Caught in limbo...
stuck on the border between yesterday and tomorrow-- pain and Cain.
threshing memories in the hopes of harvesting dreams.
Cream of the crop. One drop rule rescinded.
Slavery ended yet sanctions remain.
The familiar refrain of grumbling bellies
a baseline for spiritual rituals meant to be accompanied by drums.
Stones skipped across the Atlantic still remember where they're from.

Syncretic synergy and the energy of recovery.
Rehabilitative creativity.
Asylum granted -- colored walls
Mathematical solution to an existential problem--
Add paint to subtract division from a tangential sentence imposed by force.
Then again, detention has always housed the fires of creativity
carrying masked subversion as a torch.
Just as dessert remains a favorite course.

Sprinkle sugar crystals over my coffee colored skin
and let me wake you from your slumber
Drink in my metaphors and bask on the shores of our mutual memory.
Painted maroons.  Jazz tunes and radical lines penned in foreign tongues.
These are the bullets of our cultural gun aimed at the heads of states of mind constrained and fettered by time. 
Rum on the rocks with a twist of lime.

Running from writing
Writhing
slithering
that stepping out of syllables like old skin
(or bad relationships)
searching for a new shell
without pumping iron to promote growth
(or reading books)
loving weekends of unexpected greatness
where the focus is overshadowed by the periphery
where the sights seen remain unscripted
Improvised living, duty free-floating
building temples without taking tours
Sharing lives without last names.

Haven't danced like that in a while
spun frowns to smiles
Like a lonely child coerced to dance with a fat auntie
Too easy to get lost in the beat
dancing to a private drummer
in search of plums, all thumbs,
I throw caution to the wind and jump in to the rhythm head first, no floaties,
who cares if I get caught up in a wave of merriment
and float out to sea on a raft built of breakbeats and drum loops
thatched strings holding things together like
Scotch tape or kids
once happy hour became a buffer between work and home.

I float on, reunited with my estranged wife,
remembering the days when we would smile softly
without worrying about bills
when rings were onion
France was fries
and anniversaries were things we celebrated every month, for a year, like sobriety
until our joy ran dry
and we settled into a routine
going to bed early
Planning instead of dreaming.

I remember what you looked like the first time we danced.
Young but wise, the stars in your eyes
like pools reflecting the promise of my horizon
alluding to a depth that could not be fathomed during the course of one song.
You had spent the whole night with your girls, avoiding boys like third grade,
Until you realized that I was gifted
and you let me get away with being drunk and corny
because I was there and sincere
You held me close like a teddy bear once lost twice found…

(lost the other part)

Beijing bird, caged by green tea grandpas
Ash hanging from their cigarettes
Like eight year old emperors clinging to attendant arms.

Locked within a labyrinth of Mah Jong and bamboo blinds
Winding streets make you hard to find
but this western mind is yet again determined
to locate and conquer, seek and define.

I want to shoot a picture and hang it on a wall
My elusive hutong bird photographed in fall.

I want our love to be like rats playing near the third rail during rush hour on a Tuesday after a long weekend where people did more than just laundry and are now very unhappy to be back at work but happy that the day is over and actually contemplating a quiet night at home with a book, some wine, a lover. 

I want you to see that we are chasing a dream that's liveable.  A life on the edge of tomorrow, the verge of breaking, I want you to feel  the world rushing over us, floating like a stampede of buffalo sized lemmings, twice endangered, doubly determined to avoid extinction. 

I want you to realize that we two are nothing more than rats playing near the third rail during rush hour on a Tuesday after a long weekend where people did more than just laundry.  Unafraid of trains.  Unconcerned with passengers.  And happy. 

I've got Africa on my breath,
A reminiscent trace of cayenne that injects a charge of heat and colors my words,
Like sunshine.

A pungent memory, exuded through pores like hot days
Where cooler heads glisten and hot heads drip a sweet smell like three large ripe mangoes
Freshly cut, baring their flesh for the first time.
(Three seconds before the flies)

Windswept sand.  Three hour rains that turn courtyards into streams
Trees that hide, provide, and shelter
Dreams of materialism under the verdant arms of hospitality, community, and culture

Mine is the heavy breath of arduous tasks
the expectant aspiration of a bright future and the relieved sigh stifled only by the bright eyes of hope
Breath of life.

