All of Life Is Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory
By Justin Danzy
which Timbaland claims inspired Aaliyah’s
“Are You That Somebody,” a great song, yes,
you must agree, the beat infallible just how
the beat to “Knuck If You Buck” is infallible,
“Sonny’s Blues,” infallible, Denzel Washington
in Training Day—must I even say it?—infallible,
so, too, Big Mike from The Wood, a classic
in our household, right up there next to Baby Boy,
which my cousin John can to-this-day quote
every word of, his favorite character is Sweetpea,
his favorite moment the moment when Tyrese
gets jumped by some lil niggas—I never say niggas
in my poems—his Alizé and blue bike stolen from
beneath him, or the moment Sweetpea, lost
on the way to change, murders Snoop Dogg, who plays
the same character in every movie, which brings me
back to Training Day, Snoop Dogg in his wheelchair,
King Kong, the office—This shit is chess, it ain’t checkers,
my mother says when I call and we talk about parenting
or marriage—My nigga, I want to say to her
before hanging up the phone.
Notes:
This poem uses a slightly altered line from Terrance Hayes’s poem “What I Am.”
Source: Poetry (September 2024)