Poems from the Cycle

 Contents

Poetry is a jealous mistress			13
Lockdown Sonnet #12				14
Troy’s Descent into Hell         		15
Art from The Piano Lesson         		16
Echochrome Dreams             		17
Sankofa Sonnet            				18
The Loom of Time             			19
Narcissus                 				20
Unfinished Sonnet Crown         		21
Hedley’s Blues             				25
Hedley’s Tarot                				26
Earth Day Blues             				27
Classics and SciFi             			28
Poet becomes painter         			29
A Response to “The Pieces I Am” 	30
Not a concrete poem             		31
A Thursday unpacked sonnet     		32
Untitled          						33
Memento mori             				34
Quieting the world           			35
Quilt day                 					36
Blues Villanelle for Seven Guitars 	37
Poetries                 					38
Sonnet for a Saturday morning    	39
2.24.2018                 				40
Sonnet                 					41
On viewing a painting in a vision     	42
Still under construction - For Aretha   43
A dream within a dream         		46
Midsummer                 				47
Confined to quarters             			48
End of the cycle             				49
Another End of the cycle         		50
Memoir-writing blues            			51
Summer solstice              			52
A Quintet for Amiri Baraka, pt. I     	53
A Quintet for Amiri Baraka, pt. ll    	54
A Quintet for Amiri Baraka, pt. III    	55
A Quintet for Amiri Baraka, pt. IV     	56
A Quintet for Amiri Baraka, pt. V    	57


Art begets art. 

Since 2017, I’ve led OLLI study groups reading and discussing the plays in August Wilson’s American Century Cycle. In preparing  weekly notes for the group, especially but not exclusively during those months when I was also participating in NaPoWriMo, writing one poem a day for an entire month, thoughts from the plays overflowed into my poetry attempts. 

In consolidating my session notes, I have pulled out every poem and collected them all here. I share these poems with study group members during sessions. They often say my poems give context to what we read in the plays. 

Sometimes the poems take on a synoptic tone. Other poems riff off a single thought, an idea from a character, or a thought that came arose during the reading or discussion. 

The poems that follow are the poems I shared with them.

Enjoy! 

Postscript. When I got the proof copy in my hands, I realized I needed to make some substantive changes to the book. Structural things like one poem per page. And less practical, more philosophical things, like how the poem was related to the plays in each instance. Some, for example, are less directly tied to the plays, but more connected to the influences Wilson credits for his work, the blues, Baraka, Bearden, and Borges. So if you read a poem and think it is not tied to a play, look again, Then consider the connection to the influences, a type of second derivative, if you will. 


Poetry is a Jealous Mistress - A Hymn

Poetry is a jealous mistress, after all,
a possessive lover without gender who 
demands every gram of your attention 
and devotion. “Forget any other dedication, 
any outside legal or moral obligation,” 
Poetry warns, “and ignore that silly wench 
you call your Muse!” 

Poetry screams, “Be with me alone!” 

And I accommodate, first haltingly, 
reluctantly, then eagerly, anxiously, 
as I become narcotized by, 
and soon addicted to the sweetness 
of stolen waters.

Lockdown Sonnet #12

I just listened to the new Bob Dylan drop.
Some kind of weird incantation –
A forced repetition, for a hypnotic effect,
A magic ritual in an ancient oral tradition.
Also, a shout out to the musical ancestors,
Invoking each of the gods by name.
An African conceptualization is what Toledo
Would call it. Oh, you don’t know Toledo?
How could you? He was Ma Rainey’s piano player.
Ain’t never been the same fool twice. Don’t worry,
You’ll see it on Netflix when it comes out.
A piano lesson disguises the real drama.
Old Bob gives the devil his due. Play that funky
Musik white boy. Spell it with a K in B flat.


Troy’s Descent Into Hell

In the denouement our classic warrior
(Such is the tragedy that was his life)
Loses all that was once near and dear.

The cherished love of his wife is broken
After her decision to not refuse
The result of his infidelity.

He loses the respect of his son,
So long assumed, compelled by fear,
Never inspired by true affection.

His best friend doesn’t come around
Anymore, not even for a Friday drink
That once satisfied a parched thirst.

Finally, abandoned by his own sense
of taste (Yes! A multiple metaphor!),
He is left to swing aimlessly at all
Those fast balls on life’s outside corners.


