SOCIAL ANIMAL

Godfrey Logan

 

“The devil planted fear inside the black babies…”

Ghostface Killah

 

 

Gypsy artisan                                          

She be muse.

It don't stop raining.

Once city dweller

love is no friend.

Keep to festival

travelling show.

Rats in the courtyard.

Omen.

 

Put on best dress

when need be feminine.

Suite for privacy.

Homage erotica.

 

The creature

has fever.

Gypsy lust.

Caravan.

Actors in coitus.

hope for Dallas

Halloween.

 

The summer is hot

And hope break the vex.

And focus on your shoulders.

 

The mood as far as the eye.

Otherwise is nights go like this.

I haunt the sides

Where sicken light.

 

There echo.

I’ve been spoke of.

Cautious like.

The cool water

and moonlight.

The cut of her dress since

I’ve seen that tell

 just now in swaddling.

 

American Horror

Always devil

but witch of winter.

She is specter

when house is full.

Vex the boy

drink made slow.

Fuck him to death.

Always the devil screeching

and bleating.

Minion’s gone rogue.

Witch of winter vex

the boy afloat River North.

 

Figure of a man

with limb and living

as life like.

Who would have it?

Brand or caliber

status regardless

of no value to natives.

 

Life like undistinguished.

His passion

now slow drift

suicide by drink.

His letters

flitter in the wind.

 

The body weary.

Living as life like

without heir or wife.

Who would have him?

Brand or caliber.

Status regardless.

No value to natives.

 

Strange

All the wonder strange.

Some night she feel herself.

Maid all stripe.

None encumbrance

Short pulling hair. 

I am that man.

Is guile we like this.

 

Classic dark in the time of

Kingdom and frontier.

Rapid modernization.

Her taste experiential.

Fetish I tear her gown.

Common trade in missive.

Bold as brass.

Room for that.

Lodging each a garden.

All the bawdy they

Put me up on it.

 

Omen

Actors in coitus

Hers secreta is gold.

The despair is thick.

She ford the enlightenment.

 

Better in the throes

Is how it should.

Venture into day

From the stark

Was no escape.

My indelicate

Is bias.

 

I see your covetous

Aint casual use.

We salon nonetheless.

I’m all the party.

The violence.

The penultimate town

Square range war.

Hate in real time.

Selfish Sampson

Selfish Samson

Choose your words wisely.

I know that you are young.

The night creatures

They surround you.

In your search for fire.

For your pilot light.

 

Ultimately light

For your smoke.

Light like a beacon.

It’s best if you’re

Not caught on the streets.

The spirits they seek recompense

That’s no to treat your friends.

 

We are of meager means and

Humbly offer it to the fellow on the stoop.

As well as drink and bards suggest

We stay true.

It is sage advice for dealing with

Those creatures you see at night

In your search for fire

For your pilot light.

 

The Gods abhor violence.

There vex to follow.

There force upon the house

That collapse on the weight of sin.

The walls encroach kingdom come.

She is pliant

He lower his gun.

The set of them cut throat.

They shoot into my apartment.

 

Mine fiend is timely. Same now as then.

Dream it to life.

The meek will have it.

The vex pass and marry her

To best man.

Sepia toned with song behind it.

You remind me it snow in April.

Save a man from himself.

Who’d cleave

to the hem

of your frock.

 

Save a man by pointing

out his wealth.

Knowing one cannot

help himself.

Come aboard

where borders

tenuous at best.

My vessel

mahogany flesh.

 

Merchant

Something’s got to give.

Used to be come 12 am

the phone ring.

 

Back then he could afford

be generous.

When the restaurant

went under,

go back to it.

 

Used to be

he would meet you

somewhere though

danger comes

even in daylight.

 

Set upon,

his face bloody.

A sideways scar.

The parcel its

destination reached.

Startled children

in residence.

 

 Jump

The years at Winthrop

the corner building

off the elevated stop.

Remember most the solitude.

The storms within,

and within them the eye.

Ever more silence.

Those who didn’t

go away or stay away,

I’d sent back

where they came

with their well wishing.

 

Said I’d given up.

What a wind tunnel

Winthrop.

North to south.

When the winds pick up

it’s like blindside

and the sidewalks

already narrow.

 

Find at this height

it is hard to breathe.

The oxygen seeping out.

The people I see

have no concept

of me.

Just those I haven’t asked

for money.

 

It seemed a matter of time.

I wanted a hookah

to supplement my wine.

