Oh! Oh! I Forgot to Tell You. I Have Been Published Again.

I had a new poem entitled "Depression" published in the Winter 2014 (39.2) edition of the Spoon River Poetry Review - page 67.

If you would like to subscribe or buy a particular issue the website can be found {here}.

As of the date of this post the current issue, including my poem, can be found {here}. It will move to the {archive} when a new issue is published.

You can also find SRPR on {Facebook}

We've Taken a Look at Our Habits Over the Past Few Years, and Identified Room for Change.

The Laws of Motion

- Nikki Giovanni

          (for Harlem Magic)

The laws of science teach us a pound of gold weighs as   

much as a pound of flour though if dropped from any   

undetermined height in their natural state one would

reach bottom and one would fly away

Laws of motion tell us an inert object is more difficult to   

propel than an object heading in the wrong direction is to   

turn around. Motion being energy—inertia—apathy.   

Apathy equals hostility. Hostility—violence. Violence   

being energy is its own virtue. Laws of motion teach us

Black people are no less confused because of our   

Blackness than we are diffused because of our

powerlessness. Man we are told is the only animal who   

smiles with his lips. The eyes however are the mirror of

the soul

The problem with love is not what we feel but what we   

wish we felt when we began to feel we should feel

something. Just as publicity is not production: seduction

is not seductive

If I could make a wish I’d wish for all the knowledge of all   

the world. Black may be beautiful Professor Micheau

says but knowledge is power. Any desirable object is

bought and sold—any neglected object declines in value.   

It is against man’s nature to be in either category

If white defines Black and good defines evil then men

define women or women scientifically speaking describe

men. If sweet is the opposite of sour and heat the

absence of cold then love is the contradiction of pain and

beauty is in the eye of the beheld

Sometimes I want to touch you and be touched in   

return. But you think I’m grabbing and I think you’re   

shirking and Mama always said to look out for men like   

you

So I go to the streets with my lips painted red and my   

eyes carefully shielded to seduce the world my reluctant   

lover

And you go to your men slapping fives feeling good   

posing as a man because you know as long as you sit   

very very still the laws of motion will be in effect

from: The Women and the Men. Copyright 1970.

What a Wonderful Sentiment

About God & Things

- Wanda Coleman

 

              1

i want to have your child

cuz upon losing you

i’ll have more than memory

            more than ache

            more than greatness

i’ll have laughter

i do not mean to be fatalistic

know the limits put on you black man

me, black woman

when you are killed or imprisoned

desert or separate from me

i’ll continue

fill the void of your absence with

love between me and ours

gods

              2

you love me

in your eyes. don’t say it loud

pain

america will never let you

              3

you’re home. it’s a surprise

you’ve made it thru another day

one more night in your arms

to fuck

merge our bodies merge

give

wealth/freedom

congress cannot legislate away

              4

eyes wide as suns inquire

where’s daddy?

he’s gone away

i love my daddy

i smile

he’s a good man

eyes wide as suns

burn my hand with a kiss

go outside to play in the streets

god

what god is about

from: Imagoes. Copyright 1983.

Kilt Monday!

'Cause let's face it,

Mondays can be so rough, hard, difficult.

Oh Freedom!

Lyrics:

Oh, freedom, Oh, freedom,
Oh freedom over me.
And before I'd be a slave
I'd be buried in my grave
And go home to my Lord and be free.

No more weepin,(don't you know), no more weepin,
no more weepin over me.
And before I'd be a slave
I'd be buried in my grave
And go home to my Lord and be free.

Oh freedom,
Oh, freedom, Oh, freedom,
Oh freedom over me.
And before I'd be a slave
I'd be buried in my grave
And go home to my Lord and be free.

And before I'd be a slave
I'd be buried in my grave
And go home to my Lord and be free.

First recorded as Sweet Freedom in 1931, by the E. R. Nance Family with Clarence Dooley.

Saturday Farmer's Market - Fragile Spring

Created by Heather at Capricious Reader, and now hosted by Chris at Stuff as Dreams are Made on.

Just to give this post a bit of context, the green mess you are looking at here is tiny Daffodils (about 4 inches when blooming), and usually the first thing in my garden to bloom.
It is way behind this year, as I've had blooming plants for weeks now.

It is still early and we could still get more frosty nights, so the stakes are high right now.
The next picture is of a Pluot Tree, taken through the kitchen window.

And this picture is the larger of the two Plum Trees.
An untimely frost could cost us some or all of our eagerly awaited fruit harvest.

