"...fire the space"

"Jayne Cortez is an energy, a nourishment; a Black Nation song."
~Gwendolyn Brooks

In The Morning

Disguised in my mouth as a swampland
nailed to my teeth like a rising sun
you come out in the middle of fish-scales
you bleed into gourds wrapped with red ants
you syncopate the air with lungs like screams from
yazoo
like X rated tongues
and nickel plated fingers of a raw ghost man
you touch brown nipples into knives
and somewhere stripped like a whirlwind
stripped for the shrine room
you sing to me through the side face of a black
rooster

In the morningin the morningin the morning
all over my door like a rooster
in the morningin the morningin the morning

And studded in my kidneys like perforated hiccups
inflamed in my ribs like three hoops of thunder
through a screw
a star-bent-bolt of quivering colons
you breathe into veiled rays and scented ice holes
you fire the space like a flair of embalmed pigeons
and palpitate with the worms and venom and wailing
flanks
and somewhere inside this fever
inside my patinaed pubic and camouflaged slit
stooped forward on fangs
in rear of your face
you shake to me in the full crown of a black rooster

In the morningin the morningin the morning

Masquerading in my horn like a river
eclipsed to these infantries of dentures of diving
spears
you enter broken mirrors through fragmented pipe
spit
you pull into a shadow ring of magic jelly
you wear the sacrificial blood of nightfall
you lift the ceiling with my tropical slush dance
you slide and tremble with the reputation of an
earthquake

and when i kick through walls
to shine like silver
when i shine like brass through crust in a compound
when i shineshineshine
you wail to me in the drum call of a black rooster

In the morningin the morningin the morning
gonna kill me a rooster
in the morning
early in the morning
way down in the morning
before the sun passes by
in the morningin the morningin the morning

In the morning
when the deep sea goes through a dog's bite
and you spit on tip of your long knife
In the morningin the morning
when peroxide falls on a bed of broken glass
and the sun rises like a polyester ball of menses
in the morning
gonna firedance in the petro
in the morning
turn loose the blues in the funky jungle
in the morning
I said when you see the morning coming like
a two-headed twister
let it blowlet it blow
in the morningin the morning
all swollen up like an ocean in the morning
early in the morning
before the cream dries in the bushes
in the morning
when you hear the rooster cry
cry rooster cry
in the morningin the morningin the morning

I said
disguised in my mouth as a swampland
nailed to my teeth like a rising sun
you come out in the middle of fish-scales
you bleed into gourds wrapped with red ants
you syncopate the air with lungs like screams from
yazoo
like X rated tongues
and nickel plated fingers of a raw ghost man
you touch brown nipples into knives
and somewhere stripped like a whirlwind
stripped for the shrine room
you sing to me through the side face of a black
rooster

In the morningin the morningin the morning

~Jayne Cortez from Mouth on Paper (1977)