chrissteele

During the year I spent at college, I had a very interesting and enjoyable
anthropology class. And I had a very interesting and enjoyable anthropology
professor. For an optional assignment, he said we could do an observation
report on a culture or a sub-culture. And he said we could do something
creative. So I wrote this next poem. During the poem, I mention "doin this
Gatsby up proud." At the time the poem was written, I was actually doing the
first draft of research paper on F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.
At two-o-clock in the night I was forced out of bed by ...

hot white on cool black Or: a sub-cultural group of sub-cultural
blacks that hang out at the student center

there's this subcultural group of (real) people
i been eyewitness observing man and
this! is the first installment on the
installment plan of a series you may find i
might thrust in your palm as you're
struttin in your way down the hall to
the men's room
well, there was this time i saw 3
black real people and there's this big
momma sittin in the middle and 1
black (real) man sittin in front of her
like talkin' the way a black man (you
know) talks
and there was this other real black guy
sittin to the left o' her, do se do
and wouldn't you know i
was doin this gatsby up proud
sittin in a chair like sittin comfy
only i was busy as a bee mindin' my hive
slurpin' on a watery coke, 18c at the
snack pad,
smokin' a real Pall mall
while big momma (she's the one with the
change)
was holdin' court (she always has change)
sellin' a hair job to the cheapest bidder -
she says, they even says to me, you
wanna
wash her hair (like they were friendly)
5$ hr. was the cheapest bidder
for 6, even both hairs and I thought that
was funny
but I'm a real uptight bunny

and they were real , so, they were free like
and easy
but just as, when I thought these types
don't up and get tight
there was real emotion, like hurt and fed up
I don't know why only I felt like when I
knew (somebody told me, rat) Santa was not
or when I learned the easter Bunny was
real chicken (eggs)
so he says I'm leavin but he don't leave
and she says when you leavin (she always
has change)
I'm leavin' when you leavin' Woman
and I'm leavin when you leavin
and
Nobody left ( non-violence?)
and there was this guy who came who's in
my history class smokin' on a real black
big cigar and he was struttin out with
the macho man (while I was surreptitiously
mindin' my own business) you could tell
there was
macho, machismo? In his voice and the way
he was talkin' bout this 1 tough dude it takes
3 guys and they can't whip his ass
and fightin' at some cafe (like the people
you meet) when eatin' mashed potatoes
(violence?) and at the one and the same time
2 real cool lookin' dudes came in I
think they must got rhythm but they
were so friendly (made me nervous)
You See they WERE, so free and easy
like real man and also cool you see I'm hot
but it ain't easy for me or them (you see
they're black) because we don't know each other
and besides in "psyche today" they SAY
it's hard (but big momma always has change!)
and they was: man and woman to each other
talkin' intimate and ryebald like (I think they
must got rhythm) so free and easy
and clownin' and laughin' and I wished I was
them but I knew they weren't so much very
happier and free and easy (I just wanted to believe)
as all that, but you see they're different
they joke and clown and carry on in broad
public daylight.

"take it easy man." "you too."
"gettin down I see." "yal."
"I can dig it."

Written in1975 Copyright Christopher Steele Brower