Americana Read online

Americana

  by

  Charles W. Harvey

  * * * * *

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Americana

  Copyright © 2011 by Charles W. Harvey

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  Author’s Website www.charlesharveyauthor.com

  Americana

  ****

  Table of Contents

  Introduction

  Flavor of the 1960’s

  Somebody’s Blues

  Future Shock

  About the Author

  Discover other Writing

  ****

  Introduction to Americana

  Introduction to Americana

  Poems can be reflective or reactionary. In a reflective mood, the poet comments on past events. His or her voice may be calm, wistful, and longing. They are preservers of the moment. When poets put on their reactionary mantle, they are more vocal and want to move themselves and others to action In this small collection, Harvey has both the reflective voice and the force of the reactionary.

  Viewing the Vietnam War, race relations, and the cultural renaissance of the 1960’s and 1970’s through the prism of a child’s eye shaped Harvey’s views and points of view. The poets Allen Ginsburg, Amiri Baraka, Langston Hughes, and Ai shaped his voice.

  Here is an example of Harvey as he reflects on the 1990’s and those high flat tops in his poem “Philadelphia.”

  ...Tall boy with five inch hair

  Sits wide legged on the sub in baggy trousers.

  His throat is stiff with defiance, But his dark

  Eyes linger in mine for a moment...

  In the words of the Edgar Winter Band, “Come on and take a free ride” from the 60’s to the 90’s. Get out your “rakes,” “platforms,” and afro puffs.

  These poems delight, entertain, and as CC Music Factory said, :make you go “hmm.”

  Flavor of the 1960’s

  ****

  Before the Big Chill, There was the '60's

  The revolution was fought on fractured street corners,

  By every splintered group in the world--

  The Black African United Alliance,

  The United Amistad Brothers of Soledad,

  The African Cobra Warriors--

  Led by tawny curly haired field marshals

  Cursing the drop of white blood cruising their hearts--

  Brother Mobutu, Deputy Cinque,

  Buford X, Abdul Elijah Montu.

  Everyone had a storefront, printing press.

  Africa was on the wall,

  Mary Jane in the blood stream.

  Battle fatigued soldiers

  Hiding behind amendment-one,

  Saluted Castro with a gnarled fist

  Celebrated the day Nat Turner was born,

  Plotted victory marches through slums,

  Made sex with plump chicken-fat colored blondes.

  Every corner was a command center,

  But the end was nowhere to be sighted,

  Because the means were too far scattered.

  The boy soldiers are now men kissing forty's face,

  Cursing the lesson they forgot to learn:

  Without gravity, everything drifts

  1968/1988

  "I don't know, but I've been told--Eskimo nookie is mighty cold!"

  Jimmy Lee Johnson--balls full of manhood--

  Chanted that song running up Que San Hill

  Just before he tripped a chicken wire

  And scattered his bones 8000 miles

  To some southerner's plantation,

  And left his name to be chiseled into great black granite.

  Jimmy Lee, a poor boy, a black stallion

  A boy so soft hearted and hard muscled

  The girls write songs about him:

  “Jimmy Lee Jimmy Lee, why don't you come back...”

  But the only thing he can give back

  Is a withered black hand.

  The other one got left behind

  "I don't know, but I've been told-¬Eskimo nookie is mighty cold!"

  What else can we say about the war?

  We're in this Together

  oh America, your heart

  Black, encased in gold

  Build more guns,

  Damn the old.

  Blessed be thy California President

  And all of the homeless residents

  of thine concrete roads.

  Bar your empty homes

  Against these poor gnomes.

  May thine media create desire

  For Sister China’s

  Worthless trinkets.

  Sing your hollow praises

  To Adolfo and Dior

  As you pick those weak threads

  And buttons from the floor.

  Graft, lies. and greed

  Be forever your creed.

  You are my country

  And I your beloved citizen.

  Moon Mississippi

  I went down into Moon Mississippi,

  Down into Philadelphia Moon Mississippi.

  I wanted to see the shrine

  Where they buried three freedom fighters:

  Schwerner, Goodman, Chaney,

  Encased them in concrete

  Down in Moon Mississippi

  From where Miss America

  Grew from root to tree.

  That old Philadelphia moon

  Did shine that night the Akins shot the kneecaps

  Off Schwerner, Goodman, and Chaney)

  The same Miss America

  That has little liberty torches etched in her teeth.

  When she smiles and waves her magic wand

  I think about freedom and death.

  They love those two in Moon Mississippi. Philadelphia moon.

  As much as they love Jews and Negroes.

  Schwerner, Goodman, and Chaney are buried there

  As a memorial to the love of Moon Mississippians, Philadelphia moon.

  Yes no good is done by digging up old graves,

  Miss America was still the yoke in the placenta

  While her folks planted the seeds of

  Schwerner, Goodman, and Chaney in their rock garden

  In Moon Mississippi. Philadelphia moon.

  Somebody’s Blues

  ****

  Why Bernstein was Blue

  "EVERYDAY, EVERYDAY I HAVE THE BLUES” .

