Works Presented

in loving memory of bro. beaman		u live
if with u		morning in long beach
out there 2night an addict's love poem		when i met u
there is a bus stop in front of my house		i know its late
on r 3rd anniversary		recognition 4 tyson kuumba
i like the way you smile at me

Note: (000, YYMMDD) = the approximate Yahoo Message Board entry number and date.
Spelling, punctuation, grammar, and line phrasing are as originally posted by the author.

in the dark woods in the deep mystery of night the land shivers in a swamp black then gradually rises beyong the shrine of the deaf & rolling forest above the steeples of pines a blue black tempered in white mixed with stars & moons & things of common heights oh, 2 stretch the world around the countryside where rivers move mountains by might & thunder through alabama woods in a dark & tumbling delight oh, weave this moonstreaked earth in great great shadows & refracted diamond light

bro beaman once wandered these woods wide az a freed slave brown and young like fire in its 1rst taste of air rises to sing & 2 burn bro. beaman showed like flames an orange carousel cadencing in the deep dark forest he would throw stones & laugh oh, how he ran like a dream how hiz shirt trailed hiz strong body like a comet's tail through the herdlike trees & midnight backwoods green oh, beyond the wailing & baptist stones how he sang & wandered & sought sactuary in the brilliant dusk & sailed oh, how the legs long ago pushed the air & wind whistled in bro beaman's bones oh, how long & lean & luxurious az the fresh rain caught the nap of hiz hair water all over him like jewels oh, how wild & royal the running procession the fast & long ago affair

what the woods remember what becomes bark & cedar & joyous pines what iz handled back in2 the earth what the ribbons of road & lines recall & the rich red soil rebirths iz what the memory 4gets oh bro. beaman once galloped here & sped across every sunset each dusk each moonrise the daughter of the last stillborn children & winters rivers rolling with regret of young boys blooming & singing farms in2 sculptures oh, bro. beaman once galloped here a fantasy grinning & laughing & what strong strong hands he had what ability & zeal 2 walk the desperate highway ravenous & rudely real the red & ready lad & yes, what the woods remember of eazy footfalls & cavernous strides what the languid sunsets can never recant the ambitious & steady lad who once embraced a countryside in the long lean of winter black & imperturbable, oh, the mean & falling night bro. beaman carried hiz innocence in2 what magic what wonderment what words the story delivers 2 follow the moon & run the woods toward the crystal & rolling river oh, what exquisite youth long ago 2 enter the vast universe of the starlit night & run the woods toward the crystal & rolling river

Romus © Copyright, 1999

i heard that u were free from what ailed u from midnights where yo tongue waz so thick that u swallowed incense whole & yo pores breathed cinnamon sweet az liniment in brown rooms i heard that pain nolonger pooled in the bottom of yo lungs & the drudgery of dim afternoons wrapped in white sheets that tied yo eloquent hands while machines registered a world moving in iniquity nolonger chaffed yo memory in2 seperate stalks of rotting cane i heard u rose the width of yo hand gone the ball of yo knee unhinging & later in the frontyard where bleak november sunlight cast a thousand silvers over the lawn u threw a shadow & there in the quiet walk u moved from beneath the mountain of a thousand black woman prayers back in2 life man remember when just u & me on that old basketball court u put up a shot & that thing caught the rim & ringed in & out of darkness a thousand times & how ready we were like those oaks in the gold of the evening river extended in perpetuity pushing every branch across the incipient night we were like those oaks beautiful shadows against the muted canvas of dusk lean & unafraid in delirious want waiting 4 stars man i remember u once fought a boy over 5 dollars beside the traintracks u carried that scar on yo cheek 4 ever a crescent moon in the universe of yo black skin a thing on yo face that wouldn't smile man i saw vietnam pronounce yo name u had never been across the state line took u from basement grooves 2 insomnia it built the pressure in yo chest u called that place the land of the dishonest day explosions u said in the air like carnivals that noboby survived u came home caskets hovering in yo eyes & wandered the streets where red neon bleated symbolic blood striping darkness showing 1 weary eye then the other man i heard that u were free from what ailed u i heard that u have reclaimed yoself i heard that men r planting fields turning the land in2 quilts changing the horizon i heard that u live

