KPF2 wants to publish your poetry on today's topics without commentary. Let's let our poetry do the talking, again! Send up to three poems in an email message to donkingfishercampbell@gmail.com
It’s just like
“The Emperor’s
New Clothes”
except that
you can’t tell
if The Emperor
knows whether
he’s naked or not
but his legion
of followers
know he is
but get mad
if you point
that out
or that
their pants
are down
halfway as
each one
masturbates
to thoughts
of his bare
unwashed foot
on their face.
It’s only a poem
hastily written
before the demons creep back,
and I wish it were better,
stronger,
healthier,
wiser,
kinder,
more patient,
more forgiving.
I wish it could take all your pain
and turn it to inspiration.
I wish it could take all your doubt
and turn it to hope.
But it’s only a poem.
And I am just a poet
in a world of mad god-kings.
We poke the sleeping bear
But it’s not really us who pokes the bear
We’re just a branch, broken off and brittle
In the hands of a suicidal history
What’s the use of the hammer
If we can’t see any point for the nail
Or any human endeavor, or humanity itself
The future only promises extinction
We can’t take off the mask
We can only switch it for another
We aren’t wearing the mask
We are the mask, but why
We clearly know why an eye needs light
But why does light need an eye
Light made the eye
To capture its fleeting splendor
Otherwise what’s the use
It’s never been about answers
All of our answers are mansions aflame
The whole world is burning in slow motion
It’s always been about creation—
About art and its appreciation
Let the chaos be your forge
Consider the difference
Between a solution and an answer
I'll admit it
I vote early -
And I vote often
I vote late too
I vote whenever I can
Why only vote once?
I vote for nutritious delicious food
I vote for meadows
I vote for clean water
I vote for the bees
I always vote for the trees
I vote for all neighborhoods to know
they are good neighborhoods and
all neighbors to be kind neighbors
I vote for community
I vote for twelve hugs
and one-hundred blessings
every day
I vote early
I vote often
I vote even past midnight
I vote for every single star
*dedicated to Lynnie, Judith and Mitch who I wrote and shared with this morning, and to all my "Prayer and Peace" Wednesday morning friends
Hannah Senesh,
Violette Szabo,
Say their names.
They were among others
Who are remembered now
But not when they fought.
They did not fight
To be remembered
But rather, to enable
Others to live.
They gave their lives and
All that they had to look forward to,
Not knowing if they would have
Any more pleasure.
Hannah Senesh
Under captivity,
Kept a diary.
She wrote toward the end:
“I loved the warm sunlight.”
She refused to reveal
The secret codes the Nazis wanted.
Violette Szabo
Had a young daughter
Whom she never saw again.
Starving in a prison camp,
She kept up her spirits,
Almost to the end.
Both women died at age 23,
From a torrent of bullets.
Not knowing if
Anything they did would count.
I don’t know if I could be
A Resistance fighter.
I want to be remembered.
I don’t want to fight in the dark.
I have the needs
Of someone who has lived in the sunlight
And refuses to give it up.
Some say just living
Under pressure is resisting.
In that case, I resist.
To the enemy, I don’t remember codes.
Remember me, remember us,
Remember freedom
And those who resist.
It is my turn now
Sitting far from my homeland
Watching the shouting mobs
Burning breaking and killing
The lies competing for the highest rung
Of insanity oh they are so shocked
As if it sprang from nowhere
Somehow is from elsewhere
This is not our country they say
How so not?