Every morning on the wake up

scream out,

“what must I have done.”

I could make the window

without running. Jump.

 

Do It In Luxury

Roxie got fingered

and that’s just fine.

She could barely

resist it the

first time.

 

So she comes

just to get it.

She brings Ruby along

to help her tell it.

 

When October come

and the children

throw stones.

 

Roxie is full of passion

over flow.

She’d come all this way

the educated men.

Leaves her panties 

she’s around them.

 

Roxie got fingered

her best gown.

“Do it in luxury,” she says.

Things are different

in the gardens.

Again her men.

 

Love Fools

There is no proper etiquette

for fools.

The moods that

cause reaction

like speaking

in tongues.

Move our bodies

to the maximum.

 

In a December depression

back lighted

by an old lamp.

Those dresses you wore

with little pattern

or style.

Make up for it

with guile.

I purse my lips

for the grind.

Ruffle the fabric

for the lightning

in our loins.

Think of me

and history grasp.

 

Salvation

Beholden to my salvation

the fulgor of the sun

through yonder window.

Is affirmation

her absolute.

 

My love’s

tender mercies.

Her effete kiss.

The depth of my love

as her recompense.

She comes same as she goes

with a pivot to her hips.

Stepping blithely

inspiration that.

Through the black door.

Black on both sides.

My schooling

and work as

certified liar.

 

It means

I will not be

denied much.

 

It begins

with eyes on the prize

and the analysis

thereof.

 

Certain points

I cannot help

but belabor

to make.

All the more ardent

as she is

walking away.

 

My words echo

in the small space.

She does an about face.

 

The little restaurant

a family set up.

I have removed my hat

with a card

from my suit jacket,

 

I’ve started wearing

I’d seen you last.

“I’m educated now.”

She laughs at that.

She wants pretty things.

City boys for that.

 

A suddenly concerned

populace.

Hardened hearts

at the movement started.

Bedlam.

 

In the days of duels

some of which

took place

in sight the King.

 

They go to the gun.

The woman pleads for life.

How they fight polite society.

 

The drunken and uncouth

throw fists.

The gun quick end

to things.

They shoot half cocked

without discipline.

Matter between men

need only witness

to winner.

 

She pleads for life.

She may be betrothed

a different man

this night.

 

Pussy Cat

I was the pussy cat

at your door.

In the maelstrom.

I took you at

your word

and wait in the gale

for it rather than

fight the children.

 

Humanity is to witness

the beautiful things.

Such as pussy cat stripes.

The cold of a

particular spite.

 

A sustained wind.

See the inner works

nuclear family.

A pussy cat

in the yard

and wait for it

rather than

fight the children.

 

Broken summers

much like giving up.

Sleep until hunger

force me up.

Powerful hunger to rise up.

I never liked the summer.

Winter allows me

to cover up.

Flaws in the sun.

 

No summer luck.

No summer love.

No summer dresses

to look up.

And holiday invitations

to decline.

In backyards to socialize.

 

Since she’d gone

one summer to the next.

Summer solstice.

The longest days

the dog days.

No patching

the ozone up.

Threaten to

burn the willows up.

 

The winter has its wilderness.

Winter winds.

Frozen tears

to my chin.

Tears fall

without consent.

The summer then

melts the accumulation.

 

Since she’d gone

one summer to the next.

Blend into one.

It’s the summer sun

that cause headaches.

 

Times I couldn’t wait

some deity to come.

Instead focus her shoulders

windows yonder.

 

The eye of the Holy Ghost

alight on her breasts.

Witness seeks blessing.

As well we have come

for wine in the pots.

 

Forget

Forget I came along.

As you feel you must.

Forget me.

Then you must.

Regrettably yours

in love.

 

Everything between us

a baptism

in the tide of age.

Wash away sediment.

Residue.

I ever moved you.

 

That I came along

and give you feeling.

Unremitting

and the zeal

with which

you purge me

from your recollection.

Better best for preservation.

 

If you must

forget me

then you must.

Regrettably yours

in love.

Send you a letter.

Its contents written

in earnest.

Said I’ve tried to maintain

but people change.

Seems our minds

change every half hour.

We sleep on it.

Human nature

so we feed on it.

 

I hope it says it all.

Maybe you will call on me.

Come see no use

for stern words and all that

when you’re just like me.

People change.

Seems our minds change

every half hour.

We sleep on it.

Human nature

so we feed on it.

 

Everything For A Price

Wonder of wonders

what that be like.

Affect my quarry.

The tag along.

