i.
it's really true
that white boys can't slam, ker-blam
that white boys can't produce
verbal cascades in spades,
because they live their entire lives in the shade
of a backroom deal that was made
between lucifer, columbus, and george wallace.
it's really true
that white boys can't see, gee-wee
anybody else's reality, even with
microscopic lenses that can bore
through steel fences.
white boys like to make catastrophic
chemtrails of industrial decay, third world
villages full of husbandless wenches,
thousands of mechanics without wrenches,
paved over parks robbed of benches,
plus
imf, world bank, conservative think tanks
with milton friedman clones to thank
and fox news replicants to spank.
now everyone has diabetes
from that coca cola they were sold,
and then drank
from that white boy with diamond-tipped loafers,
who promised to build schools and hospitals
paid for by high fructose corn syrup.
an empty mind could never draw a blank,
and it's really true
that white boys can't slam,
can't cram together spontaneous syllables
and impossible infinitives, can't link up
adversarial adverbs and nugatory nouns,
sure,
white boys can't slam,
like gil scott heron wearin
somethin formal with his speakers blarin,
crack-crinkled nostrils flarin, neighbors not carin
about the genius wasting away softly
in the brownstone of their fears.
white boys can't slam, sha-zam,
like nuyorican poets dispensing verses
without rehearses, full of magical curses
spoken from fire escape perches
as sacred as underground churches.
white boys can't slam, ker-blam,
won't be caught rhyming for pocket change
aboard a commuter tram, won't ever equal
the likes of saul williams and sonja sohn,
no, white boys can't slam
because they would still rather
walk alone.
most white boys probably don't
give a damn that they
can't even slam, probably don't
give a damn that green eggs and ham
still taste better than spam, that you
can't find a single white boy
who is still building a dodge ram.
white boys
never had to ride the underground railroad,
and don't feel like
connecting poignant pronouns to people,
places, and things that make
funky sounds,
because of white boys
doctors make rounds
in hospitals without medicine,
and human smugglers
have cargo to jettison
and, by the way,
most white boys can't write like tennyson
or invent like edison, neither
free verse nor light bulbs
coming from the myopic mammalian mind
of the average white boy.
ii.
i loom on the stage, not a page
to turn, as expectant, hushed eyes
burn like just-lit coals,
the microphone stand
is an aspen tree shaking
in the wind, the round table
right in front is empty,
but still reserved
for somebody willing to pay extra
to be that much closer
to a poet looming on the stage,
getting ready to slam, no thanks
ma'am, the five dollar cover
is a bit too steep.
