Velroy and the Madischie Mafia: Poems

By Sy Hoahwah

From the Comanche Tribal Housing of Madischie in southwestern Oklahoma comes a crew of young Comanche, Arapahoe, and Kiowa toughs hell-bent on gaining power within a subculture of organized crime. Led by a Comanche named Velroy, they find themselves caught in the century-long transformation from the old Comanche Nation to a modern-day casino-owning tribe. Hoahwah relays their story with a distinctive narrative flair, honed syntax, wild imagery, and a splash of lyricism.

• Language: English
• Publisher: UNM Press
• Release date: Feb 15, 2021
• ISBN: 9780826362308

Sy Hoahwah

Sy Hoahwah is the author of several other poetry books and chapbooks, including Ancestral Demon of a Grieving Bride and Velroy and the Madischie Mafia (both from UNM Press).

Book preview

Madischie Mafia

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.

Comanche County

I

What can be said for Comanche County—a crow’s call

streaking through dreary country

with a little gray sky locked to its side.

Through the architecture of pine needles, sunlight breaks itself

but laughter blows in. It is a wedding in the trees.

Like dropped corpses along Steel Bridge Road,

dilapidated pumpkin patches.

A meth lab sings, hollers

from the vortex of woods and echoes;

toothless with diamonds.

Drum-set crashing down the hill,

it’s the sound of Pink Whiskers from childhood.

Sunset is a woman after lovemaking,

whose body gradually loses high coloration

and falls to sleep.

II

The lake, itself, is man-made.

Headlights, orange ribbons; chains;

sunken bulldozers rising up.

Water, dark as unoxidized blood.

Used nights are dumped from the cliffs

and recycled into lake bottom.

The lake turns over.

There’s morning

in the eyes of the houseboat cook

strangling chickens.

III

The town of Lawton is a courthouse lawn and hanging tree.

God is everywhere

even in the cheese dip served at El Cena Casa.

Jesus is the waitress

with big tits and psoriasis on the elbows.

Life was a Thanksgiving coloring book.

Everyone greeted this Indian with roasted turkey

and cornbread dressing.

IV

In the town of Madischie,

boys are lured to the railroad tracks;

the stars,

songs,

marijuana.

This town repelled