He Loved Him Madly
[In a Silent Way]
It had been watching you sleep in dreams of excrement
and hard voices. The government gifted it with mute,
unregulated hands. It came to you, father, before
I was born, my bones bound in the cup of your absence.
Your skin was peeled in a dominion of wolves.
[Illegal Business]
When it came it came wearing familial faces.
House after house, noses took in this new air.
A brother OD'd, a father, a mother, an uncle, a sister —
House after house cataracted with snow-veiled skulls.
On the corner, police officers licked their white fingers.
[Will O' the Wisp]
I was four when I committed your face
to memory. I made into reason what was
once rumor. Diaspora, meaning this time
what father-source had left me pliant had
returned so that I could return and turn to it.
[Dead Presidents II]
Poverty gave reason to hustle. A dealer's
frozen wrists, weighted by stones, flipped
through green pages of an anemic bible
that catalogued white men who once jeweled their own
properties in varicose coffles toward cotton coffins.
[Black Comedy]
Father, you were summarized by your veins' laughter.
Last time I saw you your face was cratered
with breathless mouths collaborating with dust.
Behold the white horse, hoof over oof
dispersing the circus of our communal horror.
[Ten Crack Commandments]
It's offensive, our most brilliant forced to pray
to getting paid, forced to spray or get sprayed.
It got so bad folks was scraping and sniffing
the ash off their knees. Cities full of prophets
that could only see as far as their own decease.
[Inamorata]
Whom did you love most: Lady Caine, Mama Coca,
White Lady, Girlfriend, Lady Snow, Pearl,
Aunt Nora, Angie, Carrie Nation, Percia, Mujer,
Corrinne, Gift-of-the-Sun-God, Snow White, Her?
[Dope]
Cain't be capitalism. No suh! No suh! u u u u u u u
Must be the Devil! Cain't be white supremacy! No suh!
Couldn'ta been the Iran-ContraaffairandReaganlooking
underTOWmisslesforhostageswhileCIAbreaksloaves
ofcokealloverthisGodfearinland no suh! u u u u u owowoo!
[Sorcerer]
Father, I have sewn my eyes to an allegiance
with worms. I am still incredulous of light.
The city of my teeth has softened its curses.
If you arrived elemental, shapeless and aquiver,
I'd fashion you a suit from my hollow's frame.
[C.R.E.A.M]
How much for the faux Bearden of a Lexus collaged
over a crack house, addicts clawing the air like trees?
When weight moves like poltergeists a triple beam
gets its wings, but not all caine is able.
[On the Corner]
The moon unbraids a man's hair. His Solo Cup
of Jack Daniels catches light, shakes to the bass
rattle of speakers stacked on the porch like die.
His woman leans on his shoulder. When he kisses
her forehead he leaves a bouquet of stars.
[Street Dreams]
Her blunt unrolled itself on the floor. Its entrails rose
and configured like a burning church in reverse.
Then her grandpa's voice: Baby, this ain't no place
of worship. But she already had a messenger, had
already counted the buds blooming from her tongue.
[Recollections]
My father sang in Superior Movement. He would croon
around the house, the halls carrying his falsetto
like a good beast. In the store he gave me quarter
after quarter to play Pac-Man and Golden Axe.
He taught me to laugh at losing, how to run away fast.
[Let Me Roll]
Lung rider, smoke inscriber, your eyes spin white,
coaxed inward by black steers stomping loose
their hair to string your mind's cavity into heirloom
and guitar. To you the air is erotic, is panic-stricken.
Your bloodshot eyes weave a nest to nest the haints.
[He Loved Him Madly]
Dear architect of rot. Dear razor that is your dead body
beneath my bare feet. Dear smile, endless, a lake
that keeps my reflection. Dear reflection I keep
in the locket of my closed eyes. Dear father.
Dear wish. Dear closest thing to God I know.
Copyright Credit: Phillip B. Williams, "He Loved Him Madly" from Thief in the Interior. Copyright © 2016 by Phillip B. Williams. Reprinted by permission of Alice James Books.
Source: Thief in the Interior (2016)