When day comes we ask ourselves,where can we find light in this never-ending shade?The loss we carry,a sea we must wade.We’ve braved the belly of the beast,We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace,and the norms and notionsof what just isisn’t always just-ice.And yet the dawn is oursbefore we knew it. Somehow we do it.Somehow we’ve […]
learn moreWhat was his crime? / He only killed his wife. But a divorce I say. / Not final, they say; Her things were his / including