Poems inspired by August Wilson plays - American Century Cycle

August Wilson Cycle-related poetry

End of Another Cycle

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.

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, and a coordination.

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.

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.


Romare Bearden – The Piano Lesson, 1984

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.

Sunday pen cleaning

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 in unison –
It’s as if they are somehow connected
To each other, like they communicate.
They 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.

On viewing a painting

The 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.

A response to The Pieces I Am – a sonnet

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.

confined to quarters – a sonnet and a farewell to Wilson’s ten-play 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!”

A Thursday 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.

Troy’s slow descent into Hell​: ​Fences – Act Two, Scene Four

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
Any more, 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.

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
​S​imultaneously 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.

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
music white boy. Spell it with a K in B flat.

a quilt is a collage is a poem

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!

https://butlerart.com/art/hometime/

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.

elegy​ for an ancient friend​

Our tribesman battled for her life –
small things we lose can be replaced.
A sister’s love we replicate
with sadness near the end,
and joy that soon, her journey done,
and celebration knowing that
her contributions were not made in vain.
We mourn our own unfinished lives:
the goodbyes that we fail to say;
the compliments we should have paid
at little cost but great reward.
We recognize our end must come –
embraceable at every stage
of life. Avoid the waste, the vain.

Another coffee poem - End of NaPoWriMo 2018 sonnet

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.
Put on your life vests. The ride is bumpy.