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

posted 15 February 2007