The projects rise like broken bones toward mars
Everything is brown in Philadelphia
Even the boy next door who spoke as I was
Getting in the car to head back to Houston.
I had the same luck with the lottery
I missed winning seven dollars by one number.
New York!
Herds of humanity
Graze on street corner slop and ride in the bellies
Of silver worms beneath city gutters
Street people are ragged and unfashionably stinky.
Everyone else is fashionably ragged.
“Andy” sells me a beaded sweater
off an old lady’s dead shoulders.
A roguish Puerto Rican painter copies
A Robert Colescott painting as his own black creation.
Got all dressed up to go to the theatre in Harlem.
Got there stinky and hot--Harlem,
Who bombed it?
Noise all night long in Brooklyn.
No ugly people live in New York
Everyone is Cafe' au lait. Tall boy with five inch hair
Sits wide legged on the sub in baggy trousers.
His throat is stiff with defiance, But his dark
Eyes linger in mine for a moment.
Everything is for sale in New York
Even a hug from daddy long legs.
All Over the World
Nigger the same
Nigger the same
Nigger the same
Harlem, Phila,
Houston
Nigger the same--
Shuffling feet
Going nowhere
Buying everythang.
Nigger the same
Nigger the same
Nigger the same
Me, you,
White folks too
All the same
I Want it All
I want to be a crack salesman
The biggest in the world
I want a crack house
Bigger than New York
In every room, a shootin' gallery
and a buck naked ho'
Grinding on my Hollywood beds.
I want to wrap my body
In 14 karat gold.
I want to buy my Momma
A sea otter coat
My dad a penguin-skin suit.
I want my 'Royce trimmed in gold.
I want to be bad, so bad
I hook the devil on my shit,
Turn earth into hell and
Hell inside out.
Then when I die, I'll go down
And kick the devil in his booty.
I want it all.
Future Shock
****
There is no Answer
Is there racism
In space?
Or is space one color, black?
Is it possible to be killed
With hate?
Is it possible to be hated
With love?
Red is the color of both passions.
Is there love
Between dying?
Or is loving the reason we die?
Is writing the beginning of poetry?
Or is poetry the clicking
of tongue against decaying teeth?
Is there music
That cannot be played
Because it will be the beginning
Of our own silence?
Does the value of words end
When you speak them?
When you say, "I love you.
Is it still true?
Does life really end
With death?
Or like the mad dog eating his heart--
Is death the beginning?
Starry-Eyed War
We need twice as many weapons as we got.
We need weapons that blow up weapons
When they fall into enemy hands.
We need weapons shaped like cucumbers and tomatoes,
To kill all the vegetarians.
We need weapons shaped like anuses
To kill all the punks.
We need weapons. Oh yes we do.
We need weapons shaped like vaginas,
To render the Russians impotent.
We need weapons shaped like David Bowie, Michael Jackson,
To kill all the teen freaks.
We need weapons.
We need twice as many as we got.
We need weapons shaped like toasters
Blenders
Waffle Irons
Can Openers
Corn cob cookers
Salmon poachers
Electric egg slicers
Dildo Teasers,
To turn dark communist housewives
Into beautiful capitalist blondes.
We need weapons shaped like hog maws
Chitterlings Sweet potatoes
Aretha Franklin
Bobby Blue Bland
Gold Cadillacs
Ranch-style houses
To kill all the black folks
We need weapons shaped like fire hydrants
To kill stray dogs.
We need weapons.
Got to have 'em!
Can't live without 'em.
We need weapons shaped like Thurgood Marshall,
To zap all liberals and Humanists, and cat lovers.
We need weapons shaped like the Holy Ghost
To get rid of welfare lovin' Bishops.
We need weapons!
We need weapons!
Lord have mercy, we need weapons!
Aliens *
*The Movie
White folks can whip anything
Orange
Heat and dust bathe me. I glow.
My skin peels away like an orange
Under a child's awkward fingers.
My hair lies on the floor like clumps of black spiders.
My long yellow teeth glitter like gold.
I am death. My decision-makers lie in cement bunkers
Under me. 'Come out and see me," I shout. No one comes.
It takes a brave son-of-a-bitch to face me.
The White House is singed orange and lies silent.
No one faces my battery of microphones to answer me.