Art from The Piano Lesson

The black mirror invites my inspection –
A scaled representation of the whole.
The wooden metronome in its foreground
Reminds one of rhythm and time’s passage,
The pendulum’s swing until the winding
Dies. The young girl, black like the mirror, plays
As her mother directs. The mother’s face,
More blue than black, leans in attentively.
A non-flowering plant rests in a vase.
A paintbrush seems out of place. It could be
A missing conductor’s baton. The sun
Bursts through the window as a slight breeze blows
The curtains askew. A ceiling lamp and
A table lamp compete to light the room.


Echochrome dreams

“Change the way you perceive the world and the path will be revealed.”

I never played Sony video games –
But I recognize a good string quartet
When I hear one – all those years of playing
Viola were not for naught. 
					Music moves,
One learns so much from its forward motion –
Pathways that touch form continuities,
And if you jump from one path you will land
On another. The gap that’s blocked from view
Between connected paths should not be feared;
A hole that’s blocked from views may not exist –
Until you step in it, of course, and then
You fall to lower levels. Closer things
Overlap things more distant – you see more
Detail in near objects than those afar.

Sankofa sonnet

It may not be true for everybody –
My story has beginnings that don’t end.
So a proper to-do list must include
Going back in time and picking up balls
I dropped. Not many and not all the time,
Mind you, but often little things, not small
Enough to be inconsequential, add
Up to many over time, so they say.
My temporal to-do list would include:
continuing to play the viola;
staying with Scouting to reach Eagle rank;
writing more poetry and song lyrics;
joining the Navy sooner, not later.
I’d spend less time pining over lost love.


The Loom of time

With these hands I weave my own destiny.
The threads I twist and spin together form
The basis, whether cotton, wool, or silk,
For weaving every cloth and tapestry
That results. Color and texture inform
The ultimate Design. Repetition
And precision make the underlying
pattern strong. The crosswise stitch overlaps
to reinforce borders of interface
With new threads introduced. The surface fills
with dust for a moment – I blow it off
And continue. I reach a point where I
can see the end. I may undo a stitch
Here and there for a more complete outcome.



Narcissus

We stare into our computer screens –
it’s retina display, of course – clearer
than one’s reflection on a still pond.
The image we see of ourselves is sharp
and well defined – in Facebook and Twitter
and Instagram, and all the rest,
even in the poetry we write and post.

We fall in love with that image,
that reflection we see. We worship
the likeness we have created, validated
by likes and shares from all our imaginary
friends. We think we are godly, all knowing.

We believe we now know all of beauty.
Entranced, we cannot move away
to eat or sleep or love. We waste away.
We die. A drooping daffodil marks the time
and space, a date stamp of our delusion.



Unfinished Sonnet Crown - Nat Turner


Pt. 3

Stories were embellished about his deeds.
We grew up hearing echoes of these tales
passed down, distilled, to each generation.
For a man enslaved Maslow doesn’t speak.
unless one has an eye to read between
the lines - the process is not linear
at all - when human beings are nor free.
And yet, there is always a freedom
for the soul. This our hero understood
in a convoluted way - surviving
in a convoluted world. Let’s not judge
too severely. But let’s not leap ahead
to false conclusions. He had a just cause
against injustice weighing on his soul.


Pt. 4

Against injustice weighing on his soul
he had no normal recourse. A deeper
dive into Turner’s motivations calls
us to the task. Maslow provides the key.
Survival needs. Basic necessities
were controlled, regulated, weaponized.
No slave was safe against the master’s whims.
Connection to a group – tenuous at best.
Appreciation for the slave’s labor
and his pay accrued to the master.
Self-actualization as a goal
was not possible. The ultimate stage,
self-transcendence, was not outside his reach –
but it’d require landing a heavy blow.


Pt. 5

But it’d require landing a heavy blow,
so early before emancipation’s
glow had dawned in the American soul.
Decision and execution alone
would not suffice. The final blow required
velocity and direction. An aim.
An intent. Accuracy. Precision.
Furthermore, it would have to fill the space
of white imagination, emptying
every emotion, every thought and fear
of black retaliation were the roles
reversed, owner and his chattel, master
and slave. Not just a costume and a song,
it had to be a total work of art.


Pt. 6

It had to be a total work of art.
A half, a third, a fourth of a movement
would not suffice. A huge splash was required
to capture Americans’ attention –
enslaved and free – to rock a boat steering
on a faulty course. He knew it would be
all or nothing, a tiny mustard seed
planted in a rocky soil – without hope
for immediate success. A symbol –
political, spiritual – for future
generations when freedom’s wind would blow
to every compass point across the land.
With no chance of victory he labored,
meticulously planning each detail.

