Better check in:
ah Cool)
Now every
time
you see a black man reach for it
( and when I say dick/it I mean: his self respect, determination, autonomous what so ever)
think
well trained accountant.
Think, that whole dick game is just the accounting practice of a big bad, eunuch fearing, mathematical magician.
Now all this comes with slight of hand. It’s up to you to figure out which to watch .
now
this feels like something
- if not new-
Something less than
The beating of a slightly under-used formula on already worn instrument pulled to the point of tearing.
But Jumping back
What if blasphemies like this were welcome additions
Rather than
exhausted over-played organs that lack longed for precision, lack the ability to stand in the histories they are meant to embody, ( remember I mean self respect, self determination, cultural, social and historical offense, attitude, dicks, appearance, attitude, attitude, autonomous what so ever)? What if, for the umphteenth time those over used, over stuffed effigies ( those blasphemies) narcolepticly gesture to freedom from past expressive compression, what if they only nodded to each challenge’s circumstance without getting to why, the more of the other/else’s need to be addressed, what if they offered instead un-ablings bereft of meaning - a stop. What if they burned or repealed, through reinforcement, refutation, inditement, or descent, useless truths?
A blasphemies construction disproves a non existence’s worth.
What if we, who, for clarity's sake, use commonly understood, but no longer - honestly - evocative ground to provide vantage - stopped.
Now
Suppose the ideologies flown from posts staked into grounds reactively but unconsciously programmed with what was never really or is no longer there, like all those dicks ( the imagined, supposed ones at least) dropped. What happens when expression is no longer bound by a specificity that relates only to the non-existent. And what if the creative expression of that non existent specificity is denied those standing on that fantasy ground. Is freedom from the count found there. What if the flexing of metaphoric muscle were a waste of cliche, honest effort and creative privilege.
What’s the sum of that…
Are three shakes is a yank?÷ a lack of authenticity.
Creatively i mean
What if?
What if risk were as dysfunctional as certainty’s intransigence.
And we saw death and sought meanings’ growth only in deserts of consequence,
(mirages that offer only varieties of thirst)
I need another way
to beat a dead horse
if nothing comes of all that counts
Counted on
How, without going over old ground, without using effigies that lack the reflection of a generative twin
do we represent.
We topple ingenuously propped intangible balances, work to defeat perpetually imploding states of collapsed relevance, in support of a true consequence as close to intention, as truth.
if perspective is clarification,
“I only hold your hand at night and only then to get the angle right”. Amy Winehouse
only i move my hand
if perspective were clarification
Do I
Turn my back
Become you
look for a language of dominance that binds moments, insists on a universally representative common ground, insists on an individual communal congress developed past expression, that breaks one into convention, into functional component parts and sprinkles them along the garden path, life like sordid sorted gen - egineered insinuated seed.
And find oneself, for the sake of easy communication forced to utter mature conformed aborted colloquialisms about self respect, determination, cultural, social and historical offense, attitude, dicks, appearance, attitude, attitude, autonomous what so ever, so others will register what’s been rendered and intended and experienced and shared in response to what never was or is no longer there, and even those references rendered as insignificant cartographic bullets on undrawn maps ?
Until
It becomes clear upon hearing
a colleague and former friend under her breath - how do you get there - refer to him as two half men after having heard another colleague refer to him as doing the work of two men, and him seeing her near catch the thought as it rolled from mind to tongue to tip, and him seeing it leave home, seeing her realize the thought had left, seeing her realize it had left her mind, shot to stem to mouth.
And him watching her close her face, watch the squeeze, watch the fear of awareness heard behind teeth, and a face become a dungeon of honest thought.
And him thought
I’ve had enough
I had other men, men other than my father. Men made of grit and oil, slickness and sweat, and effort , I had men made of honor, ease enough and equal parts:
enough
And him thought
Know
that
this emotional barter of a slow farewell is
,When
It isn’t…
a
Sloppy
honest
Attempt
to
remember,
share
And
forget,
both betrayal
And death.
Isn’t enough
In that moment
When
Relevance
plays off key Through
pursed flesh
trapped teeth
and tongue stacked
Moisture
like
His
Well trained blasphemies
As they
Drop
roll,
ragged pitted and petrified, to open road.
What if those blasphemies were in addition to forbidden:
a relevance that says nothing about the something on which they have bearing,
what if the note passed
through song
to the beat of the hooves of dead horses that trample effigies that lack the reflection of their generative twins’ banner-men
do topple unconsciously ingenuously propped balances, or work to support a self seeded perpetual state of relevance, of true consequence of action as close to intention as the truth.
And
what if the unspoken offered, instead un-ablings bereft of meaning,
Meaning
a Relevance says something about the something on which it has bearing,
And
Who gets to show their ass and still be heard, gets to tell the truth, who gets to escape the prisons with more than chaotic a twist of rhetoric. Who get’s to be a romantic; And It is romantic to think that way back when, we were freer.
and then him thought
the odor has thinned but lingers,
misapprehension lingers
No,
not two men
Two maps
Old maps,
no blank space,
no unexplored land,
Only conquered country,
Cartographed landscapes of meaning drawn from foreign shores
eye level confirmation of the overwritten
wrenched from horizons of counterfeit knowledge
or
Map two
imagine
A lost yourself in the blank spaces
A once upon a time man.
A OUPATM (once upon a time man)
an iceberg: slow to retreat and come changed with every moment, still needed, still necessary. only the tip seen, if at all ( not meant to be a sexual reference)
Or
if a sound
carried through time
or
A culture, or
A life spent in the absence of sustaining presence.
like percussion
Done
affirmation not diminution
It may be voice
And so
then it may be that a man is a tree,
yes a tree
that has roots which reach and branches which reach
a trunk that is Manhood ( and no, not meant to be a sexual reference)
and that those connections, root to leaf are significant
and as simple as the horizon of a land at war
And it may be
that
that cycle of those roots to that trunk to those branches to those leaves to that seed ( not meant to be a reference to reproduction ) to that horizon are a cultivated circle of renewal
that
That
seed
circle
is the sign for infinity
Or that and rather,
a single circle
carries/ is the route/root for so much
so much
That even with gifts
The circle is only the tip of the iceberg we see
the portion that hints at work done
how much of its treasure is below the surface,
held in place
held
In not uncovered legacy.