  This tune cake-walked across Bernstein's brain.

  Why should he be blue, he thought.

  He was Cadillac rich, with his name on a door

  to a room In Temple Beth Israel--

  'Cause his donation built that room.

  But my man Bernstein was blue.

  He stood hat in hand watching the securities

  Scroll up and down the ticker

  Like a squad of Brown Shirts goose stepping.

  Bernstein kept his eye on one security, A three letter symbol--LOV

  Dropping a half point each hour.

  LOV dropping, dropping, dropping

  Bernstein's losing a grand each hour Because of LOV

  And that damn negro song cake-walking Across his brain .

  "Moses, where are you now," shouted Bernstein.

  "Lord, part the red sea for me!"

  EVERYDAY, EVERYDAY I HAVE THE BLUES”

  Charlotte

  It's dark as hell outdoors.

  Men are driving by

  In their big silver phallic mobiles,

  Staring up at the eleventh floor window

  Of the bronze Marathon Building

  Where Charlotte sits bare breasted

  Typing out the latest list

  of souls bought so the company can prosper.

  The men love Charlotte's
breasts--

  But Charlotte is a wire mesh woman planted by Marathon

  To lure men and their money.

  So every night when darkness kisses the earth

  The men slowly stroke their silver phalluses

  Toward the Marathon Tower to view

  Charlotte's breasts and the latest profit margins

  Scrolling in amber waves down a computer screen

  Into Charlotte's crotch.

  Anxiety on Lily White Avenue

  One morning at 3 am

  Mr. Charlie's anxiety

  Woke him up.

  "Lord, lord, what's becoming of my world?"

  He shouted to his shadow on the wall.

  "Black black everywhere. Black cats

  On the corner making crack—

  ¬I can't drive down Lily White Avenue no more.

  Black cats running for my Board Room--

  It ain't safe in the executive toilet.

  My boy, Johnny Marine is dating a black fag--

  Even my wife lays down with the garbage man.

  Lord, lord, what's becoming of my world?

  Jesus, I wish I could cry, but that's so unmanly--

  And I am a man, hard and white. My bald spot glows

  Like a polished halo. Maybe I ought to

  Send myself to heaven. But I ain't brave enough

  To face no razor blade and warm water at 3 am.

  His shadow spoke to him:

  "Turn on the radio, Charles.

  Stick your smooth pale hands to the wire,

  Breathe in the blue smoke from your flesh,

  Turn your soul over to the Five Blind Boys or BB King.

  Yes the thrill is slowly going away from Lily White Avenue.

  Selling Short

  He say, "Hey Nigguh,

  Brown clay, red wine for blood--

  Come here. Let me look at you.

  Let me kiss yo' lips."

  I say, "Hey man,

  Alabaster skin, flax hair

  Red wine for blood--

  Ain't you talkin' about my Mama?"

  He say, "Oh no.

  It's you, man. It’s you.

  I say, "A fag live down the street

  With his daddy ma yellow shotgun house."

  He say, "I don't like no fag.

  They got too much of their momma's soft ways.

  I like muscles, the hard edge of a man

  His dark solitude, closed mouth."

  I say, "Let me close my door."

  He say, "Please, please, please!

  I can do the James Brown."

  I say, "I don't like James Brown.

  Do you know William Burroughs?"

  He say, "He's a fag writer, no I do not know him.

  But I know Little Richard. I know Angel Face."

  I say, "I know William Shakespeare

  And what the Ides of March mean.

  I ain't no nigguh."

  He say, "Oh you one alright.

  And you swallow men's babies."

  I say, "Take your foot outta my dark door.

  I'ma call the police!"

  He say, "I like police.

  They so blue, cool, crisp and kind."

  I say, "Man, where you get your fantasies--

  from the back end of Venus?

  He say, "I get my fantasies

  from looking at you, boy--

  Your sleeping eyes, your hair soft

  and black like the baby Jesus 5,

  Your mother-of-pearl teeth, hard thighs,

  heaving rib cage--

  The smooth back of your adolescent neck,

  Your hot testicles swimming with future generations,

  And that rhinoceros horn there

  that makes you shiver all jazzy-¬You are where I get my fantasies, nigra.

  And here is $300."

  I say, "Man, I ain't selling no black jazz to you.

  He say, "Humph, uppity nigra.

  There's plenty mo' where you come from."

  I say, "A fag live down the street

  With his daddy ma yellow shotgun house."

  He turn his corpulent fat face to leave.

  I say, "Hey Joe, ain't information worth a $100?"

  He say for me to kiss where the sun don't shine.

  I say, "The sun don't shine

  In Cicero Illinois or Queens New York."

  I close my dark door and lock away secrets.

  Dealership Blues and Life

  Here I am

  Sitting in a rip-off shop--

  ("You know I bought the car yesterday.")

  Glued to a vinyl couch

  As red and slick as white girls in the sun.

  The television blares from its laminated walnut house.

