r.i.p. sekou sundiata

my poetry mentor passed away yesterday. i just found out today, and i have no words for this. this wreaks violent havoc on my heart. there is nothing to mute the sound. but at least the sound is his beautiful, deep, velvet tone pulling at my heart strings. i wanted to share sekou with you. and this too.

"where is my witty?
where is my sovereignty?
and where the hell is my cool?"

women like that need an inside job. you can't take them from without.

(i'm trying to talk back to you now. this is a slow process of trying to form the words, the sounds that will shape your memory. i take this seriously.)

hearing you again and again in my dreams. i live in the past, but it makes sense in the future. i can't count the colors on your hands. and tonight, we were small and intimate, we burned bright coals on your legacy. i told your story, keep another inside the frame of my skull. there are some things that are always secret. but only dancing makes her clean and i wanted to be washed free of it all. start tomorrow a fresh body and breathe you blue into my mornings. i take it you're there. and i go there everytime. the place where rain brings thickness to the air and i can calibrate my movements to your breath.