Works Presented

in pomona		it iz 3am
testimony		like being inside u
geronimo asked the european		leaving long beach
james		thank u
time		i saw u
yesterday

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 pomona under a night tilling asphalt & turning up stones the vacant lots stare in2 the street like anger devoid of emphasis like a wound keloided across sis. william's criminal son's belly those lots waiting for fire those lots justifying riots those lots interpreting pain & hiding thieves & knives & cursing children those lots littering the avenues like gangsters gathering heat

friday night a man blown back bludgeoned in2 blue stone somewhere in a private place where men create a language surrounding death & bargain with those red words where they coil like crocodiles retracted & waiting 2 spring this man in the slow heavines of being cognizant while pipes made strange architecture stinging cold against open wounds crushing ribs in succession knocking the vision skyward

shadows hide terrible things close yo eyes see what images haunt memory men r taken by things that recognize them what things become hot with wanting? what fire missed u 2night?

Romus © Copyright, 1999

it iz 3am we r alone the nighthills rise & fall the room flowered in flooding darkess the window like a moon in this private universe & the stars in yo hair like distant lights that r glimpses across the auburn bay & me beside u placing memory in the eazy breaths between r kisses

we may never know eternity being that tomorrow comes & marvelous deep night cannot stay cannot be this quiet & cover me in indigo while the hours graduate r youth from this innocence nothing this quiet can stay all jazz ends the people wander into the early/late streets & the elegant musicians shed their magic & join the morning crowds

but if this longing this open hand letting weary things go free these words given 1 tongue 2 another if right now across yo belly beneath yo chin where i tasted u & yo laughter flowed over me like language in a beautiful country if this hour this alchemy in darkness this coolness filling me like shadows in the late evening trees if r nakedness a familiarity more intrinsic than speech only if these perfumed minutes in ethereal silks if this silver in the illusion of water this skin like velvet this gray connecting us with its secrets these starlit miles moving between r words & loving this deep blue inverting in2 light this whisper losing syllables across my pillow this eazy heaviness draping me in dreams this coming sleep at yo lips & breasts this...

Romus © Copyright, 1999

that day in the south before a sunset red az clay & az wide az the earth & sky that place interrupted by hills & steeples of pines that drew darkness in sips then whirled coming moons across the bodies of men laying prostrate in segregation i stopped & my steps continued in2 that crimson quiet & my eyes carefully examined 50yrs of being a mule sanctioned by the temerity of a country doing mathematics with human beings

i waz coming from work the day on me like smoke i waz weary oblivious 2 ghosts & the darkening bottoms i waz floating moving across the incipient night in mute accusation coming home from 50 yrs bludgeoned against my skin like insults like keloids based on earlier scars & i knew there with the river black & still that i would not live 2 see tuscaloosa abandon its gentile insanities

but then coming down that road some white men leaning from a old truck boisterous az horses startled by gunshots talking in bellows waking up the woods & i alone against the river near the unknown graves of faceless disappearances that litter the alabama night that hint horror like tiny razor sores in the murderer's face i stood still az they rattled their revelly toward me i stood still az my lineage stiffened & lit fires in the prayer yards & i stood still az a bright holiness came over me & there in reslolute beauty with jesus holding my hand i began 2 shout & quote scriptures & stomp the devil away dust all around me like incense the hurricane & fervor beaded in hillarity the audacious rejoicing pushing night back in2 mississippi pushing night back across illigetimate legislations that stand like obilisks in the ghost filled moutains & those white men passed like sentries seeking corpses & they crossed me stricken with prayer & they crossed me in the wide holy caverns beyond inherited fear & they crossed me in tell tale annointment & they crossed me riding bones 2 the end of their world & i in livid affirment weeping praising god with my mouth and limbs called at them called 4 their salvation called loud above the rattling & they caught in this sorcery having been bound by divine decree said no words & whatever wickedness worried me not 50 yrs holding god's hand drew that silence & they said no words & they said no words

Romus © Copyright, 1999

i've waited all day 4 u with my eyes closed i am a fool conjuring yo touch & i caught myself smiling & even laughing outloud i bathed 2day & felt like silk & in an odd moment it waz like being inside u i mean the eazy push & pull of the lazy day waz like being beautifully sleepy & happy like being deep inside u i mean its like yawning & stretching & being so electric & long in that clean moment that clouds & music soften the room or when u've been kissed a thousand beautiful times & walk the crowded city quite wonderfully alone & singing like breathing yo breath like turning city corners in vintage cadilacs where evening changes the highlights in yo hair 2 gold flecked cinnamon like touching yo tongue & telling secrets in braille & being so deep inside u i mean like pirouetteing downtown lampposts where yo breasts float & yo smile iz a flash of sunlight on water like kissing betweeen r latenight promises & knitting the covers between r legs & feet & being so wonderful & so deep inside u