 

This is the Pomegranate, happy as always.

 Of course these are all still blooming:

 Oriental Poppies

 Sedum

 &

Violets

My experiment from last year is Bananas. 

Since they are tropical, they didn't enjoy the Winter. But since we are in a fairly moderate area, they have a chance.

This is what they looked like before I pruned for spring - 













- and this is what they looked like after a hair cut and retrenching. (they need to be flooded when I water)

If you look closely, the one on the right has a small green shoot - new growth!

 More 

Daffodils!

 And now for some sadness.

This Orange Tree, in the yard across the street from us, has been, without a doubt, the best Orange Tree ever. Any one who has ever tried the fruit agrees, and experts have even taken samples and conducted research with the aim of making all Orange Trees better. 

Well the house changed hands last year and our new neighbors have been having septic problems. 

Guess where the septic system runs. 

Yep, right down between the two houses, under the tree. 

At this point they have pruned it back hard hoping to minimize the shock when they mangle half the root system. It may or may not survive. Please keep it in your thoughts.

On the bright side, we are all pretty sure we know why the tree has been so great - unlimited fertilizer!

(If it survives, it may never be the same when the septic system is fixed.)

A Nest Full of Stars
- James Berry

Only chance made me come and find
my hen, stepping from her hidden
nest, in our kitchen garden.

In her clever secret place, her tenth
egg, still warm, had just been dropped.

Not sure of what to do, I picked up
every egg, counting them, then put them
down again. All were mine.

All swept me away and back.
I blinked, I saw: a whole hand
of ripe bananas, nesting.

I blinked, I saw: a basketful
of ripe oranges, nesting.

I blinked, I saw: a trayful
of ripe naseberries, nesting.

I blinked, I saw: an open bagful
of ripe mangoes, nesting.

I blinked, I saw:
a mighty nest full of stars.

naseberry: sapodilla plum with sweet brown flesh


from: The Nest Full of Stars. Copyright 2004.

It's Not A Secret, Really.

Reward

- Kevin Young

 

RUN AWAY from this sub-

scriber for the second time

are TWO NEGROES, viz. SMART,

an outlandish dark fellow

with his country marks

on his temples and bearing

the remarkable brand of my

name on his left breast, last

seen wearing an old ragged

negro cloth shirt and breeches

made of fearnought; also DIDO,

a likely young wench of a yellow

cast, born in cherrytime in this

parish, wearing a mixed coloured

coat with a bundle of clothes,

mostly blue, under her one good

arm. Both speak tolerable plain

English and may insist on being

called Cuffee and Khasa respect-

ively. Whoever shall deliver

the said goods to the gaoler

in Baton Rouge, or to the Sugar

House in the parish, shall receive

all reasonable charges plus

a genteel reward besides what

the law allows. In the mean

time all persons are strictly

forbid harbouring them, on pain

of being prosecuted to the utmost

rigour of the law. Ten guineas

will be paid to anyone who can

give intelligence of their being

harboured, employed, or enter-

tained by a white person upon

his sentence; five on conviction

of a black. All Masters of vessels

are warned against carrying them

out of state, as they may claim

to be free. If any of the above

Negroes return of their own

accord, they may still be for-

given by

                            ELIZABETH YOUNG.

Kevin Young, “Reward” from Most Way Home. Copyright © 2000 by Kevin Young. Reprinted with the permission of Zoland Books/Steerforth Press


Source: Most Way Home (Zoland Books, 2000)

At Least They're Polite.

skinny-dippin’ in the gene pool

- Thulani Davis

 

the streets of hell are also paved

with fear of contagion

I have been swimming

in enough barbed-wire waters to know

you’re not even safe on the beach

it’s not just your “body fluids”

it’s the grime of your skin

those dirty things you think

they are cleaning up the world again

I can see the inflammation

heartbreak & hunger scurry me down

on the road to Damascus

I want to be blinded like Saul

for the sake of vision

not just cause I can’t take it anymore

are we talking burnt out here?

burnt out is a reason for infection

I hope I get the whole disease

I am glad to be a speck / a piece of dirt

the dark side of the earth

they’re trying to clean

I want to get in their pores

want them to sweat my filth

the way a wound hurts before the dope

but then come the murderers on the road

are we talking burnt out?

