Blood in My Eye

Guided by teeth

Goes the country

There’s a cow’s mouth on the flag

A peculiar notepad holds street life dear

But the writer’s not here

He’s somewhere talking to tombstones about the good ol’ days-Or splashing reborn water on his latest face

Or wondering how his old gun is doing in the afterlife

Wondering how much death trap is in those gas station aisles. There’s got to be a million dollars day on this concrete island. New engine in the moon. Why it never goes down. I mean 72 straight hours of night…At least according to everyone’s posture around here.

8:30 in the morning is really 30 minutes to closing

The city shuts down for a sleepy rat race

Elevators shoe shuffle to the nearest heaven

Laughing with rats the whole ways up. There are scabs every damn where. In puddles of city. In concentrated schools. In tv lit warm rooms. The light reveals military fatigue when it hits just right on the ties that are wrapped around the necks of lazy white guys. Empire is too easy, baby. Chant at the walls

Best way for a target to move is shooting back.

Running for a tree line made of freeways

Wisdom says, against a war machine on Tuesdays, you stand no chance.

But may we be the last poor people to play it safe

Cow’s mouth on the flag

A politician raises his hand

And the crowd shows their teeth

Oligarch raises his hand

And little kids are not safe outside

You are all high, depressed, and comrades in function. Fifteen minutes to closing and the city has survived another Black rebellion. We are just paying dues by trash fires not just anyone can set. Don’t you love how deadly things whisper in the moment and men

kill like

feathers fall

while everyone is screaming inside

The writer knows that death is not a matter of dignity. Rather humor.

In a house that smells like roach races. Nuclear percentages on torn stoves.

I mean here: life never was just lazy matches and manic inhumanity hands rushing away from life towards stoves

What are we doing here?

Surviving, baby, for no reason in particular

because nobody’s gone far today

Nobody will go far tomorrow

Trust me,

Hell And Heaven

cannot count

Strange gardens

Where second hand clothes play

And concrete wishes to be human

So that it can be a cannibal

Where they find you drenched

And drains wish to be human

So that they can be worthy arms for you to die in

Greet them all, grandson. Prepare for the day when every child is calm. And don’t say we ghosts didn’t write you a poem.

Don’t say

we didn’t dig your life.

Remember the shotgun by the coat rack that everybody in the house knows how to use. Remember the tightrope made of needles for walking in between driveways. And man-made best friends. Go ahead, Grandson. Tune the street again. Never mind this country kills musicians first.

Broken neck nights

Scarred neck life

Is these walls could write lyrics

What’s you angle, angel eyes?

Thirty to fifty rounds pass by

On a street with no daughters this street has no sons just young prisoners of war

In a racist city that means to make capital

And we know so much

We know it all

We were stood against walls

Who’s on the third cross around here?

Cow’s moth salivating over the street

-And that is the story of why we aim at teeth.

Tongo Eisen-Martin is a poet, educator, and organizer. He is the author of someone's dead already (Bootstrap Press, 2015) and Heaven is All Goodbyes (City Lights, 2017).