Long haul drivers

When hate steps out
from behind the door,
the ever-talking troll
spills venom with
each line. He seeks
to infect you –
reader, with comments
unbeknownst to
library shelves.
Take a stroll down
each aisle and
peruse each source –
you’ll see. Where to
follow lonesome star,
protection from demons
and gizzards and spies?

Blue highways stretch before
us with miles
upon miles to drive.
I may not live to see
the city of future
residents – made of
glass unbreakable.
Like Moses I will look
down upon
what sweat created.
Before this sweet paradise
where arc eventually lands –
sorrow ran around
untethered and hunger
stood its ground.

Hold on my sister
passenger, to the
arc of justice, to
the tune of truth.
No step will falter if
you keep the pulse.
Turn your head towards
veracity and let the
devil perish. Never
waiver from your heart –
it knows the difference.
Truth will always out.

Best of left and right
is one human race.
The ladies in purple shirts
can’t be beset by red,
Not when violet
is on the brain.

Dear Michelle I miss you,
your beauty and your grace,
in roots your smile spreads outward
through soil laced with nitrogen,
phosphorus and potassium –
just right for vegetables growing.
The flower of tomato plant
self-pollinates,
or with the pepper
relying on microscopic insect
flying from place
to place –
every single plant.

This is what they do –
the women of purple
with thoughts of blue.
When steps lead backwards
like a nuthatch on a tree,
down she goes with digging
upon the bark and just
beneath she finds
a spark of hello,
juicy morsel and then the drumming.
We listen with open ears
since this is what we do.
One foot leads to another
as we inch along
towards the city on the hill
where peace and justice reign.

Jim Crow rising

The wannabe Confederate
is a rebel with no cause
worthy of applauding –
the lack of human dignity
engraved by Douglass
and Truth who sojourned
into the wilderness –
their words an etching
upon the soul,
never to be sold –
no more, no more.

Jim Crow is rising in
yet another century.
Who knew they made
such a creature,
a flag, half south, half north –
I would be inclined to forgive,
these enemies of old if
Jim Crow didn’t rule their hearts,
or hatred own their souls.
Molten crack of sigh is a
crater ever splitting,
shiver down – down
to pool of silver,
the mountain is leveled,
trillium whimpers
with each nuzzle
of feather mouth.
Evil may sprout
under the leaf,
turn away from
this danger –
I warn you of this thing,
whether you care or
not – compassion brings relief.

Dear rainbow arc
we need your
presence in this time.
Arc of justice,
you are so long, stretching
far beyond my life.
Set my heart to mouth
for every slave
who died.
The noose so ever
present cured
past the blinded eye.
This life abounding in hues,
Rainbow colors of the arc,
this is the shield that I wear
while waiting for the season
when all humanity is recognized
with decorum and verve.

8-2018

Dove

They sift through seed
together and feast
on plant or feeder. 
I watch them from
this window in
the land of dawn.

And this orchestra
of two will bring
a song of morn,
with a strike, a bar
that breaks the heart,
sweet music where
the eye will rest.

Then comes escape –
the driving of wings
upon the air,
releasing the mind
from war, all despair
takes flight into
serenity and calm.

Mourning is but a sigh
that drifts upon the
winds of time
as we seek immunity
from the vagaries
of sun and moon.

7/2018

Capital sinner

The market on the river
brings the glutton out in me,
the strawberry from the vine,
the zester of apple tree,
the juice crawling down
my chin to stain my blouse,
epicurean living
renders me uncouth.

The pretty youth who floats
on the screen up in the air
revs the sweat glands
into molecules of damp.
Desire never dies and
old ladies never sit
upon the ferris wheel
without the spinning
and the reeling –
old lust has met her match.

Every misdemeanor, trivial or not
can bring the inner wrath
outside me in a snap.
Tripping over root along
the wooded path,
if I go down in thunder
the dark will bring me up.
Look out! Stray from my way,
anger burns and cloaks
the inner seed of righteous
indignation, it seethes.

Old curly toes can stall me –
sleep the wake away,
laziness overtakes,
the idle engine runs,
spews carbon into atmosphere,
heating like the sun.
Such is my life when
sloth the winner is.

Whether Juliet tomato
or spying three toed sloth
I hold the world in wonder
at green thumb ability
and natural detection,
these skills I have –
earned the right to be
held in high esteem.
Vanity sweeps over me and
no lack of credentials
can diminish the
beams of unearned praise.

And in this hour of danger
when sinning is acclaimed
I envy the yellow warbler
who easily flies away.
Oh, to have wings that
take me elsewhere
is a freedom I would share.
Let the would-be dictator pound
on yonder chair
but not our backs.

I can see my sins so easily,
regretting their every trace,
wanting more than life can give
restraint is gone, in its place
desire for more -the wanting
is everything I grieve.
If I can see this sinning
of unimaginable greed,
then shouldn’t it be obvious
to all who sway and breathe?

7/2018

The popcorn strand upon the tree

The popcorn strand upon the tree,
a Christmas once we knew-
as children this was life.

Brother Johnny off to war
he went – the world has
corners far for dreamers.

And sister Sally studies
long and hard –
her future in the bag.

Granny sits by
fireside, remembering
that once filled life.

