THE PROPHET AND THE KING


Define the beliefs of a people and you are a prophet,
Assemble them and you are a king.

MIDWAY


I'm only here to break up your sight line
a side line on a carnival of dreams
Merry-go-round and the Ferris wheel dance
I wish I was a midway and you-
the eternal last chance.

SONG FOR GISELE (1979)


The lights go out on the Sante Fe
The moon's still there, it's all that remains
and the night wind tells me to take it on home
-but I don't want to go.

Thinking about you
and all the grief that I put you through
We quarrel through the night
-try to win all the time-
or we don't talk until we do.

I told you that I love you
and I meant it for more than just words
but now that I see
us falling apart at the seams
I'm feeling a bit insecure.

I said I'd be yours forever
but you know how those forevers go
it was fate that cast us together, babe
but you know fate just loves a show

So if we can make it though this night time
on this never ending flight
though I'm feeling confused
I don't want to loose
this feeling for you that's my life.

The lights go out on the Sante Fe
moon's still there, but there's more that remains
though the night wind tells me to take it on home
I still don't want to go....

*The Sante Fe is a train I used to try to hop after she and her family were transferred to Charlotte with IBM. The part about fate and casting refers to the Senior Play we were both in and how we met.

TOOBLACKEYES



It's always 2 Black guys. I knew a girl who
was raped by 5 Black guys once. She was riding
the bus late at night from downtown to the edge
of downtown and these % Black guys got off when
she did and took her in an alley and did her.

It was an incredibly sad and personal story and
I hate to say it, but I doubt that it really
happened that way. It wasn't the fact that she
was a low cost call girl making money so that
she could take her acting classes, or that she
had a natural flair for the dramatic that made
me question, it was the fact that she said it
was 5 and not 2 Black guys.

The phrase is so common that, in the near
future, it will be just one word. Then there
will be no police graft, gangs, drug dealing,
no bigotry, racism, or any type of prejudice.
By then, we would have forgotten where the word
originated from, just like so many other
colloquialisms and, because of our declining
educational system, our use of adjectives will
have decayed to only one word for ill-fated
circumstance; tooblackeyes.

BECAUSE I CAN'T HOP THE MOON

I'm feeling the need to jump a train again.
I want to ride my motorcycle until I hear a train,
race it,
pass it,
park,
wait for it,
hop on.

Just go for a couple of miles,
knowing that I could go farther.

THE NIGHT AND THE SEA


I can watch the sea
but it will never call me
and never stop me
from falling--

As the night calls
I know not how to answer
in a way so I will get an answer
from my father
for I am Night's bastard
and yet I scream
Why won't he reveal himself to me?

"I am your father," the Ocean said
"the Night is your Mother, though we ain't
never wed
and although she blankets you and comforts your head
I want you to know, and never forget
that in me are all of the tears that you have
not yet shed."

I finally understand
what it takes to be a man;
and just as the night shows the emotion
vast as her sky
as she cries
the tears for the ocean;
My Mother will always govern my sleep,
knowing my Dad,
though strong,
is full of tears
but will never sea him weep.