Aldo, my friend, speaks strongly like a strong rumbling volcano passion creating a continuous flame purifying the metal of social vision:  A fusion of surrealistic bitter wit and tenderness bounded by love.  Aldo, the master artist who lives poetically, in the shrine of his soul-mate eternally resurrected in dreams of a just and beautiful life.  O art, the ultimate anarchist bide with us, the poor, the wounded lamb of bourgeois slaughterhouse seeking paradigms for the just.  O art, song of the spirit ride with us, these desperate daze, ranting among the remnants of a continuous disasters; O life inconsolable these hordes of dispossessed:  The children, tattered waifs with demons leaping from their tongues bizarre landscapes fracturing their frantic lives.  Where the cornucopias?  Where the promised of paradise?  All of us immigrants of imagination captives of the beautiful lie.  American dreams lost junkies of common nod, the random God merciless among idiot supermarkets, pimps of idiot plenty, with its infinite game show wheel game show wheel eternally spinning lies for the suckers-salesmen and small town rubes;  loveless husbands forever philandering: one last fuck among the display manikins blond Barbies weeping in dust.  Aldo, old magician among your poems and mementos of a grander age, when we had black hair, passion to explode myriad volcanoes raining revolutionary lava among skyscrapers leaning like Pisa in the quicksand of age.  Art and Anarchy, Art and Socialism, Art and free spirits unbounded emerged releasing Prometheus from his eternal rock.  Poets then paraded through suburban mind-sets releasing doomed sycophants from monsters bloody claws.  American dreams in drag, Draculas masquerading as lost merchants, hucksters used car salesmen with Nixon profiles sporting Reagan haircuts in the winds of history; in the winds and miseries among bowling alley owners conjugating ruin.  What can we say to the robots to the sycophants, Aldo?  We, tattered men in baggy pants, rheumy eyed old guerillas jazzmen, fanatic lovers among the dispossessed aging hippies saboteurs of the American nightmare released like a killer virus upon an unsuspecting world?  Fight, sing, fight, dream; question endlessly, discover lost beauty in the wounded single mothers desperate housewives in tenements lost fathers tattered dreamers, baby-faced desperados holding subways hostage in the dynamo of the American night…..And somewhere in an unrecorded womb a new infant age is coming into birth old comrade; and our multitudinous wounds and sacrifices will each bear fruit in that new day when the lonely crowd discovers art and visionary joy in the solace of mutual embrace.

Askia Touré

Dear Grandfather Poet,
our dear great one
Eternally be the shining
star that you are
in the heart of darkness.

BE that arms-wide-wide huge
sumi-inked circle of light in infinite
Blackness

Circle of blackness inked
on newsprint on canvas
of light shining: YOUness.

You above all !
For who else will let themselves face this madness,
stand and *know* the Blackness
that speaks truth to the Madness
of our green world, all dust and fire.

The people of Africa, Haiti, Cambridge, Boston need your voice.
You have always been friend of the Black people
– either the white skinned darkness loving art people
– or the black skinned shining light children of ghetto dirt.

You are our friend,
and we love you.

amatul hannan

Askia Tour?with Aldo at the South End Tech Center

Aldo Tambellini
dirty footed saint
sacred elder of imagio magic
perfect in all imperfections
you are needed in this world.
LIVE!

peace
Amatul

To Aldo

In a generation where people are cursing, fighting and
killing their own
There you stand alone
Pale in a world full of shade
And you understand
Standing alone like a soldier in a battlefield
Fighting in unity against a situation that I, myself,
believe is hopeless
But you persist
Darkness encompasses, things never get better
But you believe
And so that makes me believe
and maybe that one voice
in the midst of all the harsh vocal lyrics
one day will awaken my men, our men, the
children of our seed
So that we will no longer be thought of as “bitches
and whores”
But as heroines
Women of Power

Lafonde R. May ‘94

Aldo with Gerard Malanga

Aldo

        He came to these forlorn shores with just a small suitcase in hand
and a childhood history, a memory he couldn't explain.
He came out of bombs bursting in air
and in the nextdoor neighbor's backyard
within an inch or two of his life.
Something dark and foreboding,
nor could he remember those bonfires lighting the hills
nor something dark after that.
Something deleted from history, but not from the hands
over both eyes.  Something skyward and dark
something dark and foreboding
like in those matinee movies
silent like those caves in the hills.

