Marvin Gaye for President
by DoNnelle McGee
Marvin Gaye for President
DonNelle McGee | OCT 2023 | Issue 28
marvin
like us beautiful
& complicated
vices in all of us if real
& it starts in church
mercy mercy me
your voice a way out from the minister
marvin gay sr
you watching him walk the house in momma’s nylons & panties
heels clickity clack clack on wood
in that moment marvin saying father talk to me but naw
silence and violence instead
onward to detroit you go
motown & the miracles & the beat goes on brother you becoming our prince
duets with ross & others & then
tammi terrell
every poem a love poem
every song a love song
people find themselves in melody
something like ain’t no mountain high enough
tammi in tune on the pull in
a love smile
there you are
our prince
then the fall
tammi a brain tumor
operations & operations—no recovery & it is 1970
& she goes
you do not sing for three years
like us you retreat but there is no blame you loved hard & from that came
depression/desperation/self-reflection
brother you say
the artist must hit a point of much suffering
tammi’s death &
letters coming from your brother in vietnam
prince marvin you asked what’s going on
you telling us
you know we got to find a way to bring some lovin’ here today
what you say marvin
come on talk to me so you can see what's going on
you our pulse
berry gordy—bless this brother
thought you moving from pop to social thinker too political
naw brother you told gordy
record what’s going on or i’m done with motown
and there we have it
marvin you showing us with words/images people & struggle
police brutality
them inner city blues
some of us been there
marvin say
make you wanna holla throw up both your hands
& we know
we been at the edge of addiction—
the edge of a page
forms that entered you
pcp/cocaine/sex
i come up hard had to win then start all over and win again
i come up hard but that’s okay because troubled man don’t get in my way
you put a mirror on us
it don’t matter about perfection
we have story & healing in the embrace
like how this country never sought/seeks the edge of its trauma-laced past
marvin tell ‘em
healing is in the acknowledgement of what was that is linked to what is
marvin what did you find in belgium—was that your embrace
before a reset to the states
where 1982 you sang sexual healing
you the only person who could make the national anthem sexy
take us to where you lose yourself in them songs of protest & love
not to death
you defending your mother but you high too
putting hands on the minister a gun under a pillow
shot fired
down you go
a walk over
closer
a second shot
and there it is
your father taking life
oh father oh marvin
Donnelle McGee is the author of Shine (Sibling Rivalry Press), Ghost Man (Sibling Rivalry Press), and Naked (Unbound Content). His newest book, American Reverie (Thera Books), is a call-and-response poetry collection coauthored by Synnika Lofton. McGee’s work has appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Controlled Burn, Colere, the Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, Home Planet News, Iodine Poetry Journal, Permafrost, River Oak Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, and Willard & Maple, among others, and been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Donnelle teaches in the MFA Program at Oklahoma City University and serves as a professor of English at Mission College.