Poem by Ronald Palmer in Shampoo Issue 8

“In short, blackness is a political and ethical construct.”
––Cornell West, Race-ING Justice, EN-Gendering Power

“Why is it that sexuality became, in Christian cultures, the seismograph of our
subjectivity?”
––Michel Foucault, Sexuality and Solitude

. . . To be read in the voice of Busta Rhymes:

Coral te: rraces se: cure the logic

of our gla: cia: l nation so please be patient:

with my dam: penned carto: graphy.

I need your minds awakened: no lethargy:

Allowed: I’m black and I’m proud: not etherized by some dumb fable:

I’ll have you earthquakin off your seismo: graphy:

(AND be sure to b: rrrrrring evidence:

of humanity’s brief feeding: ––from motha:earth’s toxic table:

Instead of nursing on your ally’s false temp: tation):

Blink your ass back for re-seeding:

humans are here again: albeit a perp: etual visit: (Knock Knock:
Who is it?) I’m your nightmare’s last fidget:

So Go On And Keep Breeding: And I’ll deliver the hollers: the holy rollers

(America: Why are your malls filled with strollers?)

I Think I’ll Send An After Thought: So somebody Gloss it!

I’m the one bleeding:

On and off: like a faucet

from my aching anus: Yo! grind back the gears: switch this bitch into reverse:

Look how the ice sheets (thick as four million years): mimic the universe:

This mind is perverse: I hear our traumatic mothers rehearse

Their fears: then jump up to reinvent the world for us:

wash the world with: their tears: chemically fossilized in deuterium:

My rhyme’ll lock you in: to: ward’s delirium:

With 10 gigga:hertz of memory: swallow the logic of darkness:
hege: mony era: ses your peri: phery:

Now: tell me again your gang’s fanged fuss:

if y’all rappers was intelligent

you’d be genuinely dangerous. Yo I’m slippery:

With a weird arro: gance I unwind your treaty: with a salty hero-glance:

I ain’t pretty: but I got enough to plead the greedy:

(And don’t you think it’s about time a faggot got angry? I love you: you know
it: even though you’re homophobic.)

(What? I can’t hear ya: come closer:

Did you say an: other sero-con: version?

whisper it here: right into sub: version’s con: front: ation:

Or better yet: into power’s subtler ex: term: in: ation.)

I’m high as an Afro: so where else can a poem go? Except Wrong: very very: Wrong:
But Shepherd already stole Beckett’s best song:

So: should I make this: more Dr. Seusish: or more like Play-Dough?

Case: Dismissed: At least I got you thinking hard:

Your face: in twists

Maybe we should pause this: till I move to the city:

Till we stir in the nitty gritty: with Pity me: Pity me:

Now you gotta trust me: (Your body’s so easy to free!)

And I’m counting hour: by hour: beyond the logic of power:

Where every berry: gripes: then re-ripens to sour.