![]() Raphael prefers to go by Ralph, as he feels it suits him better and he’s heard every Ninja Turtle joke ever uttered. He is a native of Detroit, Michigan currently residing in Kentucky with his Boo-thang and their four-year-old boy. He is a chef by day and an essayist, poet, screenwriter in his dreams. He, like Issa Rae, is rooting for everybody Black. His work has been featured (or is forthcoming) on his mama’s fridge, his close friends’ inboxes, Hobart, 3 Elements Review, HASH Journal, Frontier Poetry, and All Guts No Glory. Follow him on twitter: @RALPHEEBOI I wish Jordan Peele could have released Get Out 400 years ago
to serve as a warning to all the humans who would become niggers, to let them know they have reason to fear the arriving ships, to let them know our bodies are honey- laced diamonds ripe for pillaging, to prove the drinking gourd won’t lead us home, to show them our blood still waters the cottonseeds, to help them choose Olokun’s mouth over this land of loss, as their savior won’t know us, their fields will choke us, our tongues will be blanched in bleach, their law will disembowel us, their dreams will wring us broken, our cities will wail as tinder, and we’ll never be done drowning in their western civilization Grandpa’s Detroit #1 A shack deep in a thick wood of elm becomes a sanctuary when duh moon high. Mistuh Bandleaduh counts off somethin’ swingin’ in A-minuh & duh prettiest gals you ever seen, conk-laid cats in arm, high-step onto duh dance floor in ten-dollah suits and handmade gowns danglin’ ovuh sticky tiles. Duh brass gallops along wit ‘em, one trumpeter is sweatin’ but leanin’ on his horn, makin’ it bark somethin’ wild. He make it swang round duh room like a loose firehose. He give duh music all duh winds in his body. Doctuh Bass-man pluck his walk in 3/4 while Piano Jim teach duh keys how to keep duh people feets on fire. Duh sweet name of Jesus ain’t too much called out in’nis church, but duh’kasional Lawd a’mercy!! sho’nuff will get heaved up to duh smoky rafters when duh horns’ wangin’ & Mistuh Bandleaduh’s raspy holla’ touch on someone just right, make em’ sing back. Dis a holy experience, got all duh same moans & spite as dem hymns duh fields taught our folk, but we swapped the blood in ‘em wit beans & hot watuh co’nbread, added some jazz & built us up a house to hide it all in. You wudda loved it, boy.
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