Mickey
(1945-2007)
Louis Reyes Rivera
Mickey.
What
do we know
about
the shapes of things?
Comin'
into life, wanting...
nurtured on our mamas' milk
lookin'
to be hugged & loved.
Born
onto a hostile Brooklyn street
upon
the soil of a segregated north
among
the first families of Marcy Chaplain turf,
there
we were...
from
the womb of Ruth & the loins of Amelia
pushing thru vaginal warmth
fightin' hard to stay alive
to
bear that weight in search of more
clingin' to the semblance of a blatant truth
despite that muddled stalk confronting us
cemented trees & green mowed grass
locked
within fenced gray pens
relegated to the projects
But
what do we know about such things?
the
stark & stink of public schools & crooked books
as the
texts we had to read
& the
tests we had to take
are
written in a lord white thought
projectin' & insistin' on Black subordination
teachers & principles
cops &
postment like subway engineers
or
firemen & pfizer trucks
a
cascade laundry
a
greek-owned diner
an
irish gangster's local bar
completely owned & stacked without us
like
the store that's staffed with strangers
in
boardrooms, on PTAs & neighborhoods abandoned
or the
factories in Bedford-Sty
clearly seen & glaring loud
the
fact that we are not included
They
used to call you wild
Crazy
Mickey, some would say
just
'cause even when you smiled you laughed
rough
& loud
like
when you couldn't land
that
left hook right
you'd
just charge, wrestle 'em to the ground
rollin' on the dirt & glass of concrete
hard &
mad
like
the anger swelling in your heart
from
the truth you felt beneath the lie
about
flesh & kin defending
But
what do we know?
Targets for a bullet's badge
a
cellblock gate
a
judge's loom
a
factory gig to lay in
like
heroin's addiction
grabbing another bottle by the throat
to
swing or swig away
the
ace of contradiction
There
are things we seldom ever really know
how
math gets cloaked in scientific fact
to
shape the lies we are given to accept
or die
before our hearts are born
Remember(?)
Baby &
Pancake & Ooh-Poo-Pee-Doo
Bobby
Johnson, Robbie Walker
Thurmon Philip Butch
Shotgun Ditty Tan
Charlie Papo Ray
Yonkie
Plunkie Bay
Leroy
& Cliffy
Lawrence & Leonard
June &
Moogans
Cimarron & Spanish Al...
none
of them to bid a last farewell
Yes,
sir, Mickey, of course, we grow
ripe &
rife with longing
the
stubborn we engage
to
claim a space that is our own
partaking of that promise
made
to us by life itself
to
take & hold this bitter claim
to
live & work & birth our own
& tend
to what we need to tend
& lift
ourselves as best we can
to
rise above the dearth of someone else's
psycho-racial stew
We're
here.
We
count. We matter
even
while Ole Finite Life
will
come to take our flesh & bone
will
cart our kin away
&
leave it to our sisters and our men
to
carry the coffin
ride
that hearse
& read
from the letters of our will to do
the fact that we were here.
12 February 2007