Born bred and raised to hate
Following a Jesus I never met
And a constitution never written
Hugging a mythical freedom to rage and riot
At everyone else’s expense while
Seeking a war that will never slake this fury
Devouring life itself
While I watch the excuses
Pour from traitors’ lips
I see the tattoos on the arms
Of survivors I knew who told me
How it started
How it could have been stopped
But hey white boys will be white boys
You know what I mean
When you are so privileged
That nothing is denied to you
It is easy to twist trip turn be tricked
Falling prey to a nagging fear that everyone
Wants to strip you of what you take for granted
For all your bluff and bluster you
Suspect it is undeserved unearned unfulfilling
And only yours by theft
Yes, this is our country
Built on taking
Treachery and never enough
It runs in our veins and
Throttles our souls with
Mind bending weight only sated by
I can’t breathe
So long as it is another gasping
The science you would deny can tell you
That such deep sepsis can only be healed
By lancing the festering boils to drain
The wounds and expose them to the
Light
Air
Truth
We must learn and teach our children
The body politic requires
Every limb and organ
Left hand and right
Both eyes and ears
Every gender every age
Just as we cannot survive eating one plant alone
We must grow and be the entire forest field and stream
None is greater or lesser or useless
And plunder yields no sustenance
This we must know at last
It is my turn now to watch and wait
Wondering if my country
Will repeat history’s bitter lessons
Which our schools hollowed out by ignorance
Have ceased to teach
While furious white boys seeking darkness and death
Explode our legacy of infamy in plain sight
Oh, say what will we see
There is no meaning to life. it is just a thought or maybe a smile, maybe a hug or maybe a dream. Just open your eyes, look around, tell a lover and look at the past and caress the sky. See the future, lick an ice cream cone. Eat something bitter and watch a baby smile and when the time comes remove your hate and leave something behind so the future can see the past. So, caress yourself and live for the humility of death.
My body often waits
Too long to tell me
That I’m tired.
I can carry a lot,
But it is usually the
Grain of sand that gets
Stuck beneath the second toenail of my
Left foot that causes me to fall.
Inevitably, something
Breaks.
The bones never heal right.
I’m left with crooked
Scars, splotched black and
Purple.
My bones are twisted and
Jagged. It is often
Hard to find
The beauty in it.
It is impossible to learn
From the mistakes caused
By carelessness.
Intention is a path
That is easier to
Trace.
Commandant Grump got a kick in the rump
when he started a big kerfuffle.
It snowballed into an avalanche of conflagratory tussle.
Hoofla, hoofla, blah, blah went the man.
With sympathy from sycophants,
he duped them with a scam.
They bought his lies, but failed to apprise
that losers never can win.
Commandant Grump got a kick in the pants
when the pigeons came home to rest.
The manure piled high from all of his rants,
and put Democracy to the test.
Commandant Grump was the Faux News candy date.
Righteous, contentious, baiting, lambaste.
He played the cards of religion and race.
Then cut off his nose to spite his face.
In a Fux Snooze professional news wrestling debate.
Commandant Grump said on the stump:
“I will make us great again”.
He bought his own lies, as truth will apprise.
Democracy is only as good as its citizens.
Commandant Grump had a horrible reek.
He stunk of bilious, sulfurous, bile.
Corrosive and caustic, he burned down the house,
trying to get rid of a scurrilous mouse.
Uprise, uprise!, loudly went his cries.
Make us glorious and great again!
The sad mistake is that we’re already great.
And losers can never win.
Welcome to the modern medical system.
Please listen closely
and make your selection from the following options.
Your call will be monitored for quality control,
and to coach our representatives.
Push the dollar sign on your phone after hearing the category
that best describes your needs or conditions:
Pill pushers, cookie-cutters?
condescending mother buggers?
Liver quiver, rave or rant?
Something in your underpants?
Genetically engineer your rear?
You would look fabulous dear!
Transfusions, care illusions?
contusions, confusions?
Fevers, aches?
rashes, cramps?
Maladies, remedies?
organ transplants?
Indescribable problems?
Not really sure?
Thanks OK!
If you have the money, we’ve got the cure.
Hang up if you want a doctor for free.
If someone’s dead or dying press the star key.
Twitter is for twits, tweeting out for hits.
Twerps and Twopes, Twanks and Twomps.
Twittering in the swamp.
Like frogs and flies with twittering cries.
Like Twarks, Twinks and Twonks.
Who chomp, stomp, romp and tromp, twittering in the swamp!
Twitter is for twits.
It gives me the snits.
Instagram?
I thought that was the cocaine delivery man?
He advertises on InYourFacebook.
