[The Koreatown Oddity]

kicking doors off the hinges
being ignorant
a lot of Black musicians
couldn’t come through the entrance
had to go through the kitchen
even if the reason why people buy tickets
was ‘cause their name was on the marquee

i don’t need the car keys to get me started
just a push of a button
if you comprehend the jargon
‘cause me and mines we gonna get ours regardless
a gem still shines through
amongst the pile of garbage

who gonna get thrown the farthest
when we’re talking about trust
I danced on the tarpits and didn’t get stuck
once, what’s a box?
(what is it?)
an irrelevant element
especially when I expand the space within beyond the measurements, bullshit they selling it
just to be employed

and I ain’t buying it with credit or bitcoin
I’m from the LA when Big Boy was a big boy
as a kid eating spaghetti at Bob’s Big Boy
wicked gremlins get a small window to enjoy
the payback is more digits when I send the invoice

opposition is met with laughter
you gonna respect my craft like classic Black actors:
Delroy Lindo, Keith David, Clifton Powell
young Black and gifted with infinite styles
no tricks gimmicks or thirty day free trials

[Rhys Langston]

my political awakening began as a
Black kid in a synagogue
recitation of ancient rites
turned digital from analog
obsessed with consumer tech
I stayed inspecting specifications on IGN and CNET

longsword was my major skill
and I chose the small afro in
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
you know, comparatively,
to racist online trolls I was something like
the Xbox Live voice chat
Colin Kaepernick

fin de siècle, you know the mid-aughts’
snail’s pace in high speed technology
rebooting a DSL modem
and dunking on regulation at 14
just to load up the Afro-eccentric character creation screen:

real bifurcated Negro nerd
bumping Vernon Reid and
watching Tayshaun Prince highlights,
post-tournament eating pickled turnips

and mistaken for Persian in Van Nuys
(you know, I mean I could probably learn
some Farsi on the side, whatever)

misidentification of Rhys Langston
so it goes what I’ve surmised in feeling
single Black mother renting a two bedroom in Los Feliz,


me and my brother not realizing that was a zenith
20 years later the rental market got us leasing
our European features

now forms this cane river Creole teetotaling
21st century genius
and you can either recognize or you can suck my
latte-colored
prosody

(thought I was gonna say something else
didn’t you?)