Breath of pharaohs, kings, marabouts, poets, chiefs, and griots
okra and yam, peanut and onion, past, present, and future.
Breath of destiny.

Searching for parity
binary clarity
parsing digital code
sorting for analog similarity
sifting through sand for diamonds
grains stuck to fingers like wet newsprint
black and white whorls
leaving impressions of the path of least resistance
closest distance to understanding the difference
between falling and lying
hoping and trying

Mascara running
towards the ground
praying that smudged eyesight
would attract a lost soul seeking the sound
Of a smile
the joy of a child and the determination of a caterpillar
inching towards growing wings and experiencing flowers
that were once romantic thoughts left on the tip of arboreal tongues
words trapped in lungs like smokey truths
waiting for the chance to be exhaled in rings masquerading as haloes.
Hollow helloes hiding veiled sorrows and unspoken goodbyes
secretly yearning for a shared tomorrow.

Searching pens seek words to describe the unspoken.
Cursive script to define the unbroken.
Circles around the truth.
Driven without navigation. 
Tires flicking wet sand like political campaigns. 
Where lies the politik in patriotic refrains?
Chorus of angels on high
anti drugs but pro war.
Christened children stealing candy from the company store
but the end game strictly manhattan
High rise low lives
trying to make things happen.

Cave men with two sticks trying to catch a fire
more caught up in the motion than the original motivation
satisfied to be in business too easily distracted from customers and service
Abandoned bodegas and unmanned pizza shops
descriptive conscription prescribed as a remedy for life
As we chase death in the name of peace
Regression in the name of progress. 
Perhaps our national orbit is retracing steps in a geopolitical sky
during retrograde.

Spinning disc of DHM
Random notes of diversity
Cramming for chords.
Harmony.
Trees that freeze and leaves that fall.
Seasons that change.
Segmented schedules like pencil marks on kitchen walls.
Marked growth.

Classmates who became friends.
Friends who became lovers.
Students who became teachers.
An alphabet soup of acronyms following names
like postscripts on a handwritten letter.
An accumulation of degrees that lets us know
we have left New England winter behind
and are now boldly stepping into a summer of our choosing.

With memories firmly planted in academy soil
like dedicated trees
we find the courage to move forward
never forgetting our awkward moments
or neglecting to remember those of our classmates.
Friends.
Lovers.
Racing back to a celluloid past where we snapped photos
and held frozen moments tight
like notecards for a presentation
that would invariably go over time
spilling into dining halls
Like cereal. 

Life. 

Not sugar coated but sweet
Reading between lines
analyzing the innate goodness of interstitial intention.
Researching the origin of forgotten nicknames.
Dormitory legend
The stuff history is made of.
The past in which our future is firmly rooted
Like dedicated trees stretching towards the sun.

Ca fait longtemps mon frere.  J'espere que tout est bien dans le quartier Ngaparou. 
Il y a trop qui a deroule entre notre dernier communication.  Mais j'ai ecrit ce poem.  Et j'ai voulu l'envoyer.  Je salue tout Yoff.  je me rappelle presque tout les noms.  NUYOO Yaye Aram.  Pape Dollar.  Fatou Gueye. Libasse. Amsatou Gueye.  Adji Ndour.  Zale Seck.  Assane Seck.  Yahya Ndour.  Mame Bouye.  Badou Samba.  Pieng.  Toubaye, bop buganda, Elimane ICE Sylla, dit lui "nice cool fine" pour moi.  Dis coucou a tous les mohameds, les peuls, les djigens rafets, ma famille et mes amis.  Tu me manque.  Vraiment.  J'espere que ta famille est en bon sante.  Leegi leegi mon frere.  Ecris moi, si tu peux. 

Salaam Ma Laikum.
Baithe Americain.

Senegal tu me manque.

Sama xarit, ton churaille visite mes narines encore.
J'suis a New york.  Je t'ai pas oublie.
Tes chemins sables.  Ton hospitalite.
Teranga ak kinkeliba. Sandwiches brochettes.
La pallue.  La paix.