You show me yours, I’ll show you mine.
We’ll talk at each other all the time.
Look at all that show and tell!
Look at all those monkey shines!
Like monkeys like to do.
InYourFacebook, all the time, hurling monkey poo!
I learned all that on Twitter while sitting on the snitter.
Wondering why my post got dissed by the InstaFacebookTwitterTwits?
Tweeting peters, ranting ravers, tweeked on Instagrams.
YouTube, the autonomous boob tube.
Google Plus, schmoozing, wooing, brooding, tracking what we’re doing.
Pinterest for pin-ups.
Looky looky loo!
If you will looky me then I will looky you!
Tumblr, stumbling, grumbling, blogging, bumbling through.
Quora has a quorum, with lots of shticks to do.
Social media, I will plead to you, has a lot of good, and illness too.
Contagious STDs, Socially Transmitted Disorders, permeating through.
Interpolitical fractious fornication, where everyone get screwed.
Watch out for that social goo on you!
Beware of hurling monkey poo!
Oh goodness me, I must flee back to Walden Pond.
Away from all this InstaFacebookTwittering going on.
So Long!
I’ve never been political
Or especially analytical
But today it is truly critical
To take note of what’s in store
With the right decision, we will rejoice
A wrong one will steal our voice
We must intelligently make a choice
Or live a life that we abhor
Do we want to give up all control
Of matters which relate to body and soul
Or do we want what makes us whole
Decision time is near
Consider the options we are given:
One who is money and power-driven
The other for justice has always striven
The preference should be clear
This self-obsessed man is a blight.
Who has no sense of wrong or right
For self-interests only will he fight
So flagrant is his greed
The other, a woman has a heart that’s true
And will do whatever she needs to do
To ensure the rights of me and you
This is what we need
That man has shown us once before
His plans to destroy all our country stands for
This is something we cannot ignore
Let’s send him on his way
The woman believes in our democracy
And will save us from intended autocracy
Without a trace of hypocrisy
VOTE KAMELA ON ELECTION DAY
Wonder how
Opposable thumbs
Progressed
From grasping
Stones,
To theorems,
Writing poetry,
With the grace of gazelles,
Gliding across the Serengeti,
Leaving footprints on lunar sands,
Flying past the sun’s fingertips.
“I go nowhere I do nothing,”
He often says, with a certain finality
Although he is happy it’s not over
It’s not over for me either
Not yet
I’m still breathing.
I can form a thought
I can still go places
I can still remember my date of birth
I can still remember the little pink jacket on
Mamma on the stretcher
When they brought her home from the hospital
The bassinet with the baby
Placed on the high boy
They said he was a boy
But there was no “High Boy”
Not for me I was three
Not for him I couldn’t see him
Nobody thought to lift me up
So I could see him
Maybe that’s why we’ve kept in touch so
closely
All our lives
That and all we went through
All we were taught to value and believe
The sheer joy of being boys, brothers
Young men
Fathers, grandfathers
Great grandfathers
Next big step
Ancestors!
When I was a young man, I spent a lot of time
with the old folks.
I was always fascinated with the way people
are
How we are
We were taught to revere the older folks
Show them respect and even deference
When I became a young preacher one of my
jobs was to go around and visit the old, the sick
and infirm, to offer comfort
Sit with them,
Listen to them,
Make them smile,
Pray with them.
Many have a great confidence in prayer, so I
would try to hand craft a prayer that would bring
comfort and support their hope that things will
get better with a little faith.
These thoughts and meditations seem to settle
and satisfy many people.
Others prefer being read to…in my preaching
days they loved to hear bible stories In later
years working with more secular seniors they love novels,
history and poetry
My younger brother and I
Still talk daily on the phone
Both in our early eighties
We usually talk at 4-4:20 in the afternoon
Nearly every day
Yes, it is harder to hear each other
Words slur a bit
But the enjoyment of our communication is still
“High Boy!”
as if
there
was
a
shakin
was
bakin
in-
side
of this
stove
drove
then
star-
ted
walkin
real-
ized
i
wasn't
talkin
ta
my-
self
it
was
the
no-
thing
spea-
king
out
loud
His mind shits on to October thoughts;
dying, hibernation, death, sacrifice
he watches the sky for the returning comet,
misses the northern lights
chastises himself for his sluggish nature,
then remembers,
this is no longer his time,
he is simply an observer,
an elder, who remembers a few things
to pass on.