they go in the camps looking for you

cause you are hiding the sores

you could be contagious

after all in the postapocalypse movies

you don’t even exist

your survival is not required

for history or hollywood

in the movie Road Warrior

everyone is antisocial on purpose

human ties are burnt out

& human intercourse is fatiguing & dangerous

gratefully no one is traumatized anymore

& unfortunately no one goes to school

in the movie Blade Runner

almost everyone lives 90 stories below

almost no one else

everyone is antisocial by accident

due to overcrowding in L.A. but no one minds

& there are still parties to go to

everyone white is “off-world” more or less

everyone 90 stories down is polymorphous colored

more or less

no one has attended school in decades

in both films everyone dresses with panache

which preserves their identities

to audiences who know

there is no grounds for indentity

postworld

personally I prefer the people in Titanic

even though they got their minds blown

when the unbelievable happened

they still believed in life

they were not burnt out

& had grounds for clinging

to lifeboats and a certain

stylish way of dressing

they could not imagine Jim Jensen

intoning without horror

that the body count goes on

that no one needs the news to know

what’s going on

Beirut is one of the low levels

Dante went on about

available in ordinary life

see the corpses if you will

believe at the risk

you may see it everywhere

every body spreads infection

unless you burn it out

eyewitness news invites you

to wait for the coverage

because Jim Jensen is there

& history is in the making or

you can come skinny-dip

in my gene pool

the massacres were arbitrary

when my people were hunted down

the deaths still go on

stretching over centuries

of shades of brown

baptist, moslem,

mothers, children, fathers

burnt out of homes but living

I am not that desperate

to be numb & dumb

I’m walking 90 stories down

I know I survive

in some wretched moments

of what men do

but I am not that desperate

I don’t give a shit if this is history

in the making

it should stop

I am still alive

I am still happy to be the dirt

that can’t be cleaned up

scorch my earth & I will grow

from history up

under the feet of the present

burnt out is for the movies

in which we don’t exist

from: Playing the Changes, Copyright 1985.

Kilt Monday!

'Cause let's face it,

Mondays can be so rough, hard, difficult.

Alameda Street

 - Douglas Kearney

for Deshawn, Eric, Dallas, Jerome & Lerone

We brown boys

          play

                     stick games,

          say

                     nicknames

like BIG D, EVIL E;

and conjure Knievel

with jigsawed dirt bikes

and sewer curbs

for asphalt launch pads.

          We all sweat

          to know flight

          for just

          a minute.

We brown boys,

          hair

                     all knaps, 

          wear

                     ballcaps’

broken brims. Broken rims

from hungry slamdunks,

pro-ball pipe dreams

over ice cream man’s

“Pop Goes the Weasel.”

          We all hunt

          change from cords’,

          Bermudas

          and mamas.

We brown boys—

          smack

                     talking

          slap

                     boxing—

stay bragging and bagging,

drinking summer from hoses

and water bomb barrages.

We throw rocks at garages

making no dents.

          We all just

          trying to leave

          a mark.

from: Fear, Some. Copyright 2006.

I Hope I'm Not Being Too Forward . . .

My Husband Gets Jealous . . .

Lonely Eagles

 - Marilyn Nelson

for Daniel “Chappie” James, General USAF            
and for the 332d Fighter Group

Being black in America

was the Original Catch,

so no one was surprised

by 22:

The segregated airstrips,

separate camps.

They did the jobs

they’d been trained to do.

 

Black ground crews kept them in the air;

black flight surgeons kept them alive;

the whole Group removed their headgear

when another pilot died.

 

They were known by their names:

“Ace” and “Lucky,”

“Sky-hawk Johnny,” “Mr. Death.”

And by their positions and planes.

Red Leader to Yellow Wing-man,

do you copy?

 

If you could find a fresh egg

you bought it and hid it

in your dopp-kit or your boot

until you could eat it alone.

On the night before a mission

you gave a buddy

your hiding-places

as solemnly

as a man dictating

his will.

There’s a chocolate bar

in my Bible;

my whiskey bottle

is inside my bedroll.

 

In beat-up Flying Tigers

that had seen action in Burma,

they shot down three German jets.

They were the only outfit

in the American Air Corps

to sink a destroyer

with fighter planes.

Fighter planes with names

like “By Request.”

Sometimes the radios

didn’t even work.

 

They called themselves

“Hell from Heaven.”

This Spookwaffe.

My father’s old friends.

 

It was always

maximum effort:

A whole squadron

of brother-men

raced across the tarmac

and mounted their planes.

 

            My tent-mate was a guy named Starks.

            The funny thing about me and Starks

            was that my air mattress leaked,

            and Starks’ didn’t.

            Every time we went up,

            I gave my mattress to Starks

            and put his on my cot.

