To You

The city
Wedged between impulse and unfolding
Bridged
By diurnal splintering
Of egos
Round
The aerial news-kiosk
Where you
Statically
Hob-nob
With a nigger
And a deaf-mute
Of introspection

Plopping finger
In Stephen’s ink
Made you hybrid-negro

A couple of manuscriptural erasures
And here we have your deaf-mute
Beseech him
He will never with-hold so
Completely
As the tattle of tongue-play
Or your incognito

Lit cavities in the face of the city
Open their glassy embrace to receive you
In your mask of unborn ebony
And the silence of your harangue

The tight-rope stretched above commotion
Frays to tow
To the step tentative
fend shadows are yours for the taking
Where the mono-rabble
Plays the one-stringed banjo
On the noise of its ragged heart
Inaudible
In the shattering city
Alien as your aboriginal
In the levelling dirt⁠—