When I was about eight, I once stabbed somebody, another kid, a little girl.I’d been hanging around in front of the supermarket near our houseand when she walked by, I let her have it, right in the gap between her shirt and her shortswith a piece of broken-off car antenna, I used to carry around […]
learn more1. I am nobody: A red sinking autumn sun Took my name away. 2. I give permission For this slow spring rain to soak The violet beds. 3. With a twitching nose A dog reads a telegram On a wet tree trunk. 4. Burning autumn leaves, I yearn to make the bonfire Bigger and bigger. […]
learn moreWhen Sister Rosa sat on that bus, she didn’t sit alone,
She had the visible image of the Master on the high throne.
There were passengers on that bus that no eye could see,
She was riding with people who had never been free.
Their time had come to sit and ride anywhere,
The day was now with no time to spare.
Cottin pickin’ time had lasted for hundreds of years,
So taking a seat anywhere was without fear
Ridin’ didn’t quench the thirst of the workers of the fields
They needed more of what a water fountain could give
With their brow, so hot none wanted to think,
They sighted God’
The clothes got wet but not the souls
From the forceful pouring of the hoses
The spirits were ne’er dampened
Though evil attempts were rampant
Flames were fueled and denied shame
To lay hands on the real aged old blame
Overcoming second class citizenry
Ne’er use the killing children bombs
We march
We sing
We cry
No more
No more
No more
‘Cause we’re ready to die
Believe it and that’s no lie
Change the guard
Here comes a new age start!!!
From: Morning Promises & My Evening Songs
Copyright 2004, Evelyn Dilworth-Williams
Before and after school
he stood
on a milk crate
eyeballed the mirror
and only saw wayne turner
at tournament time
a third grader
just off the bus
barely four feet
off the ground
he dropped his books
sank a j’
from the top of the key
and heard the crowd roar
beat his man off the dribble
with a break yaneck
crossover
and slammed himself
on the cover of a box
of wheaties
he was out there
every night
under a street light
fighting through double picks
talking trash
to imaginary body checks
‘you can’t hold me fool’
fake right
‘this is my p
We used to tell each other erotic stories
at slumber parties when I was about ten:
We’d meet and kiss dark, handsome boys,
and then sink into sixty-year dreams
from which we’d wake up for church weddings
and to name our butterscotch babies.
From there we always jumped ahead
to the pooping-out party, and died laughing
into our silencing pillows at the way
we ‘d overdose on laxatives, and be dead.
We never dreamed of the face-making
self-reconstruction from scratch
we’d be engaged in for most of our lives,
of at thirty-four an ordinary day
on which an aspiration is adj
They call me the howlin’ wolf now, and you found me howlin’ at your door
They call me the howlin’ wolf now, baby, and you know you found me howlin’ at your door
You know I love you darling, don’t drive the wolf from your door
(Lord have mercy, darling)
If God forgive me, I won’t let you make me howl no more
If God forgive me, I won’t let you make me howl no more
You want me to do like a wolf baby, drag my tracks out in the cold
Now Christmas eve is coming, and you want me down on my bended knees
Now Christmas eve is coming darling, and you want the wolf on his bended knees
You mad
(for Toni Morrison)
on a needful day
your terribleness troubles
the house like thunderclaps
ripping a Delta sky.
You gather a bushel of autumn,
run faithfilled fingers over your threads.
Your needles of sunlight
worry a healing into history.
The ancient lady in your bones
memories out the quilts.
Her leafwork stitches spring
invisible at the seams.
You know winter starwars
have designs to freeze our flesh.
Your preternatural covers
blithely summer us into dawn…
Looking back on when I was a little nappy-headed boy,
then my only worry was for Christmas what would be my toy.
Even though sometimes would not get,
we were happy with the joy the day would bring.
Sneaking out the back door to hang out with those hoodlum friends of mine, ooh;
greeted at the back door with “Boy, I thought I told you not to go outside.”
Tryin’ your best to bring the water to your eyes,
thinkin’ it might stop her from whoopin’ your behind.
I wish those days could come back once more.
Why did those days ever have to go?
I wish those days could come back once more