And not say

I’m sorry.

Discover regard

is none.

 

Chased as I’ve

chased along.

Steady as it goes

no cause for alarm.

A ready bond as equals.

Impulse. Drive.

 

Wonder of wonders

what that be like.

Affect my quarry the tag along.

And not say I’m sorry.

 

Dreams

The dreams of…

Scenes of…

Deals with devil

Exhibition pride city wide.

Mad men choose weapon.

With the nights rattle for salvation.

Mouths opened and paged to content.

The truth bold and irreverent.

Mad Hatter.

Mad cap.

 

Warm Bodies

Warm bodies in a room.

Never mind the others.

Like refuse thrown

about the bed chamber.

Ever so graceful.

Lay your virtue down.

 

What is it you say

about me now?

Don’t look at me the same

when you see me now.

The fire burns sideways

got you freaking out.

Like facing the rapture.

When you seek me out.*

 

I sit at the end of the table with

my back to the half octagon window.

Jutting out onto the sidewalk.

She sits to my left.

Orders placed for dinner and drinks.

Shrimp shumai the appetizer.

The other patrons are waited on.

Dressed in sweaters and slacks.

Khakis. Suit coats. Formal wear.

The ladies their dresses.

 

Currently it quite pleasant.

The western sky is in full view of you.

The setting sun,

as if the pupils form the center

and the white temper the flares.

I am thinking as I drink my cosmopolitan.

I would have to be quick

where her knees swing back and forth.

Nervous habit.

Leave a hand there long enough

at a steadier pace now

I get close enough to feel silk.

At a slower pace she feels the grasp on it full.

Decide where we stand.

I‘d thought the Gods

had given up as they are

wont to do.

Leave it to the fates

as the furies are due.

What favor retreat?

 

She let me feed

without violence

of copulating.

She cut a beautiful figure

in waiting.

 

I’d thought the Gods

had given up.

The Raven

The bird of state.

The furies and fates.

It takes siren

no patron saints.

 

Hardly angels to appeal

our better nature.

What favor retreat?

Feed without violence

Copulating.

She cut beautiful figure

in waiting.

Get Yourself A Gun

Get yourself a gun.

In the rose garden

With thorns a warning:

Your affairs in order.

 

The boys tend the garden

not tend such wounds.

Unless for the sake

a burial place.

 

Get yourself a gun.

Rose garden.

Unintended crop.

Where tomatoes

Should grow.

Take up the acres

Adjacent the

railroad.

 

The Gods with their

buskin humor.

My blood reach the roots.

The boys are meant to toil

not tend such wounds.

With thorns a warning:

A loud report.

Chastity

It must be nice to be wanted.

It last long as your words go

‘round the track backwards.

 

Put on airs bleed out in rain.

City boys kiss and tell.

The way they tell it leave a taste.

Chastity never chaste.

 

With few attributes to offer they deplete.

A mixture of cannabis,

stale incense.

Regarded like Shakespeare’s Wicked Sisters:

“Her choppy finger laying upon her skinny lips.

You should be woman but your beard

forbids me to interpret you as so.”

 

There isn’t elder that speak for you.

Not Shaman.

Witch Doctor.

At face value isn’t worth

revival of dead language.

 

With Acrid breath

speak of alien and vampire myth.

In times past they would have your head.

As word spreads of your forked tongue

and kissing ugly women.

They kiss and tell.

The experience leave a taste.

Chastity never chaste.

My letters come back.

No such person

at this address.

 

I have run through

my suitors and

those of my friend.

 

Homely and poor

Who confide in me.

I confess to my doings

Such coldness I spit.

I will wait until

I hear from you.

 

New Year Eve

and years since

Albion street

 

My soldiers

they leave.

Man in mirror

wants time with me.

I see him like we’re friendly.

Until I hear from you.

Get The Best Of Me

In the dark

voices insular.

Ghost towns

Hardly populous.

 

The best intentions

a means to an end.

Leave a location with more

than went in.

 

Treat her like a woman

and it goes to her head.

Again with vision

and never get out of bed.

 

When he pounces

pull your gown

back down.

Sleep one eye open.

 

The Alma Mater

Sent, the university.

By bed and boudoir.

The matriculate

The well heeled.

 

Particular to writers and

Political scientists.

Agitators to the crown.

The arts which you edify.

By bed and boudoir.

 

Modest digs for

The erudition

And stipend for sustenance

And spirits.

More visitors are required.

 

Potential is the scent

That carries the room.

