Venus Gospel 17
BIO
Manny Minaya is a writer, poet and spoken word artist from Washington Heights. His pieces speak on human nature and afflictions, using his writing as a mirror to help society reflect on its actions.
Sizable speakers, ineffable to the steel
cases of hoopties, all four doors and trunks and
sunroofs torn open, turned the block to a club.
A hydrant for a pool. The water’s foam
got me off the fire escape’s iron cage.
Lumidee laminated ladies in Baby
Phat. There were no talks of lunar
eclipses, though we didn’t have advanced connections
to really know. Sidekicks flipped open, our
sides threaded baggy and our soles cleaned;
freer in our skin. That’s not to say we don’t feel
so now, my bones just don’t find the same joy
in the world outside its skin or in the imaginary.
The corner bodega used to have arcade machines,
and quarter water to quench rawed throats after
quarter matches of Rival Schools. We didn’t know
the quarter of the moon, not yet, never felt
the retrogrades in our favorite green flavored Gatorade.
We heard it. In the rumors of Tiffany
knotting sheets with Jose. In the cracks
of turgid wood against a softball.
In the silent sirens, the whispered warnings
of the fire department shutting off our water park.
Reversing the motion of water.
Directing the fires of our summer elsewhere.
Even when the blackout blacked out our senses,
the block turned nocturnal. We found each other
in our wet white t-shirts by the light
of idle 1999 Honda Civics and turn of millennium
Chevy Trailblazers. The levies of our lips leaked
laughter that lolled us to bed when
the morning star woke.
The middle of August cooled over
in the brine of Niagara Falls
shaking summer awake again.
Mami saved like $30 on the ConEd
from not using air conditioning those two days,
and we saw Her, us city folks were amazed;
it’s like when you place a resident of the Great Plains
in the teeming forests of Upstate, they’re amazed.
We never pay attention to the rooftops, but for once,
the sky was blemished by freckles, laugh lines,
teeth glistening. We turned the speakers louder,
placed our decaying planks of wood underneath
our own Niagara’s after the fire department left,
and aimed the pressured water of the hydrant to Venus.
We aimed the block somewhere higher. On a Friday
turned Saturday, I didn’t miss the 20-inch TV and Ash Ketchum.
Mami lit candles around the house like a seance,
summoned realness to guide her kids;
I don’t recall her praying that night.
Or her yelling out of the kitchen window
for me to get inside. Absolutely nothing
to fear in creating the light of heaven for ourselves.
Ours. No one else’s.
The block. All its memories.
Venus Gospel 7
Blue bubbles burst in rapid succession. I stir
awake. You hired Mercury, the messenger, despite
the numbing of last night’s whiskey still
holding my time at a standstill. Mercury
has no moon, either. So it goes.
It is seconds before dawn. It is summertime. Streetlights
carry on their waves the sounds of stumbling
laughter from the lounges around the corner.
You write “Lol,” though knowing you,
knowing the time, your mouth is perfectly narrow.
I recall you becoming day, watching
tints of mahogany irises turn to honey; sticky,
a liquid gold that once permeated my green tea.
“I feel so alone,” the next line reads,
white text emblazoned across a gray field
waving in my forced exhalation.
I contemplate a response to send to my
satellites. I do not know
what the juxtaposition of all your colors mean—
kindergarteners' crayon chicken scratches like
the acoustic ceilings of my childhood. Mixing
came hard. To clothe you with my naked eyes
in the daytime was unfathomable.
I haven’t bought enough furniture yet,
so your voice echoed wildly last time you’ve been. I’ve been
trying to get around to painting the walls
something a little less off-white. It looks tacky.
There are a lot of gray areas in our text messages.
You’ll see them as blue on your end. You’ll see it
as your well-intentioned efforts to be here
to paint a pink life between you and I.
As pink as the underbelly of the clouds during dawn.
The rays of the sun obscure what you attempt to
communicate; I suppose you fear being seen.
Suddenly, your lively nighttime fades away.
My moons catch the sun as it rises.
I offer you no response.