On May 13, 1985 at 5:27pm, the City of Philadelphia dropped a C-4/Tovex explosive (a bomb) into a make-shift bunker installed on the roof of 6221 Osage Avenue, a row-home in West Philadelphia. A place known to be inhabited by Black children, Black women and Black men. The family, surname Africa, were considered to be Radical. Black. Revolutionaries. They were known to Philadelphia government officials as "enemy combatants" and to each other as fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters.

The roof was on fire… The Philadelphia Fire Department was well represented on the scene. The fire burned without intervention for nearly an hour. As a result, 11 people, including 5 children, were killed. 60 homes burned to the ground. 250 people were left homeless. Government officials, including the city's first Black Mayor, enacted their plan with impunity. The Black Body Curve/Free Poem Experience is “an act of art” in response to the events and aftermath of that day.

The poetry collection was written over 2 decades as a means of coming to terms with the annihilation of a neighborhood, my neighborhood, by government officials who did so with impunity. I have never been able to reckon with the fact that not one person of power/authority, within the entire chain of command, thought or dared to speak up in any of the many crucial moments over the course of days and weeks and hours leading up to the devastating moment. This web-collection is an offering of the author, (who is conceptually and spiritually opposed to any capital exchange related to this work,) to the citizens of Philadelphia and the world. There is no human profit in war.

All are welcome to consider and learn from the crimes of the past. This is Sacred Space, where memory, history and legacy entwine.