Gerard Malanga

Listen
~ for Aldo Tambellini
by Kamaria Muntu

This is not merely a black feather
dripping in
                    slow
                             dada esque motion …

or a train in a dark tunnel running unceremoniously over a homeless man
These are not merely white light flurries scanned from the brains of modern prisoners & Ethiopian slaves
                                                          nor the bespoke ramblings of a mad animator
with a projector and a paint brush

He is not inviting you to see
                                                  hear
                                  feel
                                            taste
                                                          know
                                                      the nothingness of your own ecstasy

This is not an imagistic, celluloid graveyard to make compost over the dead flesh
of war orphans
                            This is not your kitsch outing
                                                      your limp-hearted dance of liberalism
                                                                    while you crumble Oreos in your soup
                                                                         
This is not where you pick up your pay check from the federal government

making ape sounds

                            miming liberators
                                                            
this is not your mtv

This is
                the bombing that would not crucify him
the history that did not exhume a headless boy
the miracle unleashed in torrential visions …
                                                                  of art levelling the doomed ashes

lifting the crows,
personifying mercy
                             screaming the way

signifying mathematical jazz
                                                a lotus
                                                        sound
                                                                flashing
                                                                            vibratory
                                                                                            harsh
                                                                                                      soft
                                                                                                             circle
                                                                                                                        wounded
                                                                                                                                  complete

pointing to the Black, the matter, the cosmos, the all
of his sight
                      This is not a night out perfumed in formaldehyde and starstruck sequins …
                        
but who he is
what he brings
might just save an unknown part of your mind
 from the herding
                             

the consciousness could rain
                                                  to unforeseen altitudes

listen
let the dope seep out of your miles, your veins
listen
witness the ammo blinding the sky
                                           note that it did not kill you when it fell

Amatul with Nate

Nate -Peacenate

Survivor of the death grip of psychiatric hospital
Hurdler of the maddening schemes of doctors
Battler against the evil monster of anti-depressant drugs!
A heroic feat to be matched by no man in this day and age
The Iron Fist Missed Aldo

Hey how's it going?
A little impromptu midnight poetry for you.
I hope it's not too sardonic for you LOL!
I don't know if you might scoff at such irony.

Well, I hope you are laughing and very relieved to get back home Aldo!
We want you to be you!  We love you Aldo. 
We need you to be our hero
fighting the Great Wurm of Nationist Military-Industrial-Corporate-Media Mind-Fuck programming that enslaves this populace.

You know what really matters.
I think that that is what matters - knowing what matters
and saying it, and doing it, and telling the truth

We cannot dissemble the Master's house with his tools.
It must be a revolution of changed minds
ones who are open enough to create and forge a self-reliant path
within the jungle of information heaving around us

If we look at what really matters
our family, loved ones, friends, caring about a good connection in person
throw down our mediated dialogues
throw down our machine-made advertisements
for machine-made poisons disguised as culture
throw down our stubborn independence
that relies so heavily on machine-made devices that rule our lives
throw it away
so we can look again at what really matters
Maybe we can find more genuine deep breaths
Maybe there's genuine affection
that is not perpetrated by skinny models of sexual displays
actual affection for one another

Come down to earth and love another person genuinely.
Hi up there.
We are working on what really matters.