Romus © Copyright, 1999

geronimo asked the european "why do u want all the land?" 4 it stretched out like a fine knit rug beaded in places its brush its trilling shrubs the wonderful nap of its creavases along the canyon walls & the silent wooded spaces in perpetual morning the blue yarn of the streams in the echoing forest halls

geronimo asked the european "why do u want all the land?" 4 it iz from the sun across its southwest stretch its expanse a ceremonial world of colors the shimmering white sands a million yrs in forming bold cliffs & plateaus rivers that crash and roll crimson & brown magnificent azure & gold singing the world in2 life each & every single splendid morning

geronimo asked the european "why do u want all the land?" 4 it runs like midnight's silver across its northern mountains all shining snow where a traveler can sing & throw hiz gift of song az far az hiz voice can go its heights in their reaching strength the rising face laughing out loud its hysterical breath forming a million soft pot clouds the hillarious tears a million shelves of melting ice & from the gay peak's frolic the mighty fresh water rivers flow & oh, the majesty of such slow land a million praise adjectives a million trillion wonderfuls

geronimo asked the european "what could u possibly do with all this land?"

Romus © Copyright, 1999

i awoke this morning & from my window i could hear the buses revving pushing off on journeys & birds & the doppler radios crescendoing in midair then trailing off christening the morning blvds i am leaving 2day the room iz full of boxes the mornings have come full circle the dishes given away i kept all the blue things the abstract paintings the beads the beautiful cups & strange statues & there iz sunlight everywhere the blinds r in disarray here on the second floor where i spent a year watching the city breathe clouds against still nights everyday in from the beach dreaming among the tall buildings downtown this is my final day among the people whom i've never met a year of the faces of school children whose youth is so beautiful & sad & the men who live in the alleys shooting heroin the students praising fanon & between the morning sounds the yelping of blue dogs & women falling back in2 sleep there iz a quiet that illustrates internal sight it takes the day upward beyond the scheduled noises it iz someplace alone speaking 2 u it iz the vast solitude longed 4 in art it iz sunlight generating shadows in parking lots it iz the hideaway & reprieve of morning alleys & i know this ritual of leaving of counting down days & preparing 2 1 day come again here & not belong i know the corners whose inheritance & lottery i forfeit the dusks laid out in the narrow streets that r prodigious in their expensive beauty & the stillness this morning the inamimate carousel of a city laden in clocks & shadows the distilled conjecture of the neighbors who fought everyone they will mourn my vacancy they will know that someone nolonger listens & the blue things lined in space where the windows r open mark sky against sky where this evening the coolness will fill this room with bus sounds & an eventual siren & the indecipherable chatter & geometric shadows of the empty friday evening

Romus © Copyright, 1999

i saw james weaker than hiz shadow between the gas station lights & the black hole eternities of midnight avenues

rain & language where james drew blues & the city itemized its structures & they agreed they would ignore him what waz james trying 2 say only 28 yrs beyond hiz birth? why iz crenshaw blvd so wide? the pan of it a desert floor the traffic lights like distant stars disjointed by clouds james moved slow dragging a history of highs behind him the rancid incense of hiz youth among the latenight cars turnstiles & glinting spokes memories & the lonely in the midnight bars when i saw him he had no eyes just portholes in hiz head where the dreaming universe gave its empty visions & turned hiz hair 2 clusters of churning stars

the glove leather skin stetching around an ill fitting hand a skeleton pronounced like beautiful arabic script cheekbones like a knife almost cut through hiz mouth hiz torso a makeshift cadilac turning & screaming hiz feet marking time in an artificial delirium hiz shoulders a flatline against the strungout city hiz knees connecting death & movement hiz throat the abandoned vessel of a lesser god

Romus © Copyright, 1999

2day where the air iz light & the ground cool beneath my bare feet & i dare run again & breath is a beautiful heaviness like life that takes the shoulders & tilts the head filling the face with sun here where the knees are fine & leaping iz a giddy temptation calling working men outside in2 the sweep & song of a morning beautiful & blossom filled everywhere i want 2 thank u just like that az simple az saying red iz red or u r very beautiful thank u in the plainest print in a clarity so lucid that even untruth iz truth thank u in a place az sudden az children smiling az honestly az a quiet kiss i want 2 thank u 4 companionship 4 comfort 4 recognizing me among the millions of people seeking someone in the stillness of their long lives thank u before i forget before this quiet moment passes before i am confused & mix the metaphors & lose what i am able 2 voice before the tears come & i cannot say it oh, thank u thank u thank u from here behind the heart where memory catalogues loss & regret is a loneliness wandering an empty country thank u 2day in the bright pools of water & the thousand mile sky in a freedom laughing out loud in az explicit a joy az sleeping late in az eazy an elation az greeting a friend or wearing new shoes thank u thank u thank u thank u az simple az that thank u so much honestly, where we stand 2day like exclaiming 2 the world that i am alive & on my way thank u