Bughe Jamm. Tutti Rek.
Assez pour satisfaire mon faim.

Ma yaye, ca va.  Inch'allah.
Amo jabar.  Amo Xale.

Nuyoo Mame Ndiare pour moi. 
Gej na la gis. Je vous laisse. 
(Dama xif.)

Maima benn poulet mafe,
deux gris gris, et un peux de paix.
Jerejef waay.

Leegi Leegi, Sa mak.
Abdou Samba.

-----------------------------------

Senegal, call me.

I miss you Senegal,

My friend, your incense still visits my nostrils
I am in New York.  I haven't forgotten you.
your sandy streets, your hospitality.
Teranga and Kinkeliba.  Brochette Sandwiches
Malaria.  Peace

I crave peace.  Just a little bit.
Enough to satisfy my hunger.

My mother is fine, thanks to God. 
No wife, no kids.

Say hi to Mame Ndiare for me.
It's been a long time since I've seen you.  I'll let you go. 
(I'm hungry)

Send me one Chicken mafe
two amulets, and a little peace.

Thanks friend,
Talk to you later, your brother.
Abdou Samba.

I would like to know the tenderness of your tongue, caress me with unfamiliar words, seduce me with your story.  Make me believe in a bilingual destiny.  Teach me how to speak without saying a word.  I want to learn how to laugh with my tears. 

What's worse?  An incomplete sentence or dead words that fall without having expressed their reason to live?

This unedited passage may be the beginning of a book or a crumpled page to be thrown at drunken ears.  Literary scribbles more beautiful than pictures, each word, a detail, each phrase a shadowy light that illuminates and confounds at the same time. 

Words ask questions, photos speak loudly, of fabricated histories, frozen moments in time without context. 

(Show me your dragons and tell me how you slayed them.)

I don't want to see parties or pictures of your body at rest.  I want to see you in motion, dancing, existing clearly in a neverending present, composite but not overly composed because the past can only motivate and not change.

(I want to be active in an unknown future)

I want to know whether you can truly translate the idea of a bilingual destiny.  I want to learn how to whisper strong ideas, and I don't want my words to be stillborn. 

Should these petals fall without being gathered and cherished, I will still be happy to have said them because words that fall without having expressed their reason to live are worse than incomplete sentences. 

-----------------------------------------------------------

Destin Bilingue
J'aimerais bien savoir la tendresse de votre langue
Caresse-moi avec vos mots indistingues.
Seduis-moi avec votre histoire.
Fais-moi croire dans un destin bilingue

Enseigne-moi comment parler sans rien dire
Je veux apprendre comment rire avec mes larmes.
 
C'est quoi qui est pire? 
Le phrase incomplet ou les mots morts
Qui tombent sans avoir exprime leur raison de vivre?

Ce passage inedite peut-etre le commencent d'un livre
Ou une feuille froisse pour etre jetee aux oreilles ivres.
Je pense-moi que les mots sont plus belles que les photos
Chaque parole une petite detaille, chaque phrase une lumiere ombreuse.
Quelque chose qui illumine et confond au meme temps.
Les mots posent des questions, les photos parlent a haut voix
d'une histoire fabrique, un instant congele sans contexte

Montre moi vos betes et raconte moi comment vous les avez tuer.
 
Je ne veux pas voir vos fetes ou votre corps a reste.  
Je veux que te voir entraine des danser, pour que vous existiez clairement
dans un present interminable, composite mais pas trop compose
parce que le passe peut seulement motiver sans changer

Je veux etre actif dans un futur indistingue
Savoir si vous pourriez traduiser l'idee d'un destin bilingue
Je veux apprendre comment souffler des idees fortes
 
Je desire pas que mes mots sont nes morts
Et si ces petales tombent sans etre senti
Je suis contents de les avoir dits
Pour les mots qui tombent
sans avoir exprime leur raison de vivre sont pire que les phrases incompletes. 
Si c'est ici que l'histoire commence,
c'est aussi la ou les images du passe arretent.