Hedley’s Blues

They ask us to require this sacrifice.
Eye for eye. Tooth for tooth. Blood for blood.
This sacrifice will somehow make us whole,
Cure our ailments, fill the gaps you left
When they sold you down river for a song.
Those who bought you never knew stolen goods
Was all you were, living on borrowed time
And leaving casualties in your wake.
You were the sacrifice, the fatted calf,
Your unwilling blood a fitting offering
To the gods. Once. Spilled on the seeded ground
Of hopes and dreams – your intoxication.
There’s no balm in revenge. So there’s no need
For a present value calculation.


Hedley’s Tarot

Did you see his halo?
His choice to be there
cannot be denied. No frown
or grimace was on his face.
He is focused on a Great Work.
His gallows forms a cross - 
his legs a different cross - 
He is Odin - the 12th trump
in the Tarot Deck.
12 signs in the Zodiac - 
12 stars for Europe - 
12 members on a jury - 
12 months in a year.
His halo is burning brightly.  

Earth Day Blues

She said whale songs sound sad.
I felt the same way about the blues
For years. I only heard the mourning,
And never focused on the swing,
The affirmation at its core.
This is a short poem for Earth Day,
A reminder that the whale’s song
Is a swinging celebration:

A modal mixture from the deep,
Interacting with all life in its rise.
Listen to some whale songs today.
You will see what I’m saying here.
There’s a triumph and a healing,
A discovery, a coordination.

Classics and SciFi

I’m two days ahead of the prompts,
So I’m not gonna sweat it too much.
But I think I can squeeze out a stanza
From the concept of the tesseract.
A tesseract, simply stated, allows one
To collapse the time and space continuum
Separating two bodies so the relative
movement is almost instantaneous,
And the transition from one to the other
Requires little to no velocity, only direction,
Only a step away in time and space,
Especially if it’s someone you love.
The Classical Dictionary is too difficult
To read online at Internet Archive.
But I have the Old Testament of my
Newfound faith: Whitman’s Leaves of Grass;
And my Good News Gospel: August Wilson’s
American Century Cycle of plays.



Poet becomes painter

I confess it. I’ve become a painter.
But without canvas or brushes.
In fact, I create images with words,
Written between lines on yellow’d pages.
It gets messy in my studio sometimes,
When all the pens empty out in unison –
It’s as if they are somehow connected
To each other, like they communicate.
They all demand to be refilled at once
and often I spill drops of ink
at the margins and on the corners.
And it is at that moment –
And the cleanup – that being
a painter becomes me.

A response to “The Pieces I Am”

I don’t have a “great migration” story. 
My folks stayed where they were, where they’d been born.
No one way train rides punctuated life 
for us: my parents cast their buckets down 
and made their peace, I guess, with all the lines 
that circumscribed their lives. And their parents, 
and their parents, and their parents, and on and on. 
Oh yeah they ventured forth from time to time, 
but always came back to the home they knew 
and loved. We grew up with the ghosts 
of generations past. They spoke to us 
and taught us things not learnable from books, 
like how to deal with loss, and love’s delay, 
and death, the ever present end of all.


Not a concrete poem

This poem defies the concept of concreteness.
It bubbles over the top of the walls
Of its container, like a boiling liquid –
Then flashes to steam, releasing its perfume.
Would that that were its final material state.
The perfume gets distilled into haiku,
Then changes state to sound, to melody,
Seeking eager and open noses and ears
Simultaneously in asynchronous effect.
It is still not at its end. Invisible
Atoms infiltrate the blood-brain barrier
And find a resting place. There it awaits
Retrieval as an oral combination, a word,
A passing thought, a feeling unexpressed.


A Thursday unpacked sonnet

It might be time for a shape shift moment.
This kernel of time, wedged between the walls
Of two more standardized realities
Only points us backwards on the path
Of forward growth. You can write your own poem –
This one holds out hope for a revival
And a different direction for our dreams.
Old ways benefited the chosen few.
Their poets and prophets sing of better
Days to come. They have playwrights and Netflix
Producers on the job around the clock,
Promising to protect the status quo.
I can’t say I wish them ill. Their vision
Is a museum object, best preserved, mute.