  The picture is bad--

  Full of red fire spots and low TB whispers.

  A show called "Loving" slow-drags across the screen

  Two women claw each other like cats full of pepper

  Over a guy named Mike Muscle

  Who's really a homosexual

  In love with both of their brothers.

  Brothers are in love with Mike Muscle's mother

  Whose husband had an affair

  With those two clawing cats .

  And the writers keep on writing--

  You see this serial must fulfill contractual obligations.

  Slick-haired car salesman

  Slides into the room-¬Red ostrich boot, camel-skin coat

  Gray polyester pants too tight-¬Butt breathes in/out when he yawns.

  Battalion of vending machines beckon him:

  "V8, New Coke, Old Coke, Dead Coke--

  Strip your candy bar right down to the brown," he sings.

  He's chanting to Baby Ruth or Vanessa Williams--

  Two things too sweet to be any good.

  He eyes innocent me.

  "Sap Sap Sap,'~ his tongue

  Smacks against his pinked pursed lips.

  "I love vinyl," I say

  "Stops your butt from breathing."

  Before he sits down, he's getting up

  To strike someone else a deal for

  Built-in obsolescence

  He's already raped me.

  He likes a fight.

  I just give up my cash

  At the wink of his blue-gray eye.

  My calm is too crazy for him-¬Raises his blood pressure.

  He likes teeth and nails-¬Makes him feel like he's earning his bread.

  "Look how hard I work," he wants to say

  To mousey wife stirring up stew.

  So my man spots Big Jack--top lip curled with venom,

  Jeri-curl going natural wild,

  Angry and black like Big Jack himself.

  He's mad 'cause somebody told him,

  "White folks are not like us. They have more of everything."

  Big Jack and my slick white cat

  Tango on the hood of a poor man's $18,000 Dodge.

  Big Jack wins, roars off in a greased black

  Hell-and High-Water 1998 Iacocca Fire Spitter.

  Everything he didn't do in adolescence

  Flashes like gunfire in front of his eyes.

  He grabs the stick shift and jerks,

  Tires scream like a chick boiling in oil.

  Baby watch out for Big Jack.

  Me, I gotta sit here

  While some oil jockey

  Rolls up my cash and takes a long drag.

  "30 dollars an hour plus parts," quote the jock.

  I just give up my cash

  At the wink of his blue-gray eye.

  I turn and watch the television.

  The screen covered with Puerto Rican lips

  Screams at me. I weep with Geraldo

  As he weeps over the bodies of

  Quadriplegia lesbians raped by their fathers.

  "God may the world end soon," he shouts.

  I spot Big Jack heading back in

  Buck naked, flailing himself with a silver door edg
e guard.

  He falls to his knees, beats his chest,

  And asks God to take away his libido.

  "Make this thing between my legs dead!

  Make it dead, Lord! Rot it away from me.

  Oh, how foolish I have been.

  Make me an old man, so that I can become wise.

  My fire spitter dream is dead.

  The girls didn't speak in tongues

  When they smelled my burning rubber.

  They kept asking me, 'What are you about, Black Man?

  Is that all there is to you,-- to woo me to wound me?,

  Then they flashed their onyx eyes at me

  And said, that real power is in blue-gray eyes--

  Not in black. Not in rubber.

  Oh God, help me to cope!"

  I look out the window, rub my head,

  Open my legs. My eyes are hooked on the Fire Spitter.

  I don't see wisdom staring me in the face.

  Tomorrow I too will etch my name

  in the book of lamentations.

  The Long Illness

  I'm sick of seeing

  Black men in gold chains.

  In fact, I'm sick of seeing

  Black men in chains at all.

  Philadelphia

  Philadelphia--6128 Jefferson Street Row houses, long neck boys

  Guy next door in black shades,

  Eyes behind those shades staring at me,

  Pepper the poodle fucking my leg my first day there

  Cousin Bill drunk drunk drunk,

  His wife Lucy old and man weary.

  A fat ass next door making his bed springs cry

  Every time he farts, so close are the houses.

  Cars everywhere, turning streets into cholesterol choked veins.

  The living room of 6128 Jefferson--French Provincial covered in plastic laminate.

  I asked Lucy how many quarters did she

  Put in the laminate machine to get all that transparent stuff for her couch.

  Bill drunk as a skunk. The dog pisses on his pillow.

  Lucy's Brother Mayo pushing his false uppers

  Back into his upper gum.

  The liberty bell is cracked.

  Scrawny Park service guy gives me some bullshit

  About some structural problem with the bell

  But I know ol' Liberty got cracked when

  Bull Connor dropped it on some poor Negroes’ head.

  Arch Street--Tall boy zippered in spandex wants me.

  I check out the hole he's dived into.

  It's a black hole. I move on.

  Subway full of white negro men in Business suits

  Grim thin lips locked tight

  Calling me nigger with their eyes.

  Germantown Street on the hot trolley

  Five funeral homes in a row full of ribs

  Five barbecue pits across the road

  Tended by fine young cannibals cooking breast bones