Tontongi with Aldo

Tontongi

The Last Poem
(dedicated to Aldo Tambellini)

I shall write a poem that will tell it all,
sing the nightingale’s nightly song,
penetrate the labyrinth deep inside,
unveil its mystery’s inner soul.
I shall turn on the light
and open up the doors and the ceilings
to the immense oversight of infinitude;
I will tell Cedye’s story
his slow pace to the martyrdom’s state
where his spirits were lost to Aganman.
I will tell how Marie Lagone was defeated
and ceded to the worms never again
to regain her glory in our world.
My poem will revisit Ti-Gerard painting
the belly of the Beast with beautiful colors;
I shall make it a Pantheon from Hell,
the twist in the depth of quiet indifference
toward a destiny made to cry alone
yet screaming to help the baby from dying.
I will tell the travails of Magdalena, proud Amazon
losing her universe on a flip of a dice, here and there
there were losses because no one was there to help
reinvent our cosmos anew;
there was suffering all over.
When Hell governs the celestial values
our empty frailties are gone to the abyss;
I will tell what it was that went wrong,
reenact the primal nurturance of the land
before Good-Feet killed himself on a binge;
I shall tell what should never be told.
My poem will tell my story
both my glories and my pain;
I will tell my nocturnal wonderments
my lonely rêveries at the Saint André Park
behind the eerie colossal shadow
of the Reims Cathedral;
I will tell my love for Christina
the beauty once lived before Armageddon;
I shall tell of my youth consumed by my dreams.
My poem must reveal the horrifying
degeneration of life toward irrelevance;
I shall tell why all looks so normal
in so dimmed everyday life’s nightmare;
I will tell the loss by my country
of its nutrients, eroded from its roots;
I will sing and curse all the same
the serial death of my brothers and sisters
sacrificed to the altar of natural selection,
murdered by Haiti’s murderous poverty;
I shall tell the unfairness of their fate.
I shall write the ultimate poem
the silent cry of the Zebra’s complaints,
the trap of the vast multitude
within the infernal coercion of exploitation;
I will tell the alienation of the policeman
whose gun is a curse dreaded by his own conscience,
perishing in the Great Void of Contingency;
I will sing a song,
a simple melody for the no man’s land.
My poem will be made of tears
for those who have no more left to shed;
I will tell what happened to Michel
crossing his entire youth’s path from
running to running for his life
until he was found dead at midday
no one ever knew what his story was.
I shall tell of my purgatory
just like Mumia Abu Jamal told of his sojourn in hell;
I shall tell of the police brutality victims suddenly
transformed to Atilla the Hun to cover the mayhem.
I shall tell of the banning of poetry in state affairs;
I shall tell The Amadiou Diallo’s story
the Louima’s and Dorismond’s stories,
I will tell it all in one verse.
My poem must expurgate my manhood
unveil the animality of the best of my being,
reveal both the monster behind the friendly smile
and the humanity of my most evil deeds;
I shall undress the species to its pure nudity,
relegate our vanity to the dustbin of time;
I shall tell a new story.
I shall write a poem that will destroy it all
the beauty as well as the ugliness
the love as well as the hate;
my poem will start from the scratch
from the point where nothing is cursed or blessed
from the point of total innocence.
I shall write a poem that incites a global destruction,
a new Big Bang giving way to a new nothingness,
an original feast where all splendors are there,
there, at easy reach to the human frailties.
I shall write a poem anti-poem
a poem that will not be read to the king,
a poem for all that is not there and should be.
I will write a poem to cry,
cry the waste, the losses and the non-sense;
I will write a poem to tell you I was there
in blood and in flesh witnessing both the calvary
and the great potentials for a work of beauty;
I shall write a poem for happiness
the kind only kindred spirits have experienced;
I shall write a poem just to be.
I shall write a poem for only the pleasure
I extract from my state of total freedom,
for the ecstasy in conquering evanescence;
I will write a poem for the glory
from the smile of a beautiful child;
I will write a poem to celebrate the cerebral,
and yet subliminal cadence of the sexy gal
crossing the street with celestial wisdom
mixed with sweat, blood, contemplative sins.
I will sing the freshness of the dawn,
the sun’s majestic and ever peaceful sleep,
the pubertal elegance of the spring roses,
I will sing the beauty that is already there.
The poem I will write
will be hurting inside and boasting outside
just like my life has been;
it will radiate of the multiple splendors of the spleens,
turning the drought to a generous spring
and the desert of hell to a fertile Eden;
my poem will embrace the Grand Canyon,
recompense the artist’s inner pace,
and plant flowers along the lonely road.
I shall write a poem that will end it all,
all that contributes to the engine of hell;
I shall write a poem just to say nothing,
simply to be there.
I shall write a poem to destroy poetry
and put in its stead a big proclamation:
No more unnecessary death
No more anti-woman testosterone
No more Wall Street speculation
No more bosses that boss people around
No more bastards who hate life
No more rich people that live off poor people
No more whites that kill blacks
No more blacks that kill whites
No more schools that produce dummies
No more idiots with a license to be idiot
No more superwomen that become hyperbitch
No more misogynous heroes
paternalist monsters
libido destroyers
No more abusers of children
No more people who choose death over life
No more zombies aiding zombie-makers
No more innocent people in death row
No more refugees dead in high seas.
I will write a last poem
a poem of love
a poem for you to read
a poem that will tell who we are
I will write a poem
to incite multiple impulses
a Big Boom of creative happenings,
a renaissance since the primal vision.