Sing the alma mater

When they address you.

The Grand Tower, Providence.

Her host’s agreeable

In the evenings

Where the sun is close enough

To put in her drink.

A times of times

To do further with less

And dreams with vamps

In black dress are just that.

 

Visions of love and

Laughter leaves one

Scatterbrained

And melancholy.

When the bodies pile up

There shady figure.

 

She knows of vamp

And all doors to the streets.

The Grand Tower.

With all of its souls.

And exiles.

The narrow halls and blood

On exposed bricks.

 

Forces Of Our Time

Such forces of our time.

Lovers bold as crime.

Game ready

Shooting into the rosy depths.

Deny it if you like

Before the likes of Christ.

The mention of Gods son.

Or it was some other woman.

 

To the likes of saints and saviors

Dogma and doctrine

The convolving

Storm abrades.

I am a vagabond

With hardy tastes

That hardly matter.

Prone is positioning

To the snare.

 

Forces of our time.

Ancestors dark continent.

We have in common

Besides the stamina

And ever ready shooting

Into the rosy depths.

Deny it if you like.

Before the likes of Christ.

The mentions of Gods son.

Or it was some other woman.

St Catherines Parish, Jamaica

Wish for him what you will.

This boy.

Heads bowed that his teeth

grinding would end.

It seemed the son of God

Is in their presence.

 

That he is a child of a thief

A drifter these myths.

His father has no gravesite

Or proof he lived.

 

For this his Grandmother

Flagged down a peace officer.

She tends his wounds.

The dupe for the sins of others.

The people do not want him around.

St Catherines Parish.

 

He’d put on the old woman’s

Stockings

And prance about.

She’s go blind in that house.

“Don’t take the Lords name in vain.”

Englewood, Chicago

All over 63^rd overcast.

White light with a grey haze.

The combination ages the skin.

Through the floors

Through the doors.

 

Any opening in the house.

They come. Spook.

The old house with children

Leading one another by the hand.

Around the yard.

Graveyard for old cars.

 

The proprietors dead but not gone.

Including the boy killed

With Reggie’s gun.

The old lady son.

 

Bathed in grey from a

western facing window.

What light fill the room

Covers enough of the bed

As they are ready to set upon her.

Wench

Something for you

And surely you would take it.

You churlish wench.

In my mind previously thinking,

“if it were she of all the consort

Around should be a gracious host.”

 

But her craggy teeth

And her large ass

Makes me think twice.

While I like an abundant ass

Like she is a contemptible sort.

A large ass would be fitting description.

 

Now feeling I’d be doing a favor.

A woman of needs would see

The benefit in it.

And take off your glasses

To better your chances and necessary.

Wicked laughter echoing

For sometime after then throat clearing.

“Quite.”

Posse

Shadows around he house.

I an around.

On the hill.

A crowd to greet me.

They round up a posse

I am already in the house.

 

Get between cars

From gun fire.

They’ve talked her up

Expecting a Statesman

To sweep her up.

 

We meet in the shadows.

With armed men about.

There warring tribes.

She’s kept inside

And her needs tended to.

Suitors kept away

Press to get word to her.

 

A crowd to greet me.

They round up a posse.

I’m in the house by then.

 

The nymphs they giggle

And scatter at the sights.

It is the nymph with route

Of the grounds.

The advancing opposition

Would burn the house

to the ground.

Nymphs set free in the city.

Cruel Summer

It is melancholy these days.

Cruel Summer.

Or else it’s naught but rain.

Whips of precipitation.

 

I can see they are looking at me.

And by their manner

They are hungry.

Worse for wear.

Unable to shake the dust of days.

Hope is golden and scarce.

 

The torrent shakes the train.

Ride on waves of wet.

The journey is electric.

 

I can see the way they look at me.

The slits in my clothing.

Loneliness its focus.

 

It is melancholy these days.

I pray Indian Summer come.

And there will be god for drink

And mending of holes.

Rochelle

Your black heart.

Your winter spell.

You covet his breath.

Your powerful yen.

 

You won’t have him to covet

If you kill him.

Subject him

To such condition.

Heavy wind.

Bluster. Lurking in the black.

Rochelle.

The Nightmare Before…

“Surprised to hear from you,” she said.

“Mother says you called.

That you’d be thinking

Of me at all.”

 

“What oh what?”

The years it seems a coons age,

“could you want from me?”

 

The weather is strange.

The hail and the lightning.

Across the fields.

As if coming for me.

