we named ourselves the disciples of spit because our lives were

infested with chatter the vacuous transmissions floating

at the eye of our entourage because love was a hive

of cut-downs and chains laced the exits we made our music

stand on the skull like horns the bad lyrics of roosters clucking

their place in the world because how terrible it must have been

to live every day in any year before this one divided into junctions

of vermin wounded and winded and unwinding homespun bargains

prayers and complaints the magic of whiskey the magic of money

a black country with black woods around tribes talking about fucking

other tribes up because if it is true the points of a star represent the fingers

of a hand it is also true what we cannot touch does not exist

3. PLAUSIBLE MOTTOS

Someone in the first tribe says:

“Why didn’t God save Aretha Franklin from herself? Tell me that.”

Someone in the fifth tribe says:

“Humming instead of speaking does mysterious things to you.”

Someone in the third tribe says:

“The day I got burned I wanted to be burned.”

Someone in the second tribe says:

“The good thing about evil is it gets old too.”

Someone in the fourth tribe says:

“Seems there’s a lot of money in just being black these days.”

4. WHATSHISNAME

On the tip of my tongue is the name

of that ___________ Mr. – – – – – –

who knew so little of himself

he signed his name with a dash

and left his mark on all of us.

Among the many reasons to distrust – – – – – – were:

(1) his theatrical grin, (2) his chitchat was a simulacrum of syntax, a meticulous mishmash of “Fuck thisness” and “Fuck thatness,” (3) that jacket he claimed he got in vintage New York I know his momma found in a thrift store, (4) his overwrought S-curled Afro!

His cackles often emerged

blackly enough to suggest

he’d swallowed something

that should have been too big

and rambunctious to fit down his throat.

5. THE ANTIDOTE FOR INVISIBILITY

We did not want to be the bullshit quietude, or the errant sparkle of hairs damp as cursive on the neck and forearms of someone tethered to labor, we did not want any man or woman’s skin-pocked funk and amnesiac chatter, we did not want the sunstroked dirt to cover our kicks or footsteps, the fields of it holding the cities we did not call home, the dead we did not call kin, the humble punk plant life and signage and fence posts, we did want to be nailed to anything rooted to earth.

6. TRIBE SENTENCE COMPLETION

“When I have nothing to think about I like to think about BL_____SS, which, as you probably know, is like thinking of nothing because it was thought of as nothing for many years.”

Answer key:

If you are a Bill it’s BLANKNESS.

If you are a Spike it’s BLANDNESS.