I had closed the cracked window.
The first gust of wind, flute, drums, and
fleeting movements—
explosions and distortions—
vanished into the approaching rain.
It was like slowly dancing with
the image in the mirror, or
fragmenting memories of love
to clear the mind of emotions
consumed by the summer heat.
I sat next to a neighbor
whose husband had been
a soldier in Asia until
he was shot in half.
He had always been
among the best.
The movement accelerated
without music,
creating tension and
evoking feelings of
euphoria and chills,
similar to a movie sequence.
The dancers wore white sashes
around their heads and
pirouetted at a high tempo
to create a lively movement.
The window opened,
bringing the noise of the metropolis and
the smell of the wind.
It didn't bring a fatal infection
like those found in polls or
left by lost civilizations.
It was only a rainy wind.
These bacteria are real and
can transform into weapons,
unlike in Disney animations.
Life is not an illusion in and of itself.
When life becomes a hallucination,
something else must be real.
Hail hit the roof of silence.
The dancers expressed God's numbers
by waving their arms above their heads,
clapping wildly, and
swaying their bodies.
The dance did not appear to
be pre-choreographed.
Ancestral emotions cleared
the mind's clutter.
Crawled quickly within the suffering souls
and began to peacefully disappear.
Hollow-eyed shades
of human beings,
human beings
cogitating on jazz music,
jazz penetrates the deep silence
of the bleeding angels,
angels in a fight for
the awakening of this blind reality,
wars,
racism,
asylums,
prostitution,
anxious women,
terrorist attacks,
public executions,
illegal immigration,
dengue fever, songs, low wages,
Zika and Chikungunya viruses,
human cells combined with mammal fetuses,
monetization of the objects
emblazoned clothes & precious stones,
Islamist militancy,
meteorite impacts,
vegetation fires,
crucifixions,
kidnappings,
sphinxes,
crimes,
drugs,
cocktails,
birth defects,
huge ocean waves,
ISIS strategies,
sexual harassments,
sales of stolen artifacts,
multiple vortex tornadoes,
quakes striking near the plate boundaries,
children murdered in egregious crackdowns,
food securities for starving people,
changes in refugee policies,
landslides, Monsoon rains, new flash floods,
seasonal unemployment,
nuclear disasters,
smiling volcanoes,
price increases,
naked bodies,
hairstyles,
dreams,
cubes,
glasses,
gas stations,
interim work,
glacier calving,
protests blocking the roads,
new theatrical triumphs,
ill kids not displaying symptoms,
macroeconomic policies,
silent strategies of democracies,
different drivers having
different styles to run their cars,
cars blinking their headlights
while their motors scream,
screaming trees and revolvers
that shoot up walls to write lyrics,
lyrics of jazz penetrating the silence
of the bleeding angels,
angels in a fight for
the awakening of this new reality.
Holy words to drive off
raised thoughts,
to cut some meanings,
to pour down all the depths,
and to warm our winter within.
Bloom of life
to accompany old songs
hidden in new hymns-
human misery and degradation.
Sufferings to rise up
in the air of shrouded sanctums.
Self-bright sun to descend from
a symbiotic sky, every evening,
to make everything golden-
the rivers, the rivers, the rivers.
Hopes to be carried home,
to be eaten like gold.
Time to be broken,
to be danced in its armor-
by hurricanes, by eternity
towards anarchy and chaos.
You thought my days were over
And all my adventures done
You said your goodbyes, wiped your eyes
As clouds blocked out the sun
Like some dear old sacred hymn
Haunts you with one last refrain
Once eulogized, one more surprise
Followed the last Amen
You thought I’d found my final rest
But there was more to come
One more wild ride as waters rise
And I am called back home
I came to the lake in early morning
to escape the walls of human existence.