Romus © Copyright, 1999

brothas ask about time in cities that hang clocks & murder men by the minute hand where tick tocks muffle language each 1 a breath an apartment window goes dark a mother loses another son brothas ask about time on corners that dip & crack that loosen speech & interpret afros that lead 2 liquor stores then bend & run away if u turn yo back brothas ask about time when a third generation addict finds a new thrill when a cousin returns home strung out becuz coping iz an art & hiz weakness paints hiz skin & hiz addiction iz mired in rancid incense in an age where no one recognizes soul brothas ask about time when yo child smokes hiz first joint & u start 2 see the cornermen in hiz face & 1 day u do not recognize him the tall slow eyed stranger in yo place brothas ask about time like 60 yr old players who tally the eyes of their abandoned children across middle aged trick's thighs who mask their highs with grins who catcall from dark doorways & invite the dead women in who see a child at the backdoor of the club & pause a moment pretending to check their pockets who count cards & seem 2 be dreaming violence while the drinks water down to whispers & 4 part harmony spins while in the corner of the smokey room lizards lay & alligators grin brothas ask about time but there may be no time 4 somewhere marches r being done & somewhere the future iz coming like an insane machine a thousand miles long coming & churning & leaving nothing & somewhere the terms r being set becuz death iz somewhere casually sitting timing us becuz death iz somewhere pulling cards & changing the channels somewhere rising from a chair somewhere putting on a watch somewhere slipping on a jacket somewhere locking the door behind him somewhere checking the information shuffling through the pictures checking the addresses somewhere somewhere out there coming

Romus © Copyright, 1999

across the street i saw u it waz raining soft & the city waz showing off extolling the glittering streets abstracting architecture in the clear windows taxis crescendoing in slow jazz my head nodding my footsteps drumming a chant in praise of the drizzling metropolis i saw u smiling & wet waving 2 me across the cautious street & i loved u there in the whirl & glamour of the neat & public afternoon we kissed a moment & i, almost lost the breath of u studied yo face the honest eyes the colors vibrant & clean behind u then i noticed r reflections in the boutique windows & i thought how wonderful that we should be lovers & meet here downtown where the steep city becomes a quaint village where the smallness of wherever we r 2gether iz wonderful here where a symphony iz sailing in2 the weather how gorgeous & perfumed the deep & lazy day how much we r the world & the envy of the lonely how the business men watch us & wish they were free & the shop attendants turn manequins that point at us az we dodge the puddles & how it iz tuesday & everyone iz dragging chains but we r so elegantly unencumbered & we r beautiful 2gether & we r beautiful in the clear glass & we r beautiful at the stoplights & we r beautiful under the movie marquee & we r beautiful among the expensive shoes & we r beautiful outshining the silver trinkets past the coffee houses under the red french canopies with the hot dog vendor whose cart & steam seem to be dreaming of us in the city square outlining r afternoon like a photograph in the pinwheeled joy in the brazen laughter like cathedral bells in the quick kisses like a thousand hurried starling jumping all at once in2 the damp air in the sheer rain in the music swirling a hundred stories high among the sculptures between the marvelous buildings around the fountains though the beautiful yellow taxis in the sprawling tall lighted city across the whirlwind blue fresco of r love in the luck & rising gold of irrepressible youth in the times of r lives

Romus © Copyright, 1999

yesterday in the maze of the tall city on avenues that harnessed shadows & let me walk unencumbered my memory yesterday in the brazen ministry of cars & brass & streetlight changes & clear glass where women were marbled in reflections like running water & brothas hustled the afternoon in2 evening where their unkempt bodies litter well mannered grass there on that corner in the silver & sunlight between my future & my past i saw u i had 4gotten yo face the women between here & there the browns of their cheeks the beauty of their shoulders sometimes so muddled in my memory who waz i loving then? what midnight did darkness surround us in? waz it u who once left before i could touch u? & the swirling city the daytime carousel of events & traffic time & the shadows of clocks the vinyl sounds of bright pigeons lifting off in2 the weather i saw u & u were looking at me & memory fast az vision hurtling gazes 1 face 2 another in that fragrant recognition of shared breath & silence intimacy cooled yo mouth r kisses still exist somewhere behind yo tongue we smiled & greeted & held hands a second 2 long i almost kissed u i swear almost held u 2 close almost tasted yo ear & left an invitation in the small of yo back but i let u go & watched u in the crowds & watched u looking back at me & calling & disappearing & moving into the infinite fanning of the alluvial future until i lost u in the sheer number of faces & shadows & echoing sounds

Romus © Copyright, 1999

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