The nightmare before…

There is a gathering of others at the shore.

“One day you’ll get yours.”

Little Women

Go with it little women.

We get along.

The countenance is strong with this one.

Whose temperament is hardly

For batting of lashes.

Subtle pout.

Go with it.

The little woman.

And we get along.

 

The countenance is strong.

Whose temperament isn’t

Without the fuss of the coif.

She’s all in with the fit

Understand your station

With it.

The little woman

and we get along.

Ghost

The foyer is cavernous.

The tower is grand.

Wander about the floors.

By fire escape.

The wind its growl.

And bitterly cold.

 

Night that ages.

The walls as well

The yellow light.

 

You don’t look like

who would live here.

Someone I’d revere.

Through my wandering

You suffer me.

I get the spoils and what 

sequential from the layers.

Parting all there is to 

mix in the secretion.

Tinge of romance

and in exchange chivalrous.

invite me play nice.

 

They fancy opportunist.

Where he is and aint 

and up in arms.

She’s perfectly turned.

A trope I can impress on the pose 

as much as one man. 

 

I scrubbed the lonely from the place.

Still musk of it.

This garden is nightmare.

 

She sew impressed,

Sound of laughter. Music. 

Her most fetching. 

The arena is supine.

 

Charged element spoke to life.

Stages of admiration 

and denial run to frenzy.

I’m head and shoulders.

 

It turn burlesque.

A jagged fond.

Appreciate the macabre.

Lonely grow into conviction.

Repeat acts of wild 

in your dynamism.

 

Thrill of congress.

Age and time.

Affection and touch.

Kindness and light.

The longer the lonely

the loss of self.

Guided hand and reverence.  

The aftermath it kills. 

Fuss over her dress.

If not intrigued,

Foolish.

 

Hardened hearts.

The block depressed.

Once exposition

Then annexed.

 

The fated creature

No shrinking beast.

To be foolish

If not intrigued.

 

What is it you say

About me now?

Don’t look at me the same

When you see me now.

The fire burns sideways

Got you freaking out.

Like facing the rapture

When you seek me out.

 

Sparkle

It is a scene Sparkle.

See you

Apt pupil.

 

Here I am calling Sparkle.

I and my bicycle.

It is a dream.

Set a place between

And I will eat from it

Sparkle.

 

One thousand block.

Jackson.

Before long some other despot.

 

It is a dream Sparkle.

There am I and my bicycle.

Set a place between

And I will eat from it.

Send you a letter.

Its contents written

I earnest.

 

Said I’ve tried to maintain

But people change

Seems our minds change

On the hour.

We sleep on it.

Human nature

So we feed on it.

 

I hope it says it all.

Maybe you will call on me.

Come see no use

for stern words

and all that

when you’re just like me.

People change.

Seems our minds change

On the hour.

We sleep on it.

Human nature

We feed on it.

Forget

Forget I came along.

As you feel you must.

Forget me.

Then you must.
Regrettably yours

In love.

 

Everything between us

A baptism

In the tide of age.

Wash away sediment.

Residue.

I ever moved you.

 

That I came along

And give you feeling.

Unremitting

And the zeal

With which

You purge me

From your recollection.

Better, best for preservation.

 

If you must forget me

Then you must.

Regrettably yours in love.

I am the Metropolitan.

Evolution of man that rise

A better version of what

Driven me mad.

 

Adapt to their embarrassment

Or riches.

There are those yet to savage.

Love is free market.

They come out in number like the

Pictures and the stories.

Times I couldn’t wait

Some deity to come.

Instead focus her shoulders

Windows yonder.

 

The eye of a Holy Host

Alight on her breasts.

Witness seeks blessing.

As well we have come

For wine in the pots.

Broken summers

Much like giving up.

Sleep until hunger force me up.

Powerful hunger to rise up.

I never like the summer.

Winter allows me

To cover up.

Flaws in the sun.

 

No summer luck.

No summer love.

No summer dresses

To look up.

And invitations

To socialize.

 

Since she’d gone

One summer to the next.

Summer solstice.

The longest days

The dog days.

 

The winter its wilderness.

Winter winds.

Frozen tears

To my face.

The summer melt

the accumulation.

 

Since she’d gone 

One summer to the next.

Blend into one.

 

Dreams

The Dreams of…

Scenes of…

Deals with devil

Mad men choose weapon.

With the nights rattle for salvation.

Mouths open and

Paged to content.

The truth bold and

Irreverent.

Mad Hatter.

Mad cap.