Romus © Copyright, 1999

let me lay beside u 4 a while & tell u that i see u in clouds & strangers my love 4 u iz like the incomprehensible examination of the spiraling universe it iz a hand gently held in the beautiful afternoon garden it iz a quartet singing becuz possibilty iz ten thousand hearty men linked in industrial & uniformed nationhood just let me lay beside u just close enough that my intentions could be mistrued & my kiss fall seemingly displaced upon u among the neat & well mannered belongings & let yo kiss be the secret u give me & in the toil laden afternoons among the traffic let me taste u like memory

i 1day if the earth allows such dreaming if poems could define the world of words surrounding freedom if the slave sailing home in a cleanliness unprecedented leaving horror & night on that shrinking shore could speak 2 the marvelous array of movement of a vessel with it haughty bough sure az the most definite iron leaping toward that open sea if that slave at that moment hiz chin a nod toward heaven in a swirling ecstacy in a celebration of the unchained & eager senses could say how that welcomed riot of color & sky arranged itself in2 the newest & most beautiful of mornings if he could voice the newfound & crystalline peace of sailing the bright placid waters beyond yesterday's torture if a continent can say " welcome home" i 1day would like 2 know that jouney 2 the simple rest beside u i would like 2 know belonging & ordinary talk & concern & touching i would like 2 illustrate each sparkling second of the quiet minutes across yo breasts & yo breasts would be a midnight of diamonds & there would be quiet stars in yo laughter that would fall across yo mouth & shoulders & hair & some would stay in the air & others i swear in the universe

Romus © Copyright, 1999

down the alley someone iz playing jazz & the morning iz the purest blue it iz laughter it iz joy it iz beauty like roses crowding the fences & longing 2 be noticed & these people with their open windows probably doing the saturday chores r playing the most beautiful jazz some tune az arbitrary az the clean sunlit city some saxophone like breath melting on the heart like tufts of breezes that accent each hand each finger in individual joy each step 2day going somewhere

& i am so happy i could love a world 2day could gather in the volume of all people climb a mountain & ride the tide of r laughter til evening turned me tangerine & streaked me in ocean shadows oh, i could be held 2day while that jazz plays i could linger anywhere i could be az elegant az the cylindrical linear notes streaking through the city sent by saxophones exploring endless breath

oh, day oh, people oh, city pregnant with future i want 2 spin a thousand times & be so dizzy that i fall in2 a stranger's arms there iz so much open blue the caroling morning the requisite jazz tufting through open windows & above my head in every direction endless & endless sky

Romus © Copyright, 1999

i write this poem & the evening iz calling the vacancies & silences shadows silhouetting across the city dusks & velvet engulfs the avenues the trees growing gray the cars whisper i write this poem & u r asleep

this iz 2 say that if anything calls me out there 2night if u awake & the room holds the secret of my absence & the open windows mix the night with yo hair know, love, that silence surrounded me until i had 2 move & that the chorded evening took me out among the men who have never seen the stars & that darkness & the way the rooftops reveal the universe the way it expands from 3rd story windows like interpreted sound all full of beautiful glowing things iz like r love never rehearsed like the strangeness of seeing u in all beautiful women like loneliness creating yo shadow yo eyes in every woman's eyes & love know that this habit iz not yo fault & that i need u more than getting high & that u must believe that & that my soul waz crying & could not be consoled by the litany of yo kisses that cool on my face & remain that taste me again & again like memory

i am my mother's son & the man from upstairs

i see spirits turning in2 dark doorways & men losing intricate language

i see hands extended in hysteria i see the streets hurling shadows acoss the quiet stars

Romus © Copyright, 1999

when i met u at the art exhibit in the late evening where gold graduated 2 blue then crimson & against that coming night the campus trees looked like explosions of ink against a mauve & brown canvas the dark bushes measuring lecture hall windows lacing them in heat barely visible the buildings more gray than absolute stone the sky more universe than caroling day when i met u at the cusp of the evening's darker reds before the exhale of deeper & deeper blues where a campus & its odd shapes silo like steep exclamations losing atmosphere when i met u it that lazy sparse light sprinkled like gold glitter across your face in those dusk shadows where u emerged more beautiful from each 1 every new light between those streaks of dark explaining u exposing u showing u differently like a new candor in a many sided honesty when i met u i loved u in such a quiet way like lengthening a stride in health like filling the lungs with air then letting go & feeling the muscles fall in2 place & i knew that evening on the way home when the sky waz so tall & replete with discovering stars & the air moved around me like burgandy satin & the ground bearing no errors rose 2 meet me i knew in my unobtrusiveness in the gliding my walk had gathered in2 & the irresistable grinning like night blossoms yawning in2 the rising dark that builds the universe around the enormous new moon i knew that i in inaudible existence in az private a room az memory that i along that quiet breezy street moving in2 tall night like like a custodian in an infinite theater gone dark pulling my clustered navy & silver velvets across the world that i strolling through a mirror of stars in an easiness 2 colloquial 4 words loved u

Romus © Copyright, 1999

there iz a bus stop in front of my house & each hour each bus darkens the world 1 bus blues 1 bus mauves & oranges 1 bus silver & navy & then a quiet bus of stars