C.C. Arshagra

In the key of listen

It’s a brutal world
The cold sleep
and the sharp edited-listen
paints with reality black
Harsh word-lights’ shine
into the crevasses
of daily denial
Fathoms of deep innocence
are in a coma
of ignorance bleeding
It’s the blood
of yesterday’s headlines that appear
red and dead-awake
on the hands of today
as conservative
safe-clouds break
and the black of sun comes
as a gift of going blind
to understand seeing one
relatively small planet
clear through the brutal world
of illuminated-lies
using you
like a free-puppet
with painted eyes
glassy and looking
open to believe
that if a rock or rocket
of truth were to strike
the center of your brushed on
and glossed over cornea
Nothing would change
or shatter. Look.
The strings
Nothing could cut
the tethered motivation
attached to your hands
where armed weapons might live
Attached to a smiling
fist up your spine
Ready to bare fangs
at the squeeze of a trigger
Ready to bear down
on shredded information
Shaving of voices
from where no lips are moving
All just as if
you would
still believe to be
the very source
of your own freedom

C.C. Arshagra © 2006

BLACK IS ...
for Aldo Tambellini
by Everett Hoagland

1
black, the eternal
backdrop of infinity

black, the infinite
background of eternity

without which we would not see
stars or our white-gray moon,
venus, jupiter, mars

Maestro of the art of being
a sane, humane human
being, teacher of artful seeing

2.
in mind you still walk two little black girls --
who each sometimes feels like a motherless child --
across the street from madonna addiction, up

the way from the junction of incarceration and dysfunction
streets to the park playground, to the chain-linked swings, see-
saw and see them as swinging poetry, swing upward

toward the baby blue sky and down toward ground again,
and again, two kids from a culture chained to rhythm
yet liberated by it, linked to the anchor chains of slave ships

rocking, rolling in sea blues, freed in swing dance music's,
"until i met you" in a "corner pocket" of infinity,
you saw two little girls on the sisyphean swing rise,

fall, rise, fall, rise with their eyes lit with affirming delight,
rise and fall in rhythm with their hearts, in rhythm with life,
death, in innocence and experience, you see them see-

saw and grow and go out

into their womanhood, into the man-made world
that crippled their mother's consciousness, that jailed
their father in a velvet cushioned twelve-bar cage
 
called capitalism se-saw all of that as they swing
back and forth, up and down, your daughters, brother,
your sister's daughters in the human family, in your manifest
metaphor for our father who art ...

3.
... black is back
and back
to black and
black is black and back
for good
white-light is black
and yellow's black
and black is beige
and reds are black
and black is tan
and blues are black
and black is blue
and black is black is black is black
is back
and good!!
and
god is black and christ
was black and good is black
and evil's not and lack of black is blank
and give it back
and black give back
to black or blacks will take it back
and black is black is black is black is black
is a cosmic fact is black
is black is black is black is black
IS!!!

4.
for those who see artfully
was always is is always was

what always shall be
" ... even unto the end and for evermore ... "

black, the infinite backdrop of eternity
black, the eternal background of infinity