Sad Johnny returns
to Hooverville – the
current veteran’s home.

And Sally struggles with
student debt – it
strangles every dream.

Granny’s knees are bent
and sore -workamper life
does not agree

with elderly bones it seems.
Student debt hangs
like an albatross

around the neck
and unpaid rent
the current state of

humanity in this land.
Oh, to be the tundra swan
just passing through –

with eerie call
a signature upon
our souls it speaks,

of finding food –
what really matters
and a joke or two.

But some jokes just
aren’t funny, the struggling
of the poor

nothing but a harbinger
for all of us –
the deplorable conquers
the core.

3/18/2018

Picking strawberries in June

A cardinal is singing
over the strawberry path
as we bend and stoop
to pick the ripest red.
The language is foreign
To my ears – the cadence
lifts from Asia far or
meanders in from Spain.
We are all the same.
This is what we do –
as friends and children
wander out of doors
when the sun heats our
pores and the blackbird
squawks, and the sparrow
wings. I am content
with juice slipping down
my chin, sticking to my shirt,
to my hands.
This is sublime, this red,
red strawberry on
a June day.

6/2018

Leaning

My shoulder waits
if you need to lean,
the world too big,
the land turned brown,
from greener pastures
left to dust,
that turn your tears
into mist, woven
like scales upon
the toad, oh
lean in sister,
your song is old.

And if your shoulder
should wait for me,
while mother fades –
her memory a
ghostlike thing,
tales worn down,
the past so far
the ground is lost,
the feet stumble as
each rock impedes,
if I lean in
will you hold on?

If we lean on
each other’s pain
perhaps the earth
will heal again
and bring the redwood
from the soil up
to heaven’s door
stepping toward
the stratosphere.
Into longing each
species greets
the other likewise
holding on –
to shoulders leaning
into sound, of
holy ones, our mother
earth, and all she
loves, whether life
or dirt, the leaning
heals for what it’s worth.

6/15/2018

Tiny acts of rebellion

It starts with Antigone –
heroine renown,
old Creon did not stop her,
respect of hallowed ground
wove through her soul
and brought death into
healing – this tragedy is
told, sorrow lends an ear
the minstrel sings the song.
Her words are words of
Biblical psalms.

Rebel, rebel
he knew the score –
harkening back to the ancestors.
Breaking chains and releasing bones
brought a noose to Mr. Turner.
Rebel, rebel,
in the land of bunk,
get your snark on,
don your funk.
Joyce Heth’s virtues
Barnum twisted
into gold.
Slavery is so old.

Take back –
hack you write
of Miss Lonelyhearts and
and Horatio Alger in disguise.
Optimism is an American virtue,
sans teeth, sans legs, sans eyes.
He realigns vision of
Dante’s hell into another
circle.
Ah justice you are a disease,
eating away at yourself.

6-2018

Ghosts

She haunts me –
or is it he?
the slave who is not named,
and yes, I know
they mostly
existed like
a dish or
a cow, a
bit of earth,
he-she property
of human shame,
acknowledged by pride
of statue
and lineage
I can trace –
the owner is my ancestor,
the owned –
she haunts me,
or is it he?
Usually unnamed
like a plate or a
bit of earth,
lineage I can’t trace.

Were they brought from
the Cape Coast Castle
or Fort Christiansborg?
Scipeo, Jeffrey and Rose
and the one who is not named,
was their lineage lost
in time, in sea, in waves?
All I’ll ever know is that
they came –
into the jaws of depravity
they came, yes, they came –
Jeffrey,
Scipeo,
Rose,
and the one who is not named.
Say their names
again and again –
Scipeo,
Jeffrey,
Rose,
and the one who is not named.

The stealing of bodies
from African shores
is a legacy carried
by a leaky ship
where decency drowns
on a passage deep
salvaging bone and hand
and back –
but never souls.
Souls belong
to the brave alone.
Scipeo, Rose
and Jeffrey
and the one who is not named
saying their names
again and again.

The chalkboard is erased.
The shoulder flicks the dust.
The sheer chicanery
brings to life
the now that never was.
The reckoning of
the past hangs like
a shingle lost
to the rooftop nail.
How to keep poison at bay
before infection sets into the bone?
Fly on the winds of change
and say their names
say their names
Rose
Scipeo
Jeffrey
and the slave who was unnamed.
Say their names.
Say their names.
Yes, one slave was unnamed.

Can we save humanity
from mankind?
The chain of compassion
will free us all. Only
in the rising of African souls
can the world be made whole.

‘Negro man named Jeffrey
Negro woman named Rose
Little Negro boy named Scipeo
4 Negroes 40 pounds’
From the will of Henry Head dated August 20, 1716 Little Compton, Rhode Island (at the time part of Massachusetts)

2018

All hallowed eve

On all hallowed eve
the ghouls descend
from the picture perfect
walls – this graveyard
where the past is hanging
is a gallery of echoes –
pyramids of the Nile
and Alabama’s cotton fields
where souls are hijacked
by the fluidity of words –
no substance to
the language of a ghoul.

Men of straw will
vanish when the lion
roars – history
revisited when the
hunted has his word.
At last the language
gives creation its due,
blessing every living thing
from snake to toad to you.

 

2018