Who’s going to sing a black boys’ song?

For Trayvon, Michael and Martin, and all other black boys

 

sable mappings cover him

like an ethno-alien cartogram

dipped deeply and precisely in ebony timber

whipped in/two

industrial multiplexes

distorted by a pre/fix of datum

 

convictions

 

venomous raindrops of marked difference inflate him

perorating from tongue to tongue

oral histories

scientific legends

transmutations

generation to generation

disassembled from psyche to psyche

now born into a world already known

(known for what?)

 

adultification

 

“never havin been a [boy]”

being born a man

where pornographic dreams encrust him

intentions asphyxiate hallucinations of thriving

(thriving for what?)

truth

and freedom

freedom from anxiety

modernity’s signs and symbols

and parasitic epistemes that manipulate his living flesh

 

resurrection

 

somebody/anybody


sing a black [boys’] song

bring [him] out


to know [himself]


to know you


but sing [his] rhythms


carin/struggle/hard times

sing [his] song of life


[he’s] been dead so long


closed in silence so long


[he] doesn’t know the sound


of [his] own voice


[his] infinite beauty

[he’s] half-notes scattered


without rhythm/ no tune


sing [his] sighs


sing the song of [his] possibilities


sing a righteous gospel


the makin of a melody


let [him] be born


let [him] be born


& handled warmly.[1]