John S. Murillo   POINT it starts with the vultures.         an empty playground. asphalt sky.  always         the vultures.  one perched on each rim.  feathers fan         backboards.  it always starts here.  I bring the ball up left         handed, just like you.  left handed, the way you taught me.          cross half court.  stutter step. reverse pivot and pull.  point         your elbow at the bucket, boy; and follow through.  always follow         through.  I square my body, gather my legs, then lock into eyes eager to peck         the brittle bones of my lay ups. shot clock dies,  a whistle blows.         I must begin again.  Out of bounds, ball in hand.  scan the court         for an open man.  daddy,  did you hear?  the Lakers got Shaq.          think this’ll be our season?  no one to pass to.  nowhere to throw.  boy,         my lungs are blacker than the grooves in that there ball you got.  It ain’t no more         seasons.  a buzzer sounds.  I begin again, a blacktop Sisyphus         in sweatsocks, pushing upcourt.  I can’t see the clock,        but I know it’s there.  It ain’t no more seasons.  Just the ticking         time and that rock you squeezing. Once, my afro was bigger than my body.         You held me over head with a ball in my hand and laughed, said         now we both got some sun to hold onto.  I pushed the ball off the tips         of my fingers, and watched it ride the rim like a drunken wallenda.         those were the days before black wings.  beaks.  birds         tracing eights on skies as cracked and as lovely as this         concrete that keeps me from falling. Margaret Fragonito Journey from CAOS   FOR MY NEIGHBORS WHO WALK WITH PURSES, LIPS, AND ASSES CLUTCHED TIGHT AS THEY HURRY PAST ME ON THEIR WAY TO STARBUCKS WITH A CELL PHONE IN ONE HAND AND A LEASH IN THE OTHER --after Martin Espada I have awakened to the rumble of stampeding bulldozers flattening skulls of black Barbies under hoof. I have choked on jackhammer dust in the shadows of ten story skeletons and billboards that trumpet your coming. I have watched potholes vanish and stop signs appear next to shiny new health food markets. I have witnessed tribes of drummers communing with God pushed from parks like Navajos from their native ground. I have seen the chiseled noses, Duke Ellington’s mural, a sphinx on the wrong side of Giza. I have zig zagged to work between the yapping end of your leash on the street’s one side, and the curbed furniture of an evicted family on the other. May the Saints of Dilapidation cave condominiums in on the flaxen strands splayed across pillows. May the Gods of Rain Gutters deploy a sewer rat battalion to gather and execute all poodles. May the Spirits of Foodstamps sneak into your wallet and turn all your Ben Franklins to Bushes. May the Angels of Government Cheese curdle your latte and send you hurling ass first toward porcelain. May your sleep be disrupted by visits from Biggie, Pac, and Big Pun singing Pavarotti and P-Diddy remixes. May your furniture float.  May your walls bleed graffiti. May your house speak in Robeson’s voice.  And may your leather couches become housing projects for cockroaches until two-headed albino alligators buy their way into your living room. INVOKING MARVIN AT MIDNIGHT                 --for L. H.         Picture the preacher’s son   secular   sanctified spotlight and nightsweat     bluesmoke and silkthroat         eyes closed   head tossed   voice naked knees trembling      Trouble Man      moaning wholly         holy  Love   have mercy   Love have      mercy       holler Marvin  holler  Dreamed of you this morning         then came the dawn and I thought if you were here with me…         Picture the poet   nightsweat and lamplight fingers throbbing    threadbare tongue    ghost mounted         errant son    Picture the woman known before      comes back      spoken for            See the poet’s barren hands    blood before words this bard without throat    a woman to bring back         and no song to sing     no song to sing help me holler  Marvin    help me  help her  remember Dreamed of you this morning         then came the dawn and I thought if you were here with me…         What is it    Marvin    makes a man need so strong      what he ain’t suppose to have         want so bad       what he ain’t suppose to want what is it     Marvin    makes men like us    holler         and moan    holler and moan    why a blues so mean     she gotta come back twice Dreamed of you this morning         then came the dawn and I thought if you were here with me…         (Song Lyrics from Soon I’ll Be Loving You Again, by Marvin Gaye) Margaret Fragonito Land of Arnheim /HUMAN DIGNITY   THE PRESIDENT OF THE SANKOFA SOCIETY SHEDS HIS DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS                                    --Howard University, Washington DC Severed dreds curl edge of brown paper bag like fingers clawing from an open grave.     ......................................Sure, he talked shit about “slave mentality,” “modern uncle toms,” and “plantation knee-grows.” ......................................But, graduation is a week away and you can’t buy Bentleys with cowrie shells.   John S. Murillo is an Afro-Chicano poet and playwright, originally from Los Angeles, CA.  He is a Cave Canem fellow and a former instructor with DCWritersCorps.  A coach of D.C.’s 2001 National Teen Poetry Slam Team, John has performed his own work in venues from The Kaffa House to The Kennedy Center.  The 2002 and 2004 winner of the Larry Neal Award for Poetry, John is the author of the chapbook, Aluta, and the forthcoming collection of essays, A Poet in Havana, both from ZuluAzteca Press.  Published in Volume 6, Number 2, Spring 2005.