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

I might find it amusing

I might find it amusing
to watch Rome fall
Ii I was a Toltec
or a visitor from Mars.
I’d smile at every
shout of greatness
as they tarry off
to hell, but then
the iter carries me
and I can only weep
for once was great society
rambunctious in their words
turned sycophant and unctuous
to dictatorial – worst
instincts on display.
The coming of the dawn
will not show us at our best
but only what could have been
mankind you bomb again.

3/18/2018

 

Birds of a feather

The sparrow houses young
in crevices come spring-
the constant chatter is
how he sparkles, and to
the feeder he swarms –
no fault of his own
this internment
on American shores.

The bane of farmer
and woodpecker
the starling has from Europe
brought a foreign sound
to every native thing.
The sweeping murmuration
small consolation
for the havoc he brings.

The silent swan,
sweet bird of Will
defends his property
with wings that rise,
over water he surges,
his beauty comes
along with breadth
first fall his color done.

Oh Mr. Rock you’re the
pigeon of my eye,
the white that flashes
when you flitter
can make the spirit weep,
whether you sun on
turret or wire, you are
prodigious in your breadth.

Phragmites to the left of him
phragmites to the right,
what’s a rail to do
when his home rings untrue?
Whether acclimatization
or carelessness,
the essence of the world
is altered evermore.

3/2018

Poem

A poem is like a bird
as it takes off into flight,
when you think you have it down,
it reveals Aladdin’s touch.

A merlin’s turning head
transforms to peregrine,
and sometimes all you see
is a buteo sitting there.

A sparrow singing songs
is likely just to be
sitting on a tree limb
without familiar streaks.

Let us warble on
whether crown or
humble birth. We are
worthy creatures all
this ode belongs to us.

3/2018

To boast or to keen

I do not know the language
of threading terror –
words that leap like
fleas upon the trusty dog.
This usage is beyond all
playground shouting,
Backroom brawling is now
in the spectator’s vision.
No scope is needed to
identify the telltale white –
underside, wing-bar, rump,
all plainly seen.

The grass in winter is
parched and bleached and
covered with snow.
The descent down this
hill of misconception is
like driving the subzero
on a salt-free road,
headlights at your rear,
the spinning and gliding,
out of control.
This is how they neutralize
you, words of venom
pretending to endear.

The greatest generation
has yet to come,
it will not be addicted
to parading or guns.
To know that formal feeling-
the settling of dirt,
the breathing of the soil
the scattering of earth,
to recognize the harrier
swooping near the field,
each dot of life is crucial,
each ember lighting joy
when all is seen as vital,
the lagniappe is our own.

3/2018

The book of forgetting

It nests within carpet fibers,
that enter the room thought,
lint blows after you
when you leave, nudging at your
back –
backtrack yet again
and you wonder how soon
will you be your mother,
sitting in her chair
without the days of
yesteryear.

This herb is for remembrance
yet it slips beyond my tongue.
Memories like chads
hang by threads.
Each of the plants that
inhabit my garden, my life,
the results of what I do –
they end in soup or a salad.
Rosemary, how can I
let you go?
Easily, it seems.

I suffer you gone
and yet you still live,
a premonition of
what will come,
not unexpected since
I am your daughter.
But it will surprise me
I am certain, like the
depth people go to
accept the unacceptable
in a world that thrives on it.
Be grateful for forgetfulness,
the litter washes away
and all that is left is a burp,
a fart, and a mother’s beautiful
smile.

3/2018

When the students marched

When the students marched
to merely stay alive,
sad death awoke the slumber
of troll lying in the murk
and like the proverbial long-lived cat
he came back with thunderbolt.
His eyes gape wide and round
and land upon a child – she
wise beyond his braggadocio.
The lurker tries to silence Emma
and David’s heartfelt words.
Voices rising to the song,
no, the children won’t back down.
The troll, he is not happy,
and lower must he go –
how low, you ask, how low?
How much further can he bend?
Knock, knock, knocking on Hades door
my, the devil is mighty pleased.

2/21/2018

From Russia with love

“I think I’d get along very well with Vladimir Putin. I just think so,” Trump said in one of his first comments about the Russian leader since launching his presidential bid last June. 7/31/2015

The poet’s corner rests
in the line where mothers wait,
any word will do –
does he live or
is he gone?
Whisper from the gulag –
no one knows,
only the living son is
knocked on his butt
for being human.
When poets zip their lips
and praise their leaders then
sons are released
into bitterness.

The noisy poets clamor
at Red Square once again
invasions apparently
stroke the pen of
liberty and yes, the pen
does rattle the mighty sword.
The sword is swift and neat
into psychiatric ward
it runs the poet through.
But her words her word her words
float likes birds upon the air
and they sing to me and you.

In May of ’75
Cetin Mert drowned in the Spree,
a 5-year-old child
celebrating his birthday.
I heard it on the news,
how they could not rescue him
with the guns of East Berlin
pointing westward.
In this same year I walked
from east to west
and never would I have thought
one day that there would be
a public so bereft of history
to forget. For

from history we learn nothing
and nothing shall we gain,
the onlooker is confused
at the havoc that ensues
when a two-bit KGB dictator
and his puppet son
fashion anew all that
we once called treason
not so long ago.
Congratulations Russia
you finally have won,
you broke a leaky kettle
and the water has run off.
Push us into rabbit holes
dear leaders one and all.

2/2018

Historical note: Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966) was a major Russian poet of the 20th century. Her son spent many years in a Siberian prison camp. Natalya Gorbanevskaya (1936-2013) was one of the writers who protested the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 at Red Square. She was incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital for this action. Eventually she emigrated to France. I first heard about the drowning of Cetin Mert on the radio when I was living in Freiburg in 1975. For more information visit Berlin Wall Memorial