Java Sparrow Press

The world is spinning and the stage is set. A Chicago City Block. Englewood. Circa 2012. Obama’s America – the 2nd term. The War on Drugs came through like a fire and scorched the land and God’s People. The block with no houses. Vacant. Only land. Thirty forty years ago, this was a vibrant community of Black Southern Refugees.

Nature reclaimed the land. Ivy, weeds, wild Flowers, brush, bush, and young trees grow where cement and babies used to grow. Tree stumps – sanded and varnished- stand where all the young sons grew tall and firm. Tree Trunks sit in the middle of nowhere as memorials in remembrance of the fallen sons.

Maybe, this is the beginning of time. Could be the Garden of Eden, or the rural south without a stream. Maybe the calm before the revolution.

Center Stage. September. Breezy enough for layers. Late Afternoon. Before sunset. The forest of Englewood. Judas Duke. Son of Rosemary Burr and Amos Black. Father of three sons (deceased) and one daughter (estranged). Sometimes.

Exits and entrances – one man is his time, plays many parts. Judas Duke – Son, Father, Disassociated, Shape-shifter. Alchemist. Griot. Out of balance in an unfamiliar time and space. Untethered to this timeline.

We are merely the players. Judas Duke enters with a brown bag holding a pint of something dark, round, and sweet; a walking stick that substitutes as a weapon, if need be. This is Chicago. Judas Duke is Father Time, an elder – a grandfather without grandchildren. Cloaked and layered with a proper pair of boots for a seemingly dystopian time. Judas Duke, after the war – prepared. Too little too late? But still here as welcome crew for when the comets come.

Florida Rose water in the flask gets sprinkled out for those that are no longer here. All the world’s a stage. The scene is set. Judas Duke lays down the walking stick.

I am Judas Duke – merely a player. Tap Dance King of all of Mississippi. Specifically, Arcola. 1961 took my dance on the road. Joined the train of Negroes shuffling to the North.

“EACH FALL THE GRAVES OF MY GRANDFATHERS CALL ME, the Brown Hills and red fullies of Mississippi send out their electric messages, galvanizing my genes.” Etherridge Knight.

Once upon a time he was young and spry, agile. His mind remembers a thing that his body tries to do but no longer can with ease. His kick ball shuffle looks like an old man with a limp in a field of overgrown weeds and dandelions where houses used to be. He shuffles on land, entertains the fields in his mind.

“Ima see you next lifetime,’ kind of negro /a 29 year times two cqdand a ace, saturn return – / This shit ain’t real, Negro/ I’m here from 3005 & the beginning/ A free and I’m just energy, kind of Negro.” His shuffles freezes like a deer in headlights. The silence is loud, catches him off guard. From corner to corner, on both sides of the street, he speaks on a forgotten block, in a community that’s faded away, and lost its people. It’s not lost on him that he’s the only people left. He speaks on their behalf.

“YOU trapped in this black skin/ Simple woke/ while I’M A SOLAR BEEEEAAAAMMM/ Here for a time…” Judas Duke jabs a damning crooked and aging first finger at nature. “but you forgot your place, Negro…. WHAT HAPPENS ON EARTH/ Stays on Earth.” Could be this is the beginning of time, or the end and Judas Duke stands on the stage trapped in the in-between of it. In a New Moon sky, bright clouds hide what little stars there would have been. He resigns himself to his fate of being stuck. To wait his turn. “I’m stuck on Earth. Negroes.”

If all the world’s a stage and we’re just the players, there is never just one player on the stage. People need people and men have daughters. Daughters who never got fathered which means they got less than great mothering. Fatherless daughters become hard around the edges, rigid in the middle, searching for sweetness in salty places that only keep soured people.

“The troops never came.” The world is a stage. Eden enters with enough hips to bump against the hardness of life and to not break. Her eyes dart back and forth, far and wide from being on watch her whole life. Because little girls belong in castles with dragons as protection, not on the ground where the danger is. They’re their own protector and prince instead of hidden up high and away. “The troops never came.”

A cigarette that she doesn’t smoke because it’s not lit sits firmly between her lips, Her steps are measured, tentative in an uneven field. Her trauma hangs from her thighs as past sweets, fried meats, and processed foods ordered from her driver’s seat. She takes a long pull from her cigarette, to take a deep breath, the only way she can breathe sometimes. When she stops at a tree stump she tries to remember who the stump is in memory of but the sunlight is dimming the land making it hard to read the tiny plaque glued to the side of the log. That would require bending down to see. Dead sons, lost brothers, does it matter if it was her kin or not?

When she sits on the finished glossy surface, she imagines her presence alone banishes bugs while swatting at something that wants to rest on her calves. She pulls her long skirt down as far as it goes but it isn’t long enough.

In a garden growing Earth, she remembers who she is again. “I am holding to promises bigger than myself/ I have lost breaths/ I’ve missed sleep/ I make meals I don’t eat/ I should be a song…

There’s more to living than building tomorrow today-

I am unwilling to be undone. My becoming has been delayed.”

She inhales from her cigarette and looks for the stars in a starless northern sky. A light wind touches her face like a soft caress smelling of newly bloomed and damp Gardenia’s. It’s autumn. Aren’t those spring flowers? Two fingers hold her cigarette feeling kissed and soft for a brief moment. For that brief moment it’s rest.

Judas Duke, frozen in a time that no longer exists, pulls his brown bag from a deep inside pocket. “Life ain’t short- Whoever said it was, never lived – My sons, my boys died on the corner over there.” He points to a corner hidden by midwestern Plains. He wonders if there was ever a corner there or if he made it all up. Judas Duke pours out a taste from his brown bag. Brown strong with a hint of caramel and vanilla.

“That damn gravedigger and his damn tree stumps all over the place like ghetto memorials. Like, they mama wasn’t hurting enough. He thinks it’s a memorial – Looks like a prison to me: A cell of mourning.” Pours out a taste. “Let’s make tree stumps for all the young bloods that got sacrificed/ for the spirits that never leave the block/ hood seats while we wait …. For our turn.” He pours out a taste. “FOR ALL THE SUNS – that ain’t here.” He sprinkles Florida Rose Water where he stands.

~ ~ ~

tbc…