martin king & brother malcolm are present in this work’s opening poem, re-minding that 5 decades since their assassinations we’re still at war, and consciousness is fundamentally disengaged from the world’s suffering—& our own.

bone sutures, unwiring the mathematic of blackbody otherness speaks to unraveling the otherness that immobilizes individual & collective identity.

in large part this otherness is an outgrowth of the double consciousness w.e.b. du bois identified in the souls of blackfolk, 1903: an identity perceived thru blackskin praxis & internalized white institutional & social rejection. it’s the precursor to ralph ellison’s invisible man, 1952, & james baldwin’s 1963 essay, my dungeon shook, in the fire next time.

i write of this today not only as historical referent, but as the crucible i’ve come thru & continue to pass. my afrikan american lens is an ancestral truth i daily bring to conscious relationship in the communities i serve. i write poetry because, as i say in an earlier poem:

poetry is inspired sound moving thru life unabated, is truth’s insistence having its way in malleable flesh. poetry is wind rising & falling in bodies attuned to the motion of the sea; it’s air that fuels flame indelibly hinged to sacred earth’s revolutions. it is revolution!

bone sutures is a meditation for unwiring & dismantling mindfog.

may you find something here that is a music you can dance to; the mind to act & strength to weather the consequence & persevere. huemanity & earth require no less.

oko 12/17