Here nothing is homeless, but the old woman
carrying her turtle life in a van, trying to remain
hidden as a orphan among the trees.
What have we become? Our tapestry is
unraveling, our woven selves reduced
to some tattered garments thoughtlessly
left on a curb under a bridge, by the side
of a freeway.
To be without walls is the ultimate punishment
for failure.
We define ourselves by separation.
We do not move in murmuration, in a
Cooperation that would leave the sky stunned.
Long ago we gave up our wings for walls.
(response to April 7 photo and article by Tim Judah in NY Times Book Review)
As I watch those people
crossing the wooden plank
in Irpin trying to escape
under the concrete bridge
catching their collective breath
egged on by soldiers to cross
The rushing river with plastic
bags and knapsacks, carrying
their food, being led like children
to cross the current, the disabled
the elderly, the lame, the weak
of heart as Russian drones
hone in to attack them as targets
I think what do I have to fear?
My neighborhood break-ins,
homeless camps, hot-wiring
the ignition, broken glass, but
really, no Kristallnacht to speak of
the piling up of trash and plastic
is nothing compared to continuous
shelling, missile barrages, intense
artillery all around them.
As they cross the wooden bridge
to escape while a soldier holds a
woman's hand above as though
they're dancing a minuet--
to be stopped at any moment by
a shell, a missile, a gunshot
to rip their fragile dance apart.
Away from gunfire, mortar shells
Israeli bombardment--
turning meadows into headstones,
craters, churning earth into sea.
How to deliver us from assaults
on our senses as we see through
our rectangular vision the tanks
that trample our fields, the infantry
of camouflage that tries to hide
where there is no refuge, O give us
safe haven, a place to graze
far from here where the
hare is not in their cross hairs
and the earth is not a firing range
and we are not target practice for
soldiers who Netanyahu sends
to scorch our homes, tear up
our flocks who after all are here
only to protect the shepherds.
This evening comes early
in the fog of peace
here in Tacoma, far away
from Gaza, the Middle East.
I doze on the couch
a refugee from Budapest,
a tired traveler who rests
against an embroidered pillow.
Not a Coronation Mantle
silk restitched by Queen Zita
in its beautiful afterlife, now
under glass beneath fingertips.
I retrace the mantle, following
the patterns as I do the trees
this evening in this haze--
like a mantle blanketing us.
Different worlds, linked together
into chains that bridge
Buda and Pest, we walk across
from Hungarian to English.
Where the river flows south then
east through Romania, Serbia
and on to the Black Sea, where
Russians have been bombing Kiev.
Perico on the Pavement
I peeked through the brown paper shades
that covered our windows
He was being pummeled by another man
there was blood everywhere
Perico grunted profanities
the vato beating him was taking out all his rage
While beating up Perico, he went
through his pockets
Perico grunted profanities
he removed a wallet from Perico’s dirty jeans
The guy flipped through his wallet and threw
away family photos, an ID and what looked
like fake bills of different colors, it was Monopoly
money and I almost laughed but
Perico had blood all over his face
The man turned to look
and saw me peeking behind the shades
he smiled
put his finger to his lips
I nodded in nervous agreement
and walked away.
I was a little chavalito watching cartoons
When I heard a scuffle outside. Even now,
grunting profanities and bleeding,
Perico lies in the pavement of my dreams
Not great
it ends with applause,
a flood and wildfire
George Carlin
rolling over in his grave.
Eye of the hurricane
North Carolina swept away
politicians pay for genocide
but not for your needs.
Tighten up your belt a notch
eat, sleep, work till you die
climb the corporate ladder
don’t listen to the clatter
as children die.
How they all conspire
never ceasing fire
with a government for hire
it’s all pay to play.
Red team, blue team
reporters all scream
whatever they’re told
to trump all day.
Look at those immigrants
and Iran.
Uh oh, here we go
entire populations
buried to preserve
the status quo
as all they do is
save themselves
serve themselves
ignoring all our needs
as the whole world bleeds.
