Poetic Assassin

03/05/2022

How Therapists Dance
by Dane Cervine

(taken from Feb 2011 issue of The Sun, an independent literary magazine from Chapel Hill, NC)

Washington DC, after a conference:
we head into the urban night
led by a jive talking white ghetto boy
raised in black foster homes,
bent on showing us the town, We
wander from nightclub to bar.
a mix of earnest saviors, black, Asian
Latino, white eager to party, to strip
the mind of diagnostic prognostication
to revel. Eventually, one by one, our group
slips back to the hotel till I am alone
with a young black woman who says,
"I want to show you one more place."*
She leads me down an alley to a club.
I am the only white face in the joint,
and while she is gone to the bathroom.
the owner saunters over, asks how I'm doing,
says, "if you have any trouble come find me."
And I am suddenly more alone
than ever, till my young friend returns,
looks at my anxious face, smiles and says,
"This is what I wanted to show you."

*quotes were in italics in original poem.

w

09/08/2021

South Central Los Angeles Death Trip, 1982

1
jes another X marking it

dangling gold chains & pinky rings
nineteen, done in black leather & defiance
teeth white as halogen lamps, skin dark as a threat

they spotted him taking in the night
made for the roust
arrested him on suspicion of
they say he became violent
they say he became combative in the rear seat of
that sleek zebra maria, they say
it took a chokehold to restrain him
and they say he died of asphyxiation
on the spot

summarized in the coroner's report
as the demise of
one more nonedescript dustbunny
ripped on phencyclidine
(which justified their need to
leave his hands cuffed behind his back
long after rigor mortis set in)

2
stess had damaged his thirty-nine year old mind
more than he could admit but he was trying
to make life work as well as it could
for a father with three children praying
dad will pull through

where the butcher knife came from
no one's sure. they say
he held off ten riot squad patrol cars
for forty-five minutes outside the 109th street
church. they say the cops had stopped him
because they didn't like his looks.
they say something fragile inside his head
snapped. they say it took twenty rounds of ammo
to bring him down they say he took five
gunshot pellets & thirteen bullets
they say that was a lot of outrage over
a case of misconstrued identity

3

she was fed up that day with
everything, now here they come turning off
the damned gas so she went and
chased the service rep
from the yard before he could carry out the
disconnection order, by the time
police officers arrived she lost what was
left of her common sense
had grabbed up & brandished an eleven-inch
boning knife to back up her mouth.
the two officers complained she threw
that knife at them. and they were so terrified
they didn't consider a wounding. they
simply emptied both guns into
the thirty-nine year old hefty female.
it took twelve shots to
subdue all that treataniggathis
and whitesonofabitchthat,
they said, and kill it

4
strangely he was dodging & ducking
bouncing & rolling,
tipping & slipping
(as if dangled from the end of it)
in and out of traffic in front of the sheriff's
station, embarrassing them, causing a modest jam
for no apparent reason
therefore they arrested the twenty-six-year-old
descendant of slaves and booked him for

this q***r behavior, their spokesman said
because there weren't
enough terrorists, assassins or irate taxpayers
to keep them busy that Wednesday afternoon
he was handcuffed
and left alone in his cell and fell inexplicably
into unconsciousness in a mere three hours,
they said. he was
rushed to nearbye hospital still in cuffs
where he died within twenty-two minutes

cause of demise as unknown as ever

5
without evidence to support the supposition
they swore the twenty-one-year-old
consumer was involved in the robbery of
the popular Manchester avenue chicken shack.
and not just another hungry-but-innocent bystander
he was assumed guilty, if not the brainiac
perhaps the getaway driver. he was captured during
the fray before questions could be asked or
players and slayers identified. that he was unarmed
was not a pertinent issue. that he was ignorant
decidedly was. they handcuffed him and made
him lay on the ground in the middle of the fray
where, unfortunately, his ignorance got
him killed by police gunfire. they say an officer
yelled freeze and this inexperienced
young black hoodlum being unfamiliar with the
procedure of how one freezes while being held face down
on the sidewalk, hands cuffed behind one's back
could not do so. therefore the inability to freeze
under these conditions cost him his life.

