Ophelia Knight: Words From The Spirit
Love On High Ground
My mama told me that my father used to hold her with fervor/ they would slow dance to Luther and Gerald/ memorize their words like old church sermons/ pecking each other's lips like the day was meant for just that/ no time for anything else/ just gold caps on rotting teeth/ delta blues being echoed through the street's/ the levee filled with gambler's ready to sign their dollars away/ mama chastised but still he went/ telling her, heart in hand, wrapped in tamale husk, saying, "Sweet baby, I know when to hold 'em. Damn sho know when to fold 'em."/ coming home with his shotgun close and a few hundred in his pocket/ whispering them seductive hymns as he slid between her legs/ asking for another kid to add to the litter/ asking for forgiveness when anger brought them low/ falling on their knees to pray for their Lord to bring their love back/ on high ground
ICEBERG SLIM (before he was a man)
allow me to purge myself
within these contents they fall between the ebony backbone of vices created beyond us
through the years remembrance is a wild concept
a giant nightmare that aches in the root of realization
they get worse, thrusting into the darkened
beginning
finding soft, supple, relief in the spring of virgin frenzy
50 cent pieces break down into 25 and then 5 and then oblivion
his love for us was deranged
cold as ice from a woman tortured
too much noise in the streets
not enough cunning to last
reeking of cologne and dressed to be pretty
looking in a mirror
and damning the idea of it
mothers too, lay rotten needed and cantankerous
they should know
she should hear
a pimp is a changed man now
changed forever
robert beck (ICEBERG SLIM is merely a man)
man is fallible
he folds and becomes privy to some kind of winding, guttural (in)justice
he is released and becomes slave to survival
mama is on the bed in teethers
this woman with hooded eyes is not familiar
she is hardened, lock jaw time is aging us
a man’s gotta eat
a man’s gotta love
a man’s gotta provide
nature is a human construct
nurture is by force
man is fallible
you must remember that
Flora & Fauna
I am not one without the other
I am a manifestation of sexual desires
Unfulfilled
I am starving, an omnivore turned
Carnivorous
I am eager to sink my teeth into the nearest man of African Descent
Sing him love songs translated into
slave hymns while he drinks from my sullied
breasts
Rub him down tenderly, pulling him near to
whisper in his blood shot ears-
“Eat of me and grow,
Drink of me and never thirst again.”
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