Tell me again with all
the snark and memes
of the left gone right
you vitriolic, patriotic
sham-scam liberal
alt-far-right
feeling pretty numb.
It’s the end of the world as we know it…
It’s the end of the world as we know it…
It’s the end of the world as we know it…
and I don’t feel fine.
Round the clock TV hour
elections bought by foreign powers
all they do is lie and squirm,
listen to yourself churn out
what they want you to say,
wars just escalate
as propaganda propagates.
Red sheep. Blue Sheep
not a single peep
of accountability
from either side
just march in line.
Uh oh, this means live in fear
and act all cavalier as you stand clear
of any real debate, never contemplate
that you’ve been fed a mountain of lies.
All they offer is war.
All they offer is poverty.
Well, I decline.
It’s the end of the world as we know it…
It’s the end of the world as we know it…
It’s the end of the world as we know it…
and I don’t feel fine.
The other night I saw the screen
a cosmic shift, a silent scream
a mushroom cloud, a cheering crowd
Leonard Cohen, Leon Trotsky
Stein and West, still the best
Popcorn, peanuts, cotton candy, boom
You idiotic, patriotic, red-blue-neck
Right? Right.
It’s the end of the world as we know it…
It’s the end of the world as we know it…
It’s the end of the world as we know it…
and I don’t feel fine.
* yes, based on REM.
I am not a flaky, buttery croissant, ripped apart, yielding steamy scents and tasting of glory.
I am not a proud poppy seed bagel exulting in cream cheese, tasting of victory.
I am not an English muffin, with crannies pooled with melting butter, tasting of enlightenment.
I am toast.
Dry toast.
Tasing of today.
Tasting of real.
I am toast.
I must confess: I’m destiny’s
manifest. Sunk like a hole-
in-one on a deserted golf course
where no one can appreciate it.
Run up a tree like a cat escaping
dogs, but now can’t get down.
My life has been a torn, stained
tapestry, that no launderers will
accept. Speaking of acceptances,
it’s time to accept the fate I’ve
refused for so long. Yes, my in-
ternal infernal clock tells me that
it’s half past a cow’s ass, and time
to cash in my chips. The problem
is, I’ve got no chips to cash in, so
it’s back to the roulette wheel for
another spin…or two, or three.
Years of electing fools and grubs
and sublimating our sense
have inured us to guilt
and tricked our consciences
so that we cannot even guess
the difference between
rats and snakes
and what lies between,
a mind-blowing stench.
wore flowers in her hair
did not go to San Francisco
had a thing about cop car
windshields
clamored up Christopher St.
lamp post
with a bag of bricks at
Stonewall. In a dress.
photographed by Warhol
frequently homeless,
institutionalized, addicted
found in river under
suspicious circumstances
an artist, her medium; life
itself
like Rimbaud
Art: Portrait of Marsha P. Johnson (acrylic on canvas) by Hana Fewster (Instagram: 'anearwig')
to sit in my chair and read your book
or my book. You are more than welcome
to take my seat on the couch, in the car,
at the dinner table, in front of the community.
You are more than welcome to the contents
of my drawers, my bank account numbers,
my passwords, my ledger of activities.
You are more than welcome to replace
my photo with yours, wherever it appears.
I have a stash of chocolate. I think you
already know about it. It’s yours.
You are more than welcome to
my knowledge and decisions,
my youthful look, my hair (!!).
When the phone rings, going forward,
it is for you, you are more than welcome
to whomever it is. You are more than welcome
to the joy I feel when the animal videos play.
You can have all my collections.
Don’t even ask. I’ll sign whatever,
You are more than welcome to my signature
my hand, my whole life.
I want to tell you we dropped our kid
off at camp today, but the truth is
he was driving the car.
Our kid drove himself to camp today.
This has never been written before.
We were in the car.
We experienced it. The double whammy
of our boy who used to be a toddler
with cheeks from here to eternity
operating a motor vehicle on the
freeways of Los Angeles, on his way
to eight weeks away…maybe nine –
I can’t bear to look at the calendar.