6
exhausted after working the nightshift
he was so dead on his feet he couldn't
hear em' ramming in his door, so they broke into
the sepia toned man's apartment by mistake
(it was supposed to be the one downstairs).
officers swarmed his bed as he opened his eyes,
officers were on him like maggots on foul meat
nevertheless he managed to free himself long
enough to run into the bathroom where
he was ultimately subdued without ever knowing why.

the coroner reported this
as death due to heart attack
brought on by advanced arteriosclerosis
in a twenty-eight year old black male.

7

he was bound for college but was caught
standing on the street corner blocks from home
maybe, like they say, he had recently scored some
dope (which could not be found) or maybe
minutes earlier he'd been snacking on that
ham sandwich mama made for her nineteen-year-old
sure is handsome fine young black man.
maybe there was nothing to it at all, not even
that missing piece of aluminum foil the officers
claimed they saw him pull out of his trousers

sudden-like

as they happened to be cruising past, it made
a mysterious metallic gleam
which they mistook for the glint of steel
which is why there was all that draw-and-fire
which is why

mama went to his funeral instead of his graduation

8
all of twenty-six, the ebony diabetic had
no steady job and lived with his parents.
he was a young man with mental and physical
problems. he began to act strangely, they say
although no-one noticed him brandishing
that piece of radiator fan belt or that
kitchen knife in the middle of the street.
perhaps some car somewhere had broken down
certainly, he had, enough to make the sheriff's
deputies approach with caution and order him
to freeze, he turned toward them and even
though he was fourteen feet away from them his
turning toward them inspired so much fear
in the armed men one of them emptied his
Smith and Wesson service revolver into the
young diabetic who died from three slugs

9
that night Bob came blamming on her door
she had just gotten home from working
the register at the club and her feet were
killing her, now here come some numbskull
sayhisnameis Bob knocking the damn door
in with some okey-doke about "here come da
police, hide me quick!" so she got something
for Bob's jive probably-drunk ass, that .22
caliber rifle she uses regularly to scare off
the riffraff. then she cracked the door a taste
but before she could make her melodrama move
it slammed open and she was blinded by the
flash as she took a shot in her left breast.
the bullet entered her right rib cage and killed
the 8 1/2 month old baby she was carrying
all this behind a supposedtobe drug bust where
no drugs were found by the officers in charge

jes another x marking the spot.

by Wanda Coleman

07/02/2021

"Out, Out-"
The buzz saw snarled and rattled in the yard
And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood,
Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.
And from there those that lifted eyes could count
Five mountain ranges one behind the other
Under the sunset far into Vermont.
And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled,
As it ran light, or had to bear a load.
And nothing happened: day was all but done.
Call it a day, I wish they might have said
To please the boy by giving him the half hour
That a boy counts so much when saved from work.
His sister stood beside them in her apron
To tell them "Supper." At the word, the saw,
As if to prove saws knew what supper meant,
Leaped out at the boy's hand, or seemed to leap-
He must have given the hand. However it was,
Neither refused the meeting. But the hand!
The boys first outcry was a rueful laugh,
As he swung toward them holding up the hand
Half in appeal, but half as if to keep
The life from spilling. Then the boy saw all-
Since he was old enough to know, big boy
Doing a man's work, though a child at heart-
He saw all spoiled. "Don't let him cut my hand off-
The doctor when he comes. Don't let him sister!"
So. But the hand was gone already.
The doctor put him under the dark of ether.
He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath.
And then-the watcher at his pulse took fright.
No-one believed. They listened at his heart.
Little-less-nothing!-and that ended it.
No more to build on there. And they, since they
Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.

by Robert Frost

06/18/2021

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/audio-poem-of-the-day/id270054094?i=1000525256001

‎Show Audio Poem of the Day, Ep Lyell's Hypothesis Again - Jun 12, 2021

10/31/2020

poem #27

the boys i mean are not refined
they go with girls who buck and bite
they do not give a f**k for luck
they hump them 13 times a night

one hangs a hat upon her tit
one carves a cross in her behind
they do not give a s**t for wit
the boys i mean are not refined

they come with girls who bite and buck
who cannot read and cannot write
who laugh like they would fall apart
and ma******te with dynamite

the boys i mean are not refined
they cannot chat of this and that
they do not give a fart for art
they kill like you would take a p**s

they speak whatever's on their mind
they do whatever's in their pants
the boys i mean are not refined
they shake the mountains when they dance

