DJ Renegade

[funkpoet]

In 1993, 1994 I was living in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. On the naval base. I found the base boring, lonely. I spent a lot of time in the gym, a lot of time drinking, and a lot of time reading. My sister would send me books from the States all the time. Among these was a collection of poetry: Fast Talk Full Volume. I was delighted, upon my return to DC to find some of my favorite authors there, reading at a Georgetown coffee shop/art house, It's Your Mug. In fact, among the reasons I began reading there myself is because I wanted to be able to tell my grandchildren that I read with the great so-and-so. Of course there were a lot of folks there who were more interested in getting their mack on than with poetry. But who can blame them? There were a lot of honies there. And the great range of talent made me feel comfortable reading almost immediately because I considered my work somewhere in the middle. Well, probably because of the meat-market atmosphere or their maturity, some of the greats only showed occasionally, Kenny Carrol, Reuben Jackson. But one showed fairly regularly and us novices tried to live up to his level of talent. This is Joel Dias Porter also known as D. J. Renegade from his 1995 book "4000 Shades of Blue"


Nocturnal Linguistics

I had long since
abandoned all attempts
at comprehending
love's peculiar hieroglyphics,
had simply decided
to close my eyes
and wait for music
to tumble across my tongue.
And now
like the midnight
taste of chocolate
after a diet's day,
something
has me craving
the smooth lotion
of its caress,
has me wishing to be washed
in the liquid fall of its hair,
has me hexed in the
exotica of its sonic erotica,
and my pillow is reporting
that in the heat of recent nights,
my lips have been spotted
wrapped around
a certain name.