Poetry Thursday

Contemplating Extinction as Theme in Basquiat’s “Pez Dispenser, 1984”

~Kristina Kay Robinson

for Malcolm Latiff Shabazz

yellow roses in my mother’s room   mean

I’m sorry   sadness comes in       generations

inheritance           split   flayed    displayed

better than all the others

crown                                        weight

the undue burden of the truly exceptional

most special of your kind, a kind of fire

persisting unafraid      saffron bloom

to remind us of fragility   or beauty       or revolution

to ponder darkly              in the bright

the fate of young kings

the crimes for which          there are no apologies.

Copyright © 2020 by Kristina Kay Robinson. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on June 23, 2020 by the Academy of American Poets.

Not Poetry Thursday, on memory and trauma

We Drink at the Attenuation Well

~Porsha Olayiwola

Motivated forgetting is a psychological defense mechanism whereby people cope with threatening and unwanted memories by suppressing them from consciousness.

            —Amy N. Dalton and Li Huang

              in Badagry there is a hung-

              ry well of water and memory

 

                                                         loss. in Badagry there was a well 

                                                         of people lost across a haven 

 

of water. in Badagry there was

a port overwhelmed in un-return. 

 

                                         to omit within the mind is to ebb

                                         heavenward. memory is a wealth 

 

                                                                 choking the brain in un-respons-

                                                                 ibility. violence in the mind and 

 

                                         the mind forgets in order to remember

                                         the self before the violence begot. 

in Badagry trauma washes ungod-

ly memory heavenward. in Bad-

 

                                       agry there is an attenuation well 

                                       meant to wish away a passage, 

 

                                                                      meant to unhaven a people.

                                                                      violence is underwhelming

 

                                       in return. what the body eats, 

                                       the mind waters. responsible 

 

is the memory for un-remittal. 

royal is the body for return. god is

 

                                                 the mind for wafting. forgetting 

                                                 is a port homeward. in Bad- 

 

                                                            agry hungry memory grows angry.

                                                            in Badagry the memories un- 

 

                 choke. trauma un-eats the royal. 

                 in Badagry there is a heaven 

 

                                                               of people responsible for the birth- 

                                                               right of remembering, for the well 

 

                                              of us across a haven of water

                                              overwhelmed in un-return.

Copyright © 2020 by Porsha Olayiwola. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on June 17, 2020 by the Academy of American Poets.

Poetry Thursday - today and timely

I Can’t Breathe

~Pamela Sneed

I suppose I should place them under separate files

Both died from different circumstances kind of, one from HIV AIDS

         and possibly not

having

taken his medicines

the other from COVID-19 coupled with

complications from an underlying HIV status

In each case their deaths may have been preventable if one had

         taken his meds and the

hospital thought to treat the other

instead of sending him home saying, He wasn’t sick enough

he died a few days later

They were both mountains of men

dark black beautiful gay men

both more than six feet tall fierce and way ahead of their time

One’s drag persona was Wonder Woman and the other started

         a black fashion magazine

He also liked poetry

They both knew each other from the same club scene we all grew up in

When I was working the door at a club one frequented

He would always say to me haven’t they figured out you’re a star yet

And years ago bartending with the other when I complained

         about certain people and

treatment he said sounds like it’s time for you to clean house

Both I know were proud of me the poet star stayed true to my roots

I guess what stands out to me is that they both were

gay black mountains of men

Cut down

Felled too early

And it makes me think the biggest and blackest are almost

         always more vulnerable

My white friend speculates why the doctors sent one home

If he had enough antibodies

Didn't they know his HIV status

She approaches it rationally

removed from race as if there were any rationale for sending him home

Still she credits the doctors for thinking it through

But I speculate they saw a big black man before them

Maybe they couldn’t imagine him weak

Maybe because of his size color class they imagined him strong

said he’s okay

Which happened to me so many times

Once when I’d been hospitalized at the same time as a white girl

she had pig-tails

we had the same thing but I saw how tenderly they treated her

Or knowing so many times in the medical system I would never have been

         treated so

terribly if I

had had a man with me

Or if I were white and entitled enough to sue

Both deaths could have been prevented both were almost first to fall in this

         season of

death

But it reminds me of what I said after Eric Garner a large black man was

         strangled to

death over

some cigarettes

Six cops took him down

His famous lines were I can’t breathe

so if we are always the threat

To whom or where do we turn for protection?

