1.
Before there was Photoshop there were snaps that spoke
a thousand words. A deep pleat in crisp, white
cotton, the pockets pressed down, a pre-emptive
pose of a PhD prospector for knowledge that will be
freedom. A well fingered, all thumbed book of philosophy
and vision resting casually against an old Chippendale.
Pumped-up. Pumped-out by the weights that train a body to
become a machine and the weight of a history defining
a mind that is doctored and denied by a majority.
2.
This morning I put on my crisp, white treads creased to perfection,
pockets pressed down and Bob revisited me in a rock style
round of black vinyl and I stood, poised, the sunlight through
the old net curtain, glanced off my body, warming half of me,
slipping into the contours of my torso, easing the pain of muscles
pumped up with weights.
I am philosophized and doctored and my well-fingered, full-thumbed
books pile high or stand in uniformed attendance, a testimony
to the knowledge of a system I have been through, am going through
will fight through for the rest of my life.
Behind me, in remembrance, are white chains, lazily linked
The Black Panther lies gracefully at my feet.