Untitled

a bitter pill
is neither red nor blue –
Just hard to swallow
When you know its taste
Might not agree with
What you know is true,
Or think you know, or
wish you never knew.

A spirit quest
That will not be contained –
It calls us gently
From sleep’s dormant state.
We rise imbued with purpose
And a mission preordained
And leave a life constrained
Before by darkened memories.

There’s music hiding
In between the lines
and spaces of the words
the pages hold.
A secret message unwinds
The latent magic
And the sacred music
that resides deep within.

Memento mori

One day we’ll all lie down
In a narrow box. For a time
Our neglected hair and nails
Will continue to grow.
But our eyes won’t move
And our ears will no longer
Hear the noble sound of music.

Our fingertips will forget
The caring touch of our beloved. 
When that time comes for me
Don’t put no shoes or socks
On my feet - I won’t need to walk 
any more - but my toes will need 
freedom to wiggle if they want.


Quieting the world: a poem for a friend’s writing class

It was a race against time itself
And I was a character, an anti-hero
Trapped in an August Wilson tragedy –
Feeling an inexpressible
Tightness in my chest,
Seeking to slow down
By just a few rpm’s
The sound of the still sacred spin.

Quieting the world –
I tuned into nature at her own speed,
Hoping for a peace – short of death:
The ultimate resting state. All by myself.
Solitude is always a drag, man.
Who wants to be lonely and alone? 


Quilt day

The black ladies are making a quilt
with large, oversized white hands.
And there is a peeping Tom in the window,
maybe the artist himself. Maybe some other.
A black cat creeps across the floor,
and a new world is forming outside.
Romare Bearden was such a poet!


Blues Villanelle

This love song is a villanelle:
The format makes it easy to recall –
Poetry in two shades of blue.

Repeating sends the thoughts aflight:
The lines of text emerge in time –
This love song is a villanelle.

The words and sounds convey their truth,
The essence lies inside the tune –
Poetry in two shades of blue.

The blues they wail at disco night
Become the Sunday morning hymn –
This love song is a villanelle.

Our wanderings are all askew:
Our feet are painted backwards bound –
Poetry in two shades of blue.

We celebrate in loss or gain
In joy, in sadness, and between –
This love song is a villanelle:
Poetry in two shades of blue.

poetries

There is poetry
one writes on long walks
beside a slow river
emptying into the sea.

And a different poetry
on the subway, hustling
to switch to the Red Line
to reach the shuttle on time.

And a different poetry still,
inspired by music’s sound,
and the sculptor’s vision,
and the painter’s emotion,
and the architect’s dream
come true. 

All different
poetries, different types
of reflections off a mirror
that darkens on the edges
with the passage of time.

Sonnet for a Saturday morning

This story has a happy ending.
I’m telling you up front so you know
what you can expect – how to overcome
any temporary darkness that may
attempt to cloud out the light we emit.
This story is not a pop video.
It won’t make you dance or sing. Ain’t no blues
to wail, to welp, to beg, to plead, to scream.
This story ends in celebration.
But Twitter and Instagram won’t tell you
what’s really going on. You have to read
between the lines, between the images
that flash past you faster than light or sound.
Don’t be depressed. Arise & celebrate.


02.24.2018

some days I think my poetry making
is done. I try to turn a verse or two
and it all falls flat - no rhythm, no rhymes,
no magic, just words and punctuation.
I need some time at sea to stir things up
a bit. A trans-Atlantic crossing would
be optimum - a paddleboat up the river
will suffice. I’ll always and forever
be a man of simple pleasure. But the air
we breathe is full of negativity.
All the canaries are dead, heaven-bound
in this brave new world where skepticism
is not allowed. A heavy fog surrounds us.
Which sentinel species is next in line?

sonnet

Each universe with which we interact
demands of us a level of respect
and complicity, yes, complicity,
while we wonder if we are hypocrites,
or merely disbelievers. As if it
even matters. And what doesn’t kill us 
endows us, becomes our strength and power,
our shelter in a storm. The paths we trod
we tread, the record of our deeds becomes 
our judgment day, our immortality.
Be patient with me - I’m not finished yet.
Pay no attention to my southern charm,
that folksiness you underestimate
is just a steady cadence for my march.

On viewing a painting in a vision

A painting included a nude subject,
a woman of immense beauty, seated
at a table having coffee. The steam
slowly rises from her cup (I love how
the painter captured that!). Her left hand
holds a fountain pen – she writes a letter –
perhaps to a distant lover, maybe
to her child away at college. She stares
out into space – a pregnant thought commands
her attention. Her thoughts leave the canvas
and mingle with my own as I am drawn
into her world. She must work out, such tone
in her muscular limbs. I back away –
distance and perspective change what I see.


