Jessica Care Moore is my friend and she kills it. If there is a poem to be written that will make you nod your head until the last period (if she uses them), then she is the one. She has, once again, written something that will attach itself to me for the rest of my life. This is about us Detroit Daughters…Daddies in the stratosphere trying to help us while not being on the physical plane…all daddies including Yale.
Posted for the first time, here is (hold your soul close while you read; this is a stealer):
Smoke
by jessica Care moore
In honor of returning home
after 12 years in the desert
When I smoked a clove
For the first time
It was for the taste it left behind
on my lips
If I was gonna smoke anything
It had to be sexy
It had to serve a purpose
I have the same approach to writing poetry
and loving the men I’ve loved
Just leave me something good on my mouth
A nice word behind my ear
Something i can bite down on and remember
Years later.
I’ve decided.
When I grow up.
I’m going to drink wine.
I’m going to have a mysterious wine cellar
I’m going to know the origin of every grape.
I’m going to grow my own vines
And tell stories to my children through
one long drunk
line.
I’m going to learn to use a corkscrew
I’m going to be a person who takes a
small sip and smells the glass
Today I’m more of a quick tequila shot girl
A graduate from the 80’s Hennessey and Vodka
I really just want something sweet
easy to digest slow
purposeful.
Something that tastes so good
just the thought of it makes me high
When i become my full warrior self
I will be a woman with an unbreakable spirit
dream catchers for arms alligator boots
Poem without curses
Poems never written
in this slave language
I won’t be a pretty girl
who needs to be reminded
she’s pretty.
But we do. don’t. We?
All Detroit girls are good stock
We hit the potholes and keep riding
We born driving
I can feel the sadness of my city
waiting for someone to claim it
in a box marked lost and found
I can drink down this room
and piss out the motown sound
I can eat engines and command an eagle
I am black and Detroit and regal
I am flashy with long cars &
piped out trucks
My walk demands a “what up.”
I am a doe.
In a forest of cows.
I am an 88 benz with heated seats
I am a ford pick up truck
that drives like an escort with
some extra shit in the back.
Never keep the tags on
Cause I don’t do take backs.
This city makes me want all our daddy’s back.
Tom T.D. Moore
Harry Taylor
George Woods
Larry Ray Robinson
ashe’
Little Tom
Angie and Lecca
Charlotte
Tureka
We all daddy’s girls with no daddy
We a city made for caddys
Killing people’s daddys
My coming home is finally not
for a funeral.
I am returning to a place of war
I am returning to a place of love
A wasteland with new lofts downtown
A holy place with schools and no books
abandoned neighborhoods and beauty
beyond belief
We used to cut the grass in the ghetto
It’s deep to be the only one at the after hours bar
Who’s not drinking.
Smoking
crack
heroin
Popping
Ex Pills
Mufflers
Chimneys
Exhaust Pipes
Fire Station Number One
Can you save us from this chemical waste
when the lie of gentrification
goes up in SMOKE.
The new billboard off the lodge xpress/way
detroit rock city
rock and roll niggas
jesus was a muslim
The heart of our city is on fire
When I heard Yale was murdered
Charlotte heard it on WJLB
Yale Murdered here?
In this city that he loved
That he nurtured
That he represented all over the world
That he saved and built lives in.
Something inside me
caught on fire
And I can’t help the
power of what follows
what gives birth
what poems i write
what poison I drink to help
destroy all this devil night heat
what makes the wind blow
that hard when we are closer
to the river.
I trust in Karma
I know the devil wears fake prada
When i came home
(this time)
It was for the taste Detroit left behind
On my lips
there are repercussions for
loving this way
for so many years
I am no longer afraid
Of what comes up
with the Smoke.
to reach Jessica Care Moore, you can email her at detroitbutterfly@gmail.com.
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(thank you Jess for great & beautiful poem
given me more of detroit than i realized i’d lost.
hope its not rude to answer with a poem, my way of praisin & thankin)
add my Daddy to the list
Leslie Lowen
chemist
came to our city
around 1940
to help fight the war
he didn’t have to go Over There
cause he supported the War Effort over here
working at US Rubber
& Wyandotte Chemical
his inventions anonymous, company property,
making magic potions
to seal up the planes
when the Red Baron
blasted our boys bombing germans
magic potions
bottles in our medicine chest
that could grow gigantic cabbages
“Quaternary”
a big word we
spoke as children
kwa - turn - areeee
you put it on anything to
heal anything
after Mama put him out,
waiting till we were grown,
& he married this terrible woman
he worked the swingshift
germ detective
at the Detroit Water Company
driving on black-ice roads
at 3 AM to check out the billions of gallons
of water
rolling thru our city
7 AM shifts followed by 3 PM shifts
followed by midnight shifts
& he was way past 60
detroit
the shift city
overtime city
payin’ dues city
overdue dues
payasyougo city
never caught up wit yr dues
city
daddy came to detroit
from Seattle
he was a mountains & pine tree man
stayed in the city for love
of a woman & 3 kids
bought classical vinyl thru mail order
catalogs
made us sit & listen at dinner time
to get “culture”
my memories buried under
his wife’s disdain & contempt,
strugglin to rise & take shape,
always watching & waitin
for him to bubble up in
my imagination
recollections
re-collecting
days & dininertimes,
breakfasts & winters
pouring boiling teakettle water
to melt the carlocks open- winters,
freeways
of daddy driving to work
to rivers
to warehouses
to make a livin
all buried under mama’s disdain &
contempt
he never got rich
a gambler at the american dream
ended up knee-capped by the americandreammachine
an irritation to his wife,
who ended up livin off his social security
Daddy was all about
that
providin for the woman he loved
and for their children
peace,
detroit daughter M&M
Comment by Anonymous — November 8, 2007 @ 4:47 pm