Heckler: 
You hear this cat, man? Muhfugga sound like his fingers are broken… Or he’s experiencing a spasm in his hands—worst pianist eye ever heard—not even a pianist! He’s not a pianist, man. This muhfugga just takin’ out his emotions on—

Another Heckler:
Don’t sound like a pianist to me
Or maybe it’s just not a piano, eye mean
Dig the incredibly ordinary contradictions
Out just to be Out
Not cuz you were driven out, & this is how the banished survive
Not cuz you fled once you fed of the flesh they offer
Not cuz you, almost became one of them, 
naw really cuz you was one of
Them ones who simmer in
seduction bathe in salutations, breathe applauds &?

Heckler Again:
That muhfugga’s not a pianist, man.
if they would’ve told me
it was just gone be some cat bangin’ on the—

Hecklers & haters, have private parties full of
Pranks, gags & awards for whoever avoids humiliation…
Then humiliates them for that.

Hecklers & haters hunt
vulnerability fragmented
Find it & Oedipus it or Orpheus it to pizza slices 

Hecklers & haters
Revel in cracking codes, splintering
jagged champagne flutes
Gradually ruptured into blades
Sharp as happiness denied or…
vengeance vindicated

Hitchcock shattered, drain clogged 
all excitement shattered
& then lunge, just as
Any boat or ship on 
those waters between 
the port & the calanques

Lunging & bobbin’, catching 
a splash vicious aft 
stench of wet oil overridden by 
precise shimmering, glittering turquoise

sparkling as ships split tides
Glide of Aretha Franklin cascading through 
Scales of barbeque sauce, shimmering from 
highlight to highlight, no gloss!
bald on that one side

Don’t sleep on those ears
Sacred forest on the other
Tar Pine cones sweat corn cobs
Amber butter, 

whole other species bound 
still Tuesday for it, but no Tuesday then—

pre-dinosaur but still you know how Faulkner falls face first
fixating on the oily petrified floor until the thirst is no more
Bacon smudged, chunky grease hecklers & haters?

Hecklers & haters dine on 
Conspiracy theories, locked in their VIP Cells
Narrating frustrating futures for 
all that will profit off them well

Well, Heckler & haters 
Find familiarity comforting…
Christmas tree’s same size every year
Tradition & ammunition, clean yours at least every quarter

Blood moon drippin’ insults, ruthless ridicule smeared all about you. You who never dared care for a world without your platform for confessing your greatest fear: that no will care, no, no, no one will remember that once you were once here

& So, hecklers & haters…
what makes more,
discovery or being discovered?

Recognition always feels fantastic until

someone or something decides you’re an
Opponent of a system that provides them & theirs 
security. No doubt, that’s an honorable hater heckling but
what about exactly is it a threat or just an alternative perspective
Strongly expressed, enough to overturn their comfortability?
People Watching is all it’s ever been
Example: Julius Hemphill, Eric Dolphy, John Gilmore
cuz they could Fillmore, but what of Hunters Point, church hour?

Do empty seats care that they’re empty?

Woodworm gleamin’ wood, hood sworn to screamin’ & unseen daydreamin’
Bloodshot eyes beamin’

“Spare some change?”
“Grandma, if I could I would’ve already…”

& that’s what gets me late at night…

what about all these homeless grandmas
What child couldn’t afford to prevent their grandma from
Windin’ up on these streets prayin’ for change?
Clothes still superb, ironed to a crisp, but still…

What severely wounded grandchild couldn’t keep grandma
off these streets, in the Winter. Or is it more so that

Some grandmas glitch & get 0ut then stay 0ut
As if, stayin’ in would notify google maps 
Stalking grim reaper, of their whereabouts Or— 

—do that grandkids, whose parents didn’t make it
either through this horror flick called 
Earth Life For Humans, so they had to do all they could from their position of
utter poverty & neglect, best they could at their age
where no one wants to hire grandma anymore

She’s too damn grandma now, kickin’ everybody’s ass 
All the time—Blast of inner lightnin’
Earthquake silences, hurricane humor

Until the crisis is so consistent it either becomes easier to ignore

Even when floods have broken through the damn roof

Their shoes never fit &
my feet hurt so bad they give me blue balls
emerald hemorrhoids danglin’ same as fragile stalactites until
some gentle grandmother (not mine) recommends

wet wipes

wet wipes

WET WIPES

WET WIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIPES

So now when eye look at
certain paintings eye encounter my past grandmas

Used to be eye stared at a particular painting until
eye gained the necessary courage to live it
Or live in it as It: the character, full force of It
All the space, that i felt eye needed to be in
Suddenly there I was, It with no idea or concern on how to be otherwise.

Other I’s have had conflictin’ views
Troublemaker me, made trouble for them then myself
Whoever that was then…

Well wasn’t it hymn? Sung way off key!

Not even human.
More a machine collapsin’ while steam burst breaking most of
everything networked to It.

Oh, what eye didn’t do with the networks i had access to,
But oh what eye did & do for the ones eye’m still 
fortunate enough to be connected to

HOMELESS GRANDMA SINGS A BITTER TUNE

Notes don’t matter, baby

Notes don’t matter, baby

Oh now that jive ass “piano player” talkin’ ‘bout notes don’t matter? Notes don’t matter? Notes don’t MATTER? NOTES DON’T MATTER!?

It’s all about how they arrive so 
we may encounter them clearer
So i believe ever…

So eye believe every hear-er really needs
Blood.
Every time I don’t, I do. You hear me? 

We ain’t played cuz what eye’m hearin’ is
an image, but what’s really disappearin’, 
& now & then reappearin’, now that’s what’s really 
fuelin’ vanishin’ vermillions of vulnerability
unseen sunsets reflected on unnoticed ponds or immovable lakes
expression never expressed, impression?

Not even.

More so, someone somewhere smokin’ as a tree that doesn’t fall
They only hear, smell, see, feel each other.

Encore!
let me roll another’n too

My hair?
Long as your attention span.

My mind?
Older than the zygote.

Tomorrow?
Takin’ a frigate somewhere, don’t even know when?

My bag?
Full, but eye could fit some more muons in It, when eye need to.

Who?
Naw that ain’t them, was them once but not anymore.

Why?
Even if eye had it, which I don’t. I wouldn’t have enough to share.

Sleep?
My child does.

My family?
Immediate & ensemble, doin’ the best they can with what they got. 

Why?
What you heard? I’m not on social media so I wouldn’t know.

Intimacy?
What kind, Big Momma’s clothesline or dead-end jobs 
workin’ ‘em overtime, all gesture
no measure of time

Mojito?
Please! Save the sugar, no mint, no lime, no thyme.

As your best friends gain prime time
& you, not even a Nickel to compare with a dime?
Can’t stand making sense, & won’t fall for it anymore either…

Listen to “Uncomfortable Listening” here.