Copyright © 2020 by Pamela Sneed. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on June 18, 2020 by the Academy of American Poets.

Poetry Thursday - late ... sorry...

We are Marching

~Carrie Law Morgan Figgs

  

                   1.

We are marching, truly marching 

   Can’t you hear the sound of feet? 

We are fearing no impediment 

   We have never known defeat. 

                     2. 

Like Job of old we have had patience, 

  Like Joshua, dangerous roads we’ve trod 

Like Solomon we have built out temples. 

   Like Abraham we’ve had faith in God. 

                     3. 

Up the streets of wealth and commerce, 

   We are marching one by one

We are marching, making history, 

  For ourselves and those to come. 

                     4. 

We have planted schools and churches,

   We have answered duty’s call. 

We have marched from slavery’s cabin 

   To the legislative hall. 

                     5. 

Brethren can’t you catch the spirit? 

  You who are out just get in line

Because we are marching, yes we are marching 

   To the music of the time. 

                     6.

We are marching, steady marching 

   Bridging chasms, crossing streams 

Marching up the hill of progress 

  Realizing our fondest dreams. 

                       7. 

We are marching, truly marching 

   Can’t you hear the sound of feet? 

We are fearing no impediment

   We shall never know defeat. 

This poem is in the public domain. Originally published in 1921. Published in Poem-a-Day on February 1, 2020, by the Academy of American Poets.

These are unprecedented times and yet it is the same bs as ever. It is heartbreaking to know that Carrie Law Morgan Figgs was writing about marching and lack of fear and not knowing defeat in 1921... and here we are in 2020 still marching demanding justice and the ability to LIVE.  But I share it here, anyway, so we can recall the ancestors, their spirit and their fight, and the need to keep marching. 

Poetry Thursday, late but timely

For Black Children at the End of the World—and the Beginning

~Roger Reeves

You are in the black car burning beneath the highway

And rising above it—not as smoke

But what causes it to rise. Hey, Black Child,

You are the fire at the end of your elders’

Weeping, fire against the blur of horse, hoof,

Stick, stone, several plagues including time.

Chrysalis hanging on the bough of this night

And the burning world: Burn, Baby, burn.

Anvil and iron be thy name, yea though ye may

Walk among the harnessed heat and huntsmen

Who bear their masters’ hunger for paradise

In your rabbit-death, in the beheading of your ghost.

You are the healing snake in the heather

Bursting forth from your humps of sleep.

In the morning, your tongue moves along the earth

Naming hawk sky; rabbit run; your tongue,

Poison to the filthy democracy, to the gold-

Domed capitols where the ‘Guard in their grub-

Worm-colored uniforms cling to the blades of grass—

Worm on the leaf, worm in the dust, worm,

Worm made of rust: sing it with me,

Dragon of Insurmountable Beauty.

Black Child, laugh at the men with their hoofs

and borrowed muscle, their long and short guns,

The worm of their faces, their casket ass-

Embling of the afternoon, leftover leaves

From last year’s autumn scraping across their boots;

Laugh, laugh at their assassins on the roofs

(For the time of the assassin is also the time of hysterical laughter).

Black Child, you are the walking-on-of-water

Without the need of an approving master.

You are in a beautiful language.

You are what lies beyond this kingdom

And the next and the next and fire. Fire, Black Child.

Copyright © 2020 by Roger Reeves. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on June 16, 2020 by the Academy of American Poets.