And then there it was

just a box

then an image

a flickering dandy

a king

grainy black and white

in a purple satin time.

 

Where we come from isn’t

where we are

except when

it is

the beginning

of framing the product

of veiling the apostate

of muting the dissonant

of spinning the narrative

of lying.

 

He was brutishly handsome

enough alone to

provoke

the sanitizers of the populace

and then he moved.

How

he

moved.

 

They filmed him from the waist up

a video emasculation

a pacification of unruly musical roots

a subjugation

a black and white washing

and the first

socio-political

television

lie.

 

-Danny Grosso