Speaking of bears, we’re going to Alaska
where we hope to see one.
Alaska has made no promises. Someday
we won’t be in the car when he drives
from place to place. Someday he won’t even
live in our house. None of this is normal.
A leisurely walk down Main Street
after a vegetarian tasting menu
which can only be described as
a Caligula of flavor I determine
there are many great pizzas to try
in this part of town. My stomach
won’t allow for any of them now and
we are leaving on a large boat tomorrow
so it may never happen. But if all
Hell breaks loose, and California
sinks into the ocean and the great
American experiment fails, I know
Vancouver is a viable option.
I am the jukebox in Edward Hopper’s diner.
I am the violin in Chagall’s map of song.
I am the music in a turtle waiting to dance.
I am the bowl of cherries lined up in Vegas.
I am the language written in calligraphy upon the sky.
I am the river and the lighthouse and the boat.
I am the newsprint in an obituary.
I am ubiquitous like rain.
Hold a musical note until it covers your soul.
Your memory will become blurred.
Loneliness is a verb.
Jump into a painting now and then.
Merge with an alphabet in the pages of a book.
When the world becomes too much remember,
The tin can line of all who have felt like that is infinite and eternal.
Like breath itself, reverberating on an ocean, taking in the breeze.
500 years without sleep.
The world is tangled in nocturnal limbo
while maps know our name by heart.
Insomnia brings a cup of tea and a diner.
Music plays on the ceiling and
Michelangelo reads the tarot cards aloud.
The record player plays everything
by Stephen Sondheim, Leonard Cohen and a
mystery song that twirls through the sky.
At the edge of a cusp, the world holds its breath.
The Earth is always wondering who let the air out
of the balloon and will they come back for their circus.
…Can mistaken ready for a red light
and slide wet across dry sand without
attachment or ignite and then drown its own
spark. Grey matter can ignore roots but
dance to sound; can fall fast from the steepest
side of a mountain because it looked down.
It can knock inspiration back into its earliest
seed-like form. Or pray to be grounded but float
with arms out, eyes closed and make feeling
weary the norm.
Grey matter forgets that new challengers
appear no matter how many have been
beheaded, that attitudes are invisible energy,
contagious, move without any official
word and can advance faster when dreaded.
Like the last call for closing time on
a burning building where the beams file for
divorce from themselves.
Someone observing, may not
see movement. Just lie still…Breathe.
If there is a buzz of comprehension,
softly listen, hear the absolute in your
inner voices. All the programmed
perceptions, the feeling between
emotions and the rocks in the surf,
narrow with every breath.
Borrowed shells…We are like hermit crabs,
On search yet blessed while displaced.
Ever new as we fit ourselves into the
wrap of some worn, previously used
structure.
Before I get on the red line
and I never see you again
I gotta go back to NoHo
where we used to make love
I got a call from you in the middle of the day
¿DΓ³nde
estΓ‘s chulo? Ya te extraΓ±o.
and I was in bed
with someone else
I made her mine
and she liked it. I can tell
You say I think too much like a man
Y pienso
que es cierto
she knows it's true pero le gusta
porque mi lengua es placer
que se revuelve.
She says I don't have nice things to say
because corny shit is for kids and
I'm too horny
to be polite.
Did you love him, grandmother?
South Carolina border crosser
pokeweed puller
marryer of slaves
baby producer
corn grower, maize pounder
magician Indian woman savior
Catawba or Aniyunwiya, Tsalagi, Cherokee.
Who kissed you across the border?
Tricked you into marrying
a man dark as the moon’s quiet eyes
a West African rice master
good laugher
big silver mud man with Middle Passage hands
with cool sweet milk and rice breath
who, without his moist African feet
no rice kernel
would have risen from the swamp waters
and landed
in any sardonic white mouth.
Or was it by the wheat broom’s choice?
Who blew you both open
great-great-grandmother and grandfather
with breath over palm kiss?
Good sense tickled
from the red earth’s throat
and said
you and you
and you have to go first.
It’s not Eunice’s time.
