Your attention, please. Here, on stage with the bright lights. Your attention, please.
On stage, the bright lights blind me. Your attention, please. I printed a page to read.
Under the bright lights. The heat on stage with darkness. The darkness below.
Remember I came up here. Your attention, please. For a reason, not striptease.
A moment to think. If I could just remember. What I want to say.
To say something, you, right there. In the audience. In the darkness, must I plead?
To just remember. What I now seem to forget. This is not a show.
Even if I simply stand. Stand at attention? Genuflect, down on one knee.
No, not politics. Except for the Supreme Court. Sorry if I sway.
To say that the Supreme Court. Is an abortion. Waiting to happen.
Is political. Is it wrong to speak frankly? Or should I step down?
Or should I continue down. This treacherous path. Deux routes, un lapin.
Not any rabbit. No, but the killer rabbit. The rabbit died, clown.
Pregnant with an abortion. Or with a fetus. Which is it, which will it be?
Leave me alone, please. Just me and my uterus. Oh wait, I'm a man.
Even a man can have...no? Oh, okay then, no. Anatomy for dummies.
Ask Biden to feel. Bodily autonomy. What right do they have?
Sucker punch the victims, right? Just ask the women. A woman, must one not span?
Even with all things. Being equal, not the same. The same is different.
Harness solar energy. Follow the money. The Court, Egyptian mummies.
Even if different. Treat women as they so please. Behave and act brave.
Remember, I have something. Something to tell you. But, just now, I forgot.
Even an old man. An old man such as myself. Is belligerent?
On stage, I'm a pugilist. Amateur boxer. In a war with politics.
No, that's not right, no. That's my dad beating his son. Me, and yes, not me.
Sucker punch a child, a boy. Voici un poète! A worthless life hustling tricks.
To offend or not. Heterosexual male. Comes by post, you see.
Ask me not to come on stage. The lights are too bright. I might even smoke some pot.
Give me a break, son. Who's leg you trying to pull. No, I don't smoke dope.
Even though so long ago. I lived life half-baked. Not invested in the hood.
Window to the soul. The eyes speak in metaphors. The soul, a fiction.
Illusions within the mind. Itself illusion. Metaphysics on a rope.
The end of its rope. Dangling as if from a tree. Strange Fruit sang Billie.
Holiday about lynched men. About Black men lynched. White men in hoods could.
Touch a stone, I cry. Touch a stone to make it bleed. Without contrition.
Horror, the horror, the heart. Of darkness off-stage. The audience cool.
Even if I were. But I am not a Black man. How I am silly.
Black is beautiful, a fact. But I am not Black. Not beautiful, no.
Right between the eyes. Two in the back of the head. This life I expect.
I expect to be gunned down. While running downtown. Like this, what a way to go.
Gun down Chicago. "This is Chicago [n-word]." A word I respect.
How did I forget to say. To tell you my dream. As a drummer, what a fool.
To think I could play. As I once did in a band. Forty years ago.
Like so many dreams I have. Pipedreams come to naught. Ex nihilo nihil fit.
I once played the drums. I once read philosophy. I once studied art.
Given the sign of Cancer. As a crab, I cry. This is Chicago.
How did I arrive? All the way from Old Bombay. Mango from Goa.
Touched in the head as a child. Tortured, sensitive. This I must admit.
Sensitive, a boy. Laughter from both my parents. The 70s, smart.
You see, I was a mistake. Not an abortion. But a Roman Catholic.
Only if I were. But I am not, no longer. To wear a boa.
Understand, to dress in drag. To be a woman. If only in appearance.
Remember to say. To tell them of the darkness. Not the audience.
Ask them if they were tortured. The Ghost of the Clam. My disappearance.
They tortured a child. My cousin in a dark room. Not so obvious.
They laughed, my parents, they laughed. I came down screaming. Not a maverick.
Even if I could. I would not return to them. My so-called family.
Nothing was ever the same. Though I was not raped. I became dead to others.
They laughed at torture. At a child trapped in a room. A boy in distress.
I wish I could write about. Other things, move on. My calamity.
Our catastrophe. Unspoken, left in denial. I am the black sheep.
Now I train for marathon. Here in Chicago. With my sisters and brothers.
Prime for the scrap heap. My body weathered and worn. This I must confess.
Let me be an old man now. I am tired of life. I simply just want to die.
Even as a child. Already dead to the world. Broken, I come cheap.
As a massage therapist. But just a student. A graduate of massage.
Sent the paperwork. To the wrong destination. My life, a mirage.
Even if I could practice. Start over again. The dreams gone, but why?