E.E. Cummings from the collection Another EE Cummings

10/19/2020

A great allegory of the modern self,

At Allan Ginsberg's school of disembodied poetics

10/19/2020

Strictly speaking his sketches like these are not quite short stories and not quite prose poetry but Burroughs is, in my opinion the best American satirist since Mark Twain and in a similar vein to Johnathon Swift...he attacks all manner of power, authority and control in his writing, even breaking down language itself in experiments with word collage he call's the cut-up method but his best stuff are pieces like this that are not so far removed from the usual narrative structure...

meeting of international conference of technological psychiatry

09/28/2020

Phase One


For leaving the fridge open
last night, I forgive you.
For conjuring white curtains
instead of living your life.

For the seedlings that wilt, now,
in tiny pots, I forgive you.
For saying no first
but yes as an afterthought.

I forgive you for hideous visions
after childbirth, brought on by loss
of sleep. And when the baby woke
repeatedly, for shouting silently

in the dark, “What’s your beef?”
I forgive your letting vines
overtake the garden. For fearing
your own propensity to love.

For losing, again, your bag
en route from San Francisco;
for the equally heedless drive back
on the caffeine-fueled return.

I forgive you for leaving
windows open in rain
and soaking library books
again. For putting forth

only revisions of yourself
with punctuation worked over
instead of the disordered truth,
I forgive you. For singing mostly

when the shower drowns
your voice. For so admiring
the drummer you failed to hear
the drum. In forgotten tin cans,

may forgiveness gather. Pooling
in gutters. Gushing from pipes.
A great steady rain of olives
from branches, relieved

of cruelty and petty meanness.
With it, a flurry of wings, thirteen
gray pigeons. Ointment reserved
for healers and prophets. I forgive you.

I forgive you. For feeling awkward
and nervous without reason.
For bearing Keats’s empty vessel
with such calm you worried

you had, perhaps, no moral
center at all. For treating your mother
with contempt when she deserved
compassion. I forgive you. I forgive

you. I forgive you. For growing
a capacity for love that is great
but matched only, perhaps,
by your loneliness. For being unable

to forgive yourself first so you
could then forgive others and
at last find a way to become
the love that you want in this world.

by Dilruba Ahmed (taken from Best America Poetry 2019)
from Asian American Literary Review

09/27/2020

TO THE READER

Au LecteUf

Ignorance, error, cupidity, and sin
Possess our souls and exercise our flesh;
Habitually we cultivate remorse
As beggars entertain and nurse their lice.

Our sins are stubborn. Cowards when contrite
We overpay confession with our pains,
And when we're back again in human mire
Vile tears, we think, will wash away our stains.

Thrice-potent Satan in our cursed bed
Lulls us to sleep, our spiIit overkissed,
Until the precious metal of our will
Is vaporized-that cunning alchemist!

Who but the Devil pulls our waking-stringsl
Abominations lure us to their side;
Each day we take another step to hell,
Descending through the stench, unhorrified.

Like an exhausted rake who mouths and chews
The martyrized breast of an old withered w***e
We steal, in passing, whatever joys we can,
Squeezing the driest orange all the more.

Packed in our brains incestuous as worms
Our demons celebrate in drunken gangs,
And when we breathe, that hollow rasp is Death
Sliding invisibly down into our lungs.

If the dull canvas of our wretched life
Is unembellished with such pretty ware
As knives or pOison, pyromania, r**e,
It is because our soul's too weak to darel

But in this den of jackals, monkeys, curs,
Scorpions, buzzards, snakes..... this paradise
Of ruthy beasts that screech, howl, grovel, grunt
In this menagerie of mankind's vice

There's one supremely hideous and impure
Soft-spoken, not the type to cause a scene,
He'd willingly make rubble of the earth
And swallow up creation in a yawn.

I mean Ennui! who in his hookah-dreams
Produces hangmen and real tears together.
How well you know this fastidious monster, reader,
-Hypocrite reader, youl-my doublel my brother!

By Charles Baudelaire