Madischie Mafia

By Stuart Youngman "Sy" Hoahwah b. 1973

Velroy de-jays the séance-turntables,

spinning black water,

scratching out full moons

with red and blue curves of hip hop.

In the dance club, bodies are a collection

of sunrise songs in reverse.

Corey wears her cat-eye contacts

and no panties.

There’s the bathroom-stall

eagle medicine with Ecstasy placed on the tongue.

She handles the lace like a Kiowa church hymn.

Dee is Cheyenne, Arapaho, Comanche,

Kiowa, and Fort Sill Apache.

He couldn’t enroll into any tribe

but he can grass dance, bump and grind,

and do the Jerry Lewis.

Black girls love him.

Stoney has four wives, Indian way.

He has ghost medicine

and carries a small white ball of clay.

He sells peyote and coke to the white boys.

I have a southern accent.

I killed a Lakota man,

he was a Rollin ’20.

It was with a shotgun.

It was powwow season,

I fancy danced.

Sy Hoahwah, “Madischie Mafia” from Velroy and the Madischie Mafia. Copyright © 2009 by Sy Hoahwah.

Source: Velroy and the Madischie Mafia (West End Press, 2009)

Biography

A member of the Comanche Nation, Sy Hoawah’s family descends from both the Yapaituka/Penatuka Comanche and the Bad Faces band of the Southern Arapaho. Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, Hoahwah was raised in Arkansas and southwestern Oklahoma. He is a direct descendent of Comanch orator and principal chief Ten Bears, and of the Arapaho leader, Little Raven. Hoahwah earned an MFA from the University of Arkansas and is the author of . . .

Continue reading this biography