poems: Roger Bonair-Agard
Defense – 1988
Milt is chillin’ / Gizmo’s chillin
what more can i say, Top Billin’…
Audio Two
I. pickup
The drug dealers wear brightly colored
velour sweatsuits open to the waist.
Thick gold rope chains hang
past their sternums Four-finger rings
mimick a skyline on their fingers
and the gazelles framing their faces
under the brooding eves of
kangols are epic They call me
youngblood or sometimes island
boy and they throw down bills
on the pick up games we run
under the lights at 116th street
My handle is decent my passes
are money on a dime my J
is almost non-existent but my
hands my hands are fast and I stay
on my man like a bad rash The first time
I hang out with the Kennys I’m scared
to play but do so anyway I am less
than a year removed from home
These dudes ain’t no joke I’d better
play D Nobody on this court knows
how sweet I am with a ball at my feet
how round and rich
my baritone throat
II. cocaine
The two Kennys want me
to smoke crack with them
I won’t so they’re pissed
Still I pool my money with theirs
and in the back of an abandoned lot
in an abandoned car we take turns
letting a crack whore suck us off
I return twice more
to the lot once without the Kennys
and am a little relieved when I do not find
any of the broken toothless women
walking around and willing to make
such an exchange
Later in a cramped bathroom
I will smack 200 dollars worth
of cocaine out of Kenny’s hand
when he tries to force it
down my nose and he’ll want to fight me
The close quarters are the proverbial
telephone booth in which I know
I can bloody Kenny’s whole body
and for the first time I will fight
and not be afraid of whatever
United States Marines Kenny says
he used to belong to Fuck him
No-one in this bathroom knows
how sweet I am with a ball at my feet
how round and rich
my baritone throat
1987
how can i move the crowd
first of all, ain’t no mistakes allowed
Rakim
At Cozine and Van Siclen they set
on me, like a wolfpack, like a shark-school.
I was 19. I was fast. I was afraid.
I liked dangerous places, like crack
alleys and Harlem and the bedrooms
of older women.
Like piranhas on a piglet,
they came for blood. They came
for money. They were wilding.
It was 1987. I was about
to be a casualty. I was about
to be a statistic.
I was slender. My fists were blocks
of warm wood. I tried to talk
my way out. They set on me
like motherfuckers. They were thick
as squad cars. They were tall
as the projects. They talked
all slow and gold-toothed.
They set
on me so I watched the angles.
I watched the street-lamp.
I watched the moon.
They were swarming.
They were dark as shadows under train-tracks.
They were dark like rap music.
They were coming out of cars.
I watched the moon
glint off a fire-hydrant. I watched
the space between the garbage can and chain
that corralled it to the light post.
I was planning to run.
I was planning to get away,
like Harriet, like Frederick Douglass,
like Deion Sanders at the Rose Bowl
telling the other team’s bench he was about
to take the kick-off back. I was about
to take the kick-off back,
but they were fat medallions.
They were four-finger rings. I was 19.
I was one month deep in East New York,
Brooklyn. I was tight khakis
and a floppy hat. They were Levis
and pistol whippings. They were showing
off the handles of guns. They shut
the corner down. They turned
off the lights.
— — —
St – St – stutter step
right. I move the crowd.
Like Rakim, it’s 1987,
first of all
ain’t no mistakes allowed
is in my walkman. My palm-heel
is an iron chute. I slow
my move like I know
I can’t stop this. I can
stop this how can I move the crowd…
So what it is nigga
and my hand hits his chest – the sound
is bass, the flatness of a broken
woofer, sweet music. I run
like a round from a Ruger,
like a trap to an ankle,
like ninja smoke,
like grab that fool!
I run like night depends on me
for morning, like old Mr. Baptiste’s
Dobermans are chasing.
My lungs are the universe’s bellows.
My thighs are a series of Japanese drum riffs.
I run like ketch dat nigga!
I run like dat fool’s moving!
I run like I know
someone’s raising a nine to my back
right now. I’m technically sound.
I’m gifted. I’m incapable
of ever being caught ever.
I’m running like I really did rob
that dude’s sister. I run like
the lottery left a message
on my voicemail; like I can see
the promised land, like the river Jordan,
running like I’m black, and they are,
which we are, which we know, all
running. The feet behind me sound
like weeping. I’m 19. I’m in East New York.
It’s almost midnight. I’m 100 yards
away. The only sound I can hear
now are the pistons of my arms,
my machine-gun footfalls. I’m still
at top speed, but now I know right then
I’m going to live
Forever.
ROGER BONAIR-AGARD is a native of Trinidad and Tobago, a Cave Canem fellow, and author of two collections of poetry; Tarnish and Masquerade and Gully out in 2010 from Cypher Books and Peepal Tree Press. He is an MFA candidate at the University of Southern Maine Stone Coast program and poet-in-residence at Young Chicago Authors.