keeping up with jones

i used to sit on trains writing about the woman sitting across from me.
i don't know what happened.

education has driven me out of that place, i think.
there is no time to writer about the 'hers' who go home and act like mothers and wives
or the 'he' that rocks out to hip hop on stoops uptown

like the girl i brushed up against on the L to brooklyn:
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she was the tragic mulatto type
stayed clear of mammies coons bucks
and average street niggas
thank god i was neither
her style was classical negro
circa 1943
minnie mouse pumps
hair didn't need to be relaxed - see
she was that dorothy dandridge type cheek
me and mrs jones type shit
so at the height of the night i'd call her carmen
even when cleopatra seemed to fit perfectly
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or the guy across from me with his headphones too loud:
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the music in his headphones ain't really that interesting
but all day the stress and strain pulled muscles in his brain
took the jook from his foot
so he could tap them on the train
hoping no one notices
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so yeah - i remember being a poet -
i remember writing and reading...

but i call myself something else now
and it's becoming too much sometimes.
i want to be a poet again.

tomorrow morning i will write about you!

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