The Russian mother waits for Chernenko. He is cooked
And cooled in his grave--He will say nothing
To any of Us simpletons, Us pawns,
Us welfare mothers, Avon ladies, prostitutes,
Us middle managers, Us guitar pickers, Us poets--
I step back from the wall, my shadow stays.
I am naked. I see the imprint of my striped garment
On my chest. So powerful was Einstein's bomb
I sung Glory Hallelujah! I saw Jesus walking on water!
Water--I sip and vomit air. My intestines stroke my spine.
I tell you, I am death!--though my Mother named me Hope.
I feel through my cunt man's hot ideology sucking my bones.
I see Out my window, and through my father's bones,
Running Jew, monkey grass, and in a fit of faith—
¬A sunflower pushing through his rib cage,
Even as radiation clicks in the air
And me, I peel away.
Black Christmas
And they came,
Three wise men
Bearing gifts to
A black Christ
Child who lay
In the burned
And broken ruins
The place we
Know it as
South Side Chicago.
These wise men
In cyan suits,
Shades, fedoras, walking
Canes tapping on
The sidewalk,
Came bearing horse,
Crack, grass, wine
To the ebony
&nbs
p; Christ sucking milk
Laced with sperm-
'Cause his Momma
Hooked for money
In alleyways on
Her knees. But
This Christ grew
Anyway despite his
Gifts. He became
A leader, spoke
Like thunder striking.
Called called called
All God's children
To worship black
Bones, black cats
Black trees, black
Crosses and commune
And black crackers
Every blessed seventh
Day and sing
Black work songs.
Survival Technique of the Black Homo-Sapiens
I spend all of my days
Trying not to be a victim
Of my black heart and your
phosphorous white genocide.
In my heart's four chambers
Lie grenades.
Watch me pull pins!
Sept. 19, 2057
Nothing is Different/Everything is Rearranged
In this funny land the scientists have concocted Chickens grow on trees,
Strawberries are the size of watermelons, Watermelons hatch pigs,
A side of bacon comes from the bull, A side of beef from his better half,
Milk is made from the honey bee Sugar from a skunk's teeth,
Snakes can swallow elephants Because elephants are the size of porcupines.
Your eyes are even with your tail bone-¬Mooning is no longer against the law.
We are all on one level-¬Two feet-ten and a half.
Green mold grows in sunny spots in the kitchen. Rainwater will dissolve a head of hair.
Turkeys recite the alphabet--Z to A. Gorillas live in condos.
Defecating gives you the rush that making love used to-¬Ex-lax is now an aphrodisiac.
In beauty pageants a girl's ass must match a zebra's Flank for flank, stripe for stripe.
Men are judged on the fullness of their 38 d-cups And their sweet milk.
Eating cheese causes AIDS.
The cure comes from the anus of the kamikaze terrorist
Whose will to die is so powerful
It lifts an ordinary Joe from sickness.
Blues singers are out of business
'Cause love is a signed contract--
No more of that chest thumping heart stuff.
A heavy dose of valium takes care of that.
Children hatch themselves inside women’s wombs
Birth themselves from her mouth
Quickly before she can bite off their feet.
Life Insurance is really that-¬The more you have, the longer you live.
Your agent sells you a policy
So he can buy a bigger one
Nothing is different/Everything is rearranged.
About the Author
Charles W. Harvey is a native Houstonian and a graduate of the University of Houston. He has studied fiction under the guidance of Rosellen Brown and Chitra Divakaruni at U of H. He has studied poetry under Joyce James and Cynthia MacDonald. In 1987, Charles was a 1st place prize recipient of PEN/Discovery for Cheeseburger, which went on to be published in the Ontario Review. In 1989 Charles Harvey was awarded the Cultural Arts Council of Houston Grant for Writers and Artists. Also in 1989 he was a finalist in the MacDonald's Literary Achievement Awards. Charles has been published in Soulfires, Story Magazine SHADE, High Infidelity, The James White Review, and others. He is the author of the novels The Butterfly Killer and Promise Goodday.
*****
Discover Harvey and Other Great Writers@
Bark Too
When Dogs Bark 2
The Last Supper
Christmas in Linken Park
My Manhood is Very Important to Me
Betty’s House
The Blue Train to Heaven
How I Got Over
The Butterfly Killer
Promise Goodday
Minister Q
Boy 4 Higher
****
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