 

            One day we were strafing a train.

            Strafing’s bad news:

            you have to fly so low and slow

            you’re a pretty clear target.

            My other wing-man and I

            exhausted our ammunition and got out.

            I recognized Starks

            by his red tail

            and his rudder’s trim-tabs.

            He couldn’t pull up his nose.

            He dived into the train

            and bought the farm.

 

            I found his chocolate,

            three eggs, and a full fifth

            of his hoarded-up whiskey.

            I used his mattress

            for the rest of my tour.

 

            It still bothers me, sometimes:

            I was sleeping

            on his breath.

from: The Fields of Praise: New and Selected Poems. Copyright 1997.

I'm Just Saying . . .

Testament

 - Carolyn M. Rodgers

 

child,

in the august of your life

you come barefoot to me

the blisters of events

having worn through to the

soles of your shoes.

it is not the time

this is not the time

there is no such time

to tell you

that some pains ease away

on the ebb & toll of

themselves.

there is no such dream that

can not fail, nor is hope our

only conquest.

we can stand boldly in burdening places (like earth here)

in our blunderings, our bloomings

our palms, flattened upward or pressed,

an unyielding down.

from: The Heart as Ever Green. Copyright 1978.

Kilt Monday!

'Cause let's face it,

Mondays can be so rough, hard, difficult.

Nina's Blues

- Cornelius Eady

 

Your body, hard vowels

In a soft dress, is still.

What you can't know

is that after you died

All the black poets

In New York City

Took a deep breath,

And breathed you out;

Dark corners of small clubs,

The silence you left twitching

On the floors of the gigs

You turned your back on,

The balled-up fists of notes

Flung, angry from a keyboard.

You won't be able to hear us

Try to etch what rose

Off your eyes, from your throat.

Out you bleed, not as sweet, or sweaty,

Through our dark fingertips.

We drum rest

We drum thank you

We drum stay.

from Hardheaded Weather: New and Selected Poems. Copyright 2008.

Saturday Farmer'a Market - Spring is On the Way!

Created by Heather at Capricious Reader, and now hosted by Chris at Stuff as Dreams are Made on.

Take heart, my friends.

Perhaps the groundhog isn't all knowing.

There is Spring happening all over my garden right now, with promise of more to come.
 


The Sedum has about doubled in size from last year, and it is covered in little buds

Although there is a fair amount of pinkish red color on the plant, the flowers will bloom in an exuberant yellow color.

This is the first of my Daffodils to bloom. The rest are coming up a few at a time.  

And here, among what has been the scourge of my front garden since I puled out the grass, is some very happy Trailing Rosemary.

I've been cursing this as a sort of clover for years, but I recently discovered that it is actually Wood Sorrel.

It is still an invader in my garden, but at least now it is a correctly identified invader.

And the Rosemary doesn't seem to mind in the least at this point.








Here is a Purple Iris getting ready to open . . .

                                           Like her big sister

California Poppies are coming up every where.

And last, but by no means least, are the Oriental Poppies I put into the grass bed last year. They actually started blooming just after Christmas.

The garden still looks generally overgrown and abandoned, but there are spots of beauty everywhere and it gives me hope for the year to come. I know that I will never again be able to work it as I once did, but I don't think it will mind.

The Little Garden
- Amy Lowell

A little garden on a bleak hillside
    Where deep the heavy, dazzling mountain snow
    Lies far into the spring. The sun’s pale glow
Is scarcely able to melt patches wide
About the single rose bush. All denied
    Of nature’s tender ministries. But no, —
    For wonder-working faith has made it blow
With flowers many hued and starry-eyed.
    Here sleeps the sun long, idle summer hours;
Here butterflies and bees fare far to rove
    Amid the crumpled leaves of poppy flowers;
Here four o’clocks, to the passionate night above
    Fling whiffs of perfume, like pale incense showers.
    A little garden, loved with a great love!

from: A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass, Copyright 1912.

Black Boys Play the Classics

- Toi Derricotte

 

The most popular “act” in

Penn Station

is the three black kids in ratty   

sneakers & T-shirts playing

two violins and a cello—Brahms.   

White men in business suits

have already dug into their pockets   

as they pass and they toss in   

a dollar or two without stopping.   

Brown men in work-soiled khakis   

stand with their mouths open,   

arms crossed on their bellies   

as if they themselves have always   

wanted to attempt those bars.   

One white boy, three, sits

cross-legged in front of his

idols—in ecstasy—

their slick, dark faces,

their thin, wiry arms,

who must begin to look

like angels!