A Song of Threes (for Nina Simone)
Eunice carefully
watches and listens to the pearl sound
under the music.
Back firm, elbows up.
She fingers bones
until something else
happens.
White and black teeth sink into her.
Melodies thread her vertebra
like stars
imploding.
Cleaves to nostril hairs.
Deposits notes C, D, E, F, G
C, D, E, F, G
like a queen bee
delicately
prophetically
depositing calcified honey
into the hive of her young heart.
These two Nina Simone poems excerpted from
The Lost Songs of Nina Simone by
Shonda Buchanan, forthcoming May 2025.
If we loved Black boys like the earth
If we loved Black boys like trees
If we loved their hair like parks
If we loved their smiles like oceans
If we loved their hands like desert flowers
If we loved their shoulders like rainbows
If we loved their intellect, their dancing, their good grades like mountains
If we loved them like geodesic rays of the sun
Like freshwater pearls and cotton clouds that move like ghosts across the Indian sky
If we loved them, loved them like favorite surf spots,
like the best benches to view the moon, an eclipse, a game
If we knew we needed their laughter like rainwater
If we knew we needed their tears like spring pollen and vibrating bees
If we held their cobalt, obsidian, tangerine, toffee, mocha,
licorice bodies as tenderly as a silk night
If we cherished them like fly fishing in cold streams,
like picking food in your lome-slicked gardens
If we loved them like sailing, like sports, like a magic trick you could never figure out
If we loved Black boys like the earth
We wouldn't shoot them
We wouldn't shoot them on a porch for knocking on the wrong door
We wouldn't pull them over on lonely streets
with tragic intent
We wouldn't stalk them on bikes, in open spaces, in classrooms, in boardrooms, at liquor stores
If we loved them, death wouldn't haunt their James Baldwin dreams
We wouldn't fold them like squares in a box that we prayed over with every breath in our body.
If we loved Black boys like we love the earth
Wrapped our whole bodies around them like an atmosphere
If we coveted them like the sun, the moon, the stars we kissed under in nascent love
If, if, if we loved them
we could see them.
If we can see them
we can save them.
Black boys would be heirloom seeds we waited our entire lifetimes to find
and we could plant, re-seed the earth
with their music.
Watch them grow up.
If we loved Black boys like the earth
They. Would. Know. It.
Excerpt from my unpublished chapbook, America’s Bloodflowers, a Black Lives Matter collection.
Rivers Like Tears
Rivers like tears
are haulers of pain.
Taken away
to another world,
I drift through the
rivers and the tears.
These haulers of
pain, these rivers, tears,
the tides send me
to other worlds and
I sink or swim.
Never triumphant,
the storm sends me
reeling on hard waves
that bruise my bones
and harm my good eye.
I feel my flesh
fill with dark water
once blue. It makes
me nauseous. Now and
then I bathe in blood.
The reddening sky seems
like a wall of
pain that will soon fall.
A Night in the City
Night fills with
helicopter sound
and flashing lights;
swallowed and regurgitated shadows,
street spotlights,
metallic cars screeching,
cops and suspects,
barred windows rattling
from the outside ruckus.
The city never sleeps
with so much sound,
from one valley to the next,
there is a poem to be written
about what goes on.
Put everything in, the blood,
the tears, the pain of a night like this.
Fools
Fools will be fooled
by fools promising things
They feed on lies
as if Heaven sent and their
rebellious ways are misguided.
Why be a rebellious fool?
Why be cozy with fools?
I am wondering what is sacred
about falsehood?
The violence of sheep
who follow the word of the fool,
every word, they follow along
to a fool’s paradise.
The mind begins to fade.
It cannot reason.
They follow the voice
lost in false promises.
Head over heels, they are.
They walk through the door
and drop to the floor.
Empty promises
continue to mesmerize the fools.
They walk toward the light
after years of becoming the fool.
It is sad to see
how a fool has become their god.
Chomsky Flinched It’s just like “The Emperor’s New Clothes” except that you can’t tell if The Emperor knows whether he’s naked or not but h...