Still under construction - For Aretha, pt. 1

I can’t pretend it was just like any other
summer day. We gathered early, after coffee,
for the morning plenary session that officially opened
the annual SAA conference. The Archivist of the U.S.
addressed the assemblage and promised to keep his oath
to the Constitution. A famous scholar from UNC
improved on her TED talk about the effects of algorithms -
(an Arabic word sneaking too often into our conversations),
algorithms that control all the social media they let us see.
I tweeted a photo of her to friends in Cairo and Ankara
and flashed back to my time in Damascus, promising
to share the Youtube video with them all soon.

Then my phone buzzed: it was a mournful incoming
tweet announcing your passing.
(We knew you were sick, but the final words,
good bye, would never fit in our vocabularies.)
I tried to respond with a tweet but my phone’s
battery strength was too weak to pump it out.
Instead I pulled out my iPad and found a spot
in the hotel lobby where the wifi signal was strong.
All I could think to type, though, were the lyrics
to my favorite Franklin song: “Ain’t no way, ain’t
no way for me to love you, if you won’t let me.”

Later I posted to Facebook the Frank O’Hara poem,
“The Day Lady Died” because I knew my poetry friends
would be grieving. But the evening was still young
and I couldn’t just crash early on your transition day.
So I found that August Wilson passage that
set the scene in “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone”
about a song “worth singing, kicking in the chest…”
a song that was “both a wail and a whelp of joy.”
And I said a little prayer for you.

Still under construction - For Aretha, pt. 2

At the barbershop I watched
the youngsters on sports TV
knocking down 40 ft 3-pointers,
scoring touchdowns at will.

Once upon a time I saw 
entertainers and pro athletes
as heroes, mythological,
legendary – superstars. 

Now I know the secret of their superpower.
It’s practice that makes perfect.

They are hard working, yet normal
humans – like me – like all of us –
just getting paid a wage rate
equal to their marginal product.
“Ain’t no such a thing as a Superman.”

But Aretha is gone –
and a thousand birds have fallen
from the sky –

“You’d better think (think!), think about
what you trying to do to me.”

The world may seem, may be, a bit
out of kilter. More today than yesterday.
More tomorrow. We blame our woes
on astronomy – our tears
on humidity and the dew point. 

Today’s was a celebration,
a syllabus of expression.
The Queen of Soul is dead.
Long live the Queen of Soul.

A dream within a dream

an irregular riff of my heartbeat
awakened me last night –
interrupting a pleasant dream.

I am alive! And I can overcome
the dull monotony of deathlike sleep
if and when I choose.

Maybe it was the coffee I drank
too late in the afternoon
that stirred me from sweet sleep.

The dream? I was in a field
of overgrown wildflowers –
hunting for sassafras roots
my father planted in his youth –

The old men used to say no caffeine
after lunch. I never thought
it would apply to me.


Midsummer

I don’t recall when I turned twenty-six:
There would have been no feast, just supper
As normal in the crew’s mess - pot roast
Maybe, with carrots and potatoes.
But I do remember when the days
Started feeling shorter as they passed,
When the tide rushing in for a quick kiss
Began to ebb, the twilight of our time
Together. Youth, the wasted source of strength
Spilled over the top of the containers
We carried, whether cup or bucket,
Then hastened its retreat into the depth
Of our experience. It shows up now
And then, a trace of paths we didn’t choose.

Confined to quarters - End of the Cycle

What must we conclude when the cycle ends?
Is there cause for hope, for optimism,
A balm we can surely find in Gilead?
Or isn’t all just a wink and a nod,
Yet another slave narrative that shows
the futility of our pleas for peace?
As a teen I thought Robert Redford might
Someday be President. I mean, Bobby Seale
Didn’t really stand a chance and Redford
Was at least a man of action. But there
was no great art in his films, well, except
in that spy flick he did with Dunaway –
Who had been my secret crush forever –
Where, under duress, she said, “This is . . . unfair!”

