El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X)

O masks and metamorphoses of Ahab, Native Son



I



The icy evil that struck his father down

and ravished his mother into madness

trapped him in violence of a punished self

struggling to break free.



As Home Boy, as Dee-troit Red,

he fled his name, became the quarry of

his own obsessed pursuit.



He conked his hair and Lindy-hopped,

zoot-suited jiver, swinging those chicks

in the hot rose and reefer glow.



His injured childhood bullied him.

He skirmished in the Upas trees

and cannibal flowers of the American Dream--



but could not hurt the enemy

powered against him there.