Poem: Mother's Day

Mother's Day -- bitter sweet.

Thinking of

mothers

-- on earth or in heaven,

blessings and lost blessings.

Sick children,

children in heaven.

Once on my mother's birthday

She came to me in a dream

And asked me

Very sadly

If I knew what day it was.

I told her,

“Of course I know!”

I'm always happy

when she turns up throughout the year

in dreams

Although she symbolizes

so many things.

But last night

I dreamed of

my two miscarried children.

Quite a surprise.

 

I was carrying them around

in a little uterus/enema bag.

Almost calcified,

they were encased 

by toys, might-have-been hobbies,

my dreams.

Apparently, I haven't forgotten them.

Life and the heart are strange things.

In heaven,

no death,

no sorrow,

no loss,

no separation any more.

Although my living children are with me

I hope to meet those miscarried dreams there.

Poem: A Grudge as great as the Wall in China

 

A day will come

When you will break down walls.

 

Not your own

But the carefully constructed

Brick and mortar fortresses

Of others.

 

With practiced casualness

You will trample

The gates of enemies and friends alike

And care little that you have trespassed.

 

All will call you

The Demolisher of souls and hearts

And you will no longer regard

Or respect lingual and emotional borders.

 

Your razing of their walls

And raising of your own

Will seem innate,

born of casual causality.

 

And only a few will know

That you were born

As grass, as stubble,

And your transformation

Into a bulldozer

Was nurtured

At the feet of those whose intent was to crush you.

 

At that time,

You will speak what you feel

And all the grudges you have carried

Because you were taught to be

Silent like a sheep that is slaughtered

Will be gone.

Yes, all those grudges

Even the ones

Seen from space,

Those ones as great and winding

And full of history

As the Great Wall of China.

Poem: Failed

I'm slinging more snot 

than Viola Davis in a crying scene.

And for what? For whom?

For immigrants and deportees I don't know.

This is not good.

I should not be crying;

I who have attempted to cage my heart 

All these tears should be laughable

would be laughable

If the times weren't so dangerous

if our common life hadn't gotten so surreal

I've sheltered myself round

shutdown my newsfeed

tuned my radio to the oldies

kept the TV blaring on SyFy channel

where only fake horrors

like sharks 

(with me so far from the ocean)

assail me. 

But life snipes at me

in spite of all my efforts.

Emails from self-righteous friends 

drag me into conversations

detail my supposed evil 

because I have not picketed,

have not written my senators and congressmen.

They are all very good, my friends.

Their lives are as difficult as mine.

No, no, not so difficult as mine

but difficult enough.

Still, they manage to bear the weight of the world.

Unlike me.

And they judge me for it...

my supposed coldness.

But I am weak,

I want to tell them.

I am unable to bear it.

All this oppression, all this suffering

My body cannot bear it.

No more of these emails

No more of these links 

showing governmental atrocities.

And yes, I know that soon

soon

soon

the government will come after me as well.

 We Black folks

We Christians

Cannot be far behind.

But for the moment, for the moment, for the moment

leave my heart at ease

spare it a tear.

Let me have some time, some time, some time

for my body to heal

from the harm that despair and grief has caused it.

Poem: World Weary

The sun itself is filtered

through clouds

then wafting green leaves

window blinds

short-sighted eyes.

We live in shadows

because we cannot endure unapproachable light 

And some of us know that we live in shadows.

Others mistake the shadows for true light

and call themselves visionaries.

The artistic vision filters too.

A blinding flame

quickly unveils itself

like a flasher on a subway train

speeding through a dark tunnel.

We grasp what little spark we can reach

of the still-flickering idea.

Even so, it dims 

as it passes 

from spirit to mind

and from mind to the creating hand:

words and 

images and 

the elements of storytelling must be used.

Then, the work finished,

is filtered even more

in the mind

then the heart of the reader;

they believe they have caught the flame of our idea

but it is pale fire.

We must accept this:

The world is full of declension.

In this world, 

Everything bright is dimmed.

Everything filters down.

I am weary of all these shadows

of making them

of trying to see the light beyond them.

I am weary of these filters.

Oh to see the  clear sun

without blinking.

To see the heart and soul and joy and pain of another.

To spiritually, emotionally, intellectually

grasp the artistic vision

to perfect it

that all may read it

and understand it

and feel it perfectly.

To see God in all His brightness

the true brightness

from which all bright souls

and bright visions

and bright sunshines come

Poem: That Other World

I have lived long

in that other world

 

Not in this

Not in the one I should have

 

But in that other other

world of bright meaning

heart's ease

overflowing affection

and precious and beautiful loves

 

I'm old now

That world

must go

 

And this, too,

the world that has failed me

and I it.

 

It will fade soon enough

already has begun.

And I will fade away from it.

For I'm old now

 

And the only world that matters

is that other one

The world

I only half-walked in

only half-inhabited

 

that afterlife

that soon

one day

will be all my life

Poetry: The tainted glass

The poet's eye
should not be mirrors
but glass;
To speak of one's self
one must turn one's gaze outward.


Photographers
instinctively understand this.
Among the greats,
selfies are rare.
And great conversationalists
do not speak of themselves.


Young poets struggle to believe this.
The challenge to put self aside
insults, hurts, them.


But, if they wish to be great,
this is the passage
they must walk through
In art, this dying to self
leads to a purer declaration of self.
This is what craft is about
the hiding which shows itself.


The poem,
being pure glass --
its taint, its color,
will reveal your true self.