End of Cycle

I know this coffee’s gonna be the end
of me. I’ve weathered storms, outlived a few
of my best friends and my worst enemies.
Each day I write a poem. Most are garbage
that revisions cannot save. Still, the past
fades and the future beckons – poetry
to write for the living and the unborn,
for those yet to come, and their tomorrows.
Two pennies in my pocket, two gold coins
to pay for the passage, two wings to veil
my face. We are going to the City:
a new level of organization,
a higher plane. Y’all know what all it means.
Don your life vests. The ride may be bumpy. 


Yet another End of the Cycle sonnet.

Always there’s an upbeat to end on –
A U-shaped curve. Life’s narrative arc
Is a comedy, at least we hope,
In the strictest sense of the word.
Another Cycle comes to an end –
A resolution and a denouement
That gathers and ties up every loose end
like rope, whipped to prevent unravelling.
A free body diagram dangles
In space, never showing its constraints
Or the forces it exerts. Good drama
Is the same. It withholds conclusions
Until every jot and tittle is laid bare –
And the finish is as clear as the start.


memoir writing blues

It is useful to go back & fill in the details,
to add a bit of color to the black & white.
I omitted some details in the first draft,
perhaps thoughts not yet processed, maybe stuff
I wanted to avoid, to forget. It is not
all goodness and light, you know, and
“life ain’t been no crystal stair.” I have broken hearts,
including my own, and buried broken bodies
too hastily in shallow graves out back,
including my own, or deep in the sand
of soft, wet beachfront where sunbathers dwell.
The first draft sheds light on darkened areas,
but it’s the rewrite that quickens the resolve
To clear the air and to finish the deed.


Summer solstice

Some say we are in for grim times. They say
We should fortify our souls for the storms
Headed soon this way – put on the armor,
Set our sights on a distant unnamed star.
I am studying the constellations
Like our ancestors used to do. We stand
On their shoulders – holy ground. Through their eyes
We learn how they armed themselves and endured.
An annular eclipse coincided
With summer solstice this year. An omen
Of things to come, a lunar ring of fire
Not visible to seeking western eyes.
I saw it on YouTube. A ring of fire.
Let no man steal your joy, your sense of style.


A Quintet For Amiri Baraka
I.
when a great poet/griot/spirit
passes on –
you can’t just go to bed
at the normal time,
as if nothing special happened,
as if the routine is the same,
the same old routine…
you gotta stay up late,
read his work out loud –
invoke his spirit,
let it come inside your house –
sip some scotch with it,
smoke some weed if you got some,
and take a pause,
and take a pause,
and take a pause…

A Quintet For Amiri Baraka
II.
A poem can be a crystal clear
mirror of our better selves,
a reflection of our innermost
joys and hopes and aspirations -
but a poem can also be a sullen, 
superficial shield, a phony
plastic surrogate, an average
representation of the real -
poetry can sling itself fast speed
into a future we desire,
then reach back, find us,
and pull us grudgingly to it -
but it can also probe nosily
into the present and the past,
and arrange things, events, secrets,
into their proper orbits

A Quintet For Amiri Baraka
III.

The same Spirit that haunts me, guides me –
same dude, although sometimes he shows up
in drag, wearing a wig, and lipstick –
talking ‘bout “Will you light my cigarette?”
This same Spirit appears infrequently,
but just often enough to remind me
that he is both my rudder and my anchor.
He often warns me about the Muse
and her sisters. “Those women are no good,”
he says, “all that flattery and inspiration.”
The same Spirit used to frighten me when
I was a young pup. We are old friends now,
able to dismiss one another’s excesses.
It is, how shall we say, a mutual appreciation?

A Quintet For Amiri Baraka
IV.
a roof-top shot –
full moon over the city
the monument peeping at us
watching us with those beady eyes.
Won’t make it to New Ark today –
wasn’t in the stars –
bus and train schedules wouldn’t fit,
didn’t want to drive:
don’t like to drive long distances
these days, roads are not safe
for a man who looks like me.
But we have his books here,
poems, plays, short stories, essays,
plenty to read and ponder –
and we have all these obituaries –
a thousand plateaus to climb 
to see a full moon rising
on an urban night.

A Quintet For Amiri Baraka
V.
What if poetry is speaking in tongues,
and tomorrow – the tomorrow of our dreams – 
is really yesterday, or the day before?
And what if time dislocates itself
from time to time, like water,
always seeking its own level?
And what if we live and love inside
a closed box, where freedom and justice
are just optical illusions, 
dream-like holograms of hope?
And what if poetry is speaking in tongues,
and homeless shelters and prisons 
our true condition, an accurate depiction 
of our feeble, temporal existence?