Why does this trembling

pull us?

A: Beneath the surface we are one.

B: Amazing! I did not think that they could speak this tongue.

from Tender. Copyright 1997.

skinny-dippin’ in the gene pool

- Thulani Davis

 

the streets of hell are also paved

with fear of contagion

I have been swimming

in enough barbed-wire waters to know

you’re not even safe on the beach

it’s not just your “body fluids”

it’s the grime of your skin

those dirty things you think

they are cleaning up the world again

I can see the inflammation

heartbreak & hunger scurry me down

on the road to Damascus

I want to be blinded like Saul

for the sake of vision

not just cause I can’t take it anymore

are we talking burnt out here?

burnt out is a reason for infection

I hope I get the whole disease

I am glad to be a speck / a piece of dirt

the dark side of the earth

they’re trying to clean

I want to get in their pores

want them to sweat my filth

the way a wound hurts before the dope

but then come the murderers on the road

are we talking burnt out?

they go in the camps looking for you

cause you are hiding the sores

you could be contagious

after all in the postapocalypse movies

you don’t even exist

your survival is not required

for history or hollywood

in the movie Road Warrior

everyone is antisocial on purpose

human ties are burnt out

& human intercourse is fatiguing & dangerous

gratefully no one is traumatized anymore

& unfortunately no one goes to school

in the movie Blade Runner

almost everyone lives 90 stories below

almost no one else

everyone is antisocial by accident

due to overcrowding in L.A. but no one minds

& there are still parties to go to

everyone white is “off-world” more or less

everyone 90 stories down is polymorphous colored

more or less

no one has attended school in decades

in both films everyone dresses with panache

which preserves their identities

to audiences who know

there is no grounds for indentity

postworld

personally I prefer the people in Titanic

even though they got their minds blown

when the unbelievable happened

they still believed in life

they were not burnt out

& had grounds for clinging

to lifeboats and a certain

stylish way of dressing

they could not imagine Jim Jensen

intoning without horror

that the body count goes on

that no one needs the news to know

what’s going on

Beirut is one of the low levels

Dante went on about

available in ordinary life

see the corpses if you will

believe at the risk

you may see it everywhere

every body spreads infection

unless you burn it out

eyewitness news invites you

to wait for the coverage

because Jim Jensen is there

& history is in the making or

you can come skinny-dip

in my gene pool

the massacres were arbitrary

when my people were hunted down

the deaths still go on

stretching over centuries

of shades of brown

baptist, moslem,

mothers, children, fathers

burnt out of homes but living

I am not that desperate

to be numb & dumb

I’m walking 90 stories down

I know I survive

in some wretched moments

of what men do

but I am not that desperate

I don’t give a shit if this is history

in the making

it should stop

I am still alive

I am still happy to be the dirt

that can’t be cleaned up

scorch my earth & I will grow

from history up

under the feet of the present

burnt out is for the movies

in which we don’t exist

from: Playing the Changes 1985.

won't you celebrate with me

- Lucille Clifton

won't you celebrate with me

what i have shaped into

a kind of life? i had no model.

born in babylon

both nonwhite and woman

what did i see to be except myself?

i made it up

here on this bridge between

starshine and clay,

my one hand holding tight

my other hand; come celebrate

with me that everyday

something has tried to kill me

and has failed.

from: Book of Light. Copyright 1993. 

I, Too

- Langston Hughes

 

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.

They send me to eat in the kitchen

When company comes,

But I laugh,

And eat well,

And grow strong.

Tomorrow,

I’ll be at the table

When company comes.

Nobody’ll dare

Say to me,

“Eat in the kitchen,”

Then.

Besides,

They’ll see how beautiful I am

And be ashamed—

I, too, am America.

from: Collected Poems. Copyright 1994.

Kilt Monday!

'Cause let's face it,

Mondays can be so rough, hard, difficult.

Listening To A White Man Play The Blues

- Silvia Curbelo

 

Pushing the seed into the ground

isn't enough. Whatever blooms

in this place is dumb and blind.

Foreclosure is a one-eyed man.

Nothing falls from a sky like this

except a little rain, never enough rain.

All night my wife looks down

the neck of my guitar

passing the bottle back and forth

like a story she's been telling for years.

So many baskets of hard bread.

You take the shovel to the ground.

The land stares back at you.

The corn drifts towards the sky.

You don't know what dirt is

until you bury your first daughter.

from: The Secret History of Water. Copyright 1997.