by Roger Bonair-Agard

our new state of mind. . .
                              Chic Risque

We hairpin the narrow road
bisecting the foothills of the Northern Range
and I recognize the beat, the break
from the title track of the first LP
I owned two years earlier – a record
I played over and over in the living room
of the Winnipeg townhouse we lived in Winter of 77.
I keep expecting the group
to bust in with the song Good Times
these are the good times. . .
Instead an angry fast-talking man
kicks in the speakers of our Datsun.
You don’t stop rockin to the bang bang boogie
say up jump. . .
                    I shoot up from the back seat
make some wild declaration
about the foreverness of the thing coming through
the speakers. My mother rolls her eyes I think,
as my step-dad maneuvers the car around
the Queen’s Park Savannah. They are still
in love. For at least one more year. Everything
is sudden and new this month past my 11th
birthday. I’ve never been more sure of anything.
Will not be again for many years – first you gotta
Bang Bang. . .

ROGER BONAIR-AGARD is a native of Trinidad & Tobago, a Cave Canem fellow and author of 2
collections of poetry, tarnish & masquerade (Cypher Books, 2006) and GULLY (Cypher Books,
Peepal Tree Press, 2010). Co-founder & Artistic Director of New York City's long running
LouderARTS Project, Roger is a 2-time National Poetry Slam Champion and an MFA candidate
at the University of Southern Maine's Stonecoast program. He is poet-in-residence at Young
Chicago Authors and teaches at the Cook County Temporary Juvenile Detention Center. He lives
mostly in Chicago.