Romus © Copyright, 1999

i know its late the cotillion turned dark the carousel horses dreaming but can i come over? & i know the avenues have finally turned & settled in2 their charcoal widths & the the houses closed their bright eyes & fallen dark but could u talk to me a little longer? & i know its raining spreading diamonds over the weary city & the homeless whose shadows preceed them like illustrated hunger have huddled in2 corners but can u touch u? & i know the common dangers of wandering a city this large in the mysterious expanse of a tuesday midnight where things r literal & stone grows stone but can i hold u? & i know poverty never rests but sleeps in a numbing anguish & empty windows reflect open spaces forecasting disappearances & the hush surrounding my hat haz changed colors at the mute darkness where neon iz lonely bleating flourescent tenor & turns the rain on my coat 2 lights that look like a thousand tiny fires & my eyes against the wet posters accuse the world of corruption & imposition & i know that 2night my breath iz substantial freezing the air then vanishing my hands buried deep and cold my back a flash in a stranger's eye but can i kiss u? can i come be with u despite the late hour?

Romus © Copyright, 1999

it waz nothing i said or have done it waz not the shape of my thighs or the midnights u could not turn in2 me it waz not the specifics in my hair uncounted & not alive not the talk left on the table & in the halls not the silence that makes me remember my parents makes me look at u asleep like my father leaving unkissed in the wide cold morning like my mother sleeping in the emptiness of mid morning while the cool bushes shivered with birds it iz not my eyes not sure of what they see that follow u through the quiet streets & see u exit the world in2 stranger's doors it iz not the shadow covering half yo face az u stare out the window az the secret place in u dreams & january's inarticulate longings wail clouds across the empty neighborhoods across the traintracks it iz not it iz not it iz not

i waz made in the image of women in the soft pallet of servitude they were appendages the ironers of shirts & r fathers were dissatisfied they wore the shirts & ate the meals & the silence grew like cauliflower & r mothers were strong they were publicly appropriate smiling in pictures singing in choirs & the choirs were bands of solitary voices women united by distance it iz not it iz not it iz not

& it iz not the uncertainty of the mornings when u walk out the door unasked & u become my father & i become my mother & she struggles 2 rediscover language

Romus © Copyright, 1999

tyson kuumba i am calling your name tyson kuumba tyson kuumba tyson kuumba

my past iz the future u never walked it iz an unseen hill in the mask & fog of a morning climbing toward its colors it is what waz ahead of u that fell in2 memory in the delirium & cacophony of hysterical blue laughing death it iz what i leave behind an empty pool of water fallen back in2 stillness a country ten thousand miles ago where i gathered scars it iz an evening painting the narrow windowless streets of last year's violent summer it iz a vacant city casting shadows az individual az a mother's pronounciation a son's common name my past behind me yo future not entered like a photograph bearing niether of r faces & what i must say 20 yrs beyond yo murder yo 8 yr life spotting the dark eyes of yo bright faced mother i say that u brotha would have loved the 90's & its fabulous extavagance its rituals of excess & maybe u wouldn't have gone on 2 school like me or would have been jailed like so many other brothas & maybe dope would have made u haunt the blue purple night of blind cities where disappearances blacken night in2 further abstractions but here standing looking ahead from the alluvial core of possibility brotha, i know that if in the 3rd grade the vaniity of bullets didn't desire yo youth if children didn't leave 4 school & wave their mothers goodbye not understanding eternity u would have been & brotha u would be

tyson kuumba i am calling yo name tyson kuumba tyson kuumba tyson kuumba

Romus © Copyright, 1999

i like the way u smile at me & we r in the gauntlet of noise & traffic stranger 2 stranger in the obscure crowds yet yo smile iz a pool of clear water it iz my name said & the momentary lucid understanding of the universe & the city iz tall hurling its height & clamor & the trees gather in fear & the people race the lights that collapse the country in precise increments & ambitious asphalt longs 2 ruin the world then u smile & the stooping uncertainty stands erect & the calloused corners harbor birds & children dream in the infancy of their memories & someone gives something away & somebody opens a door yo smile iz a tall boy's shyness it iz the rage against uniformity it is the little girl singing loudest of the child who by heaven takes the stage & inexplicably shines it iz 3 grinning black faces framed in the open summer window yo smile iz sunlight & shadow on alabama roads it iz an auntie standing waiting on a clean porch & the city runs in all directions & the buildings have hollow sad eyes & the tired buses fiegn politeness & the hour rotates rooms each with a separate despair but when u smile there r friends gathering at the park & a grandmother starts grinning & someone finds a quarter & from a rooftop a policeman iz throwing kisses & 2 girls walking home begin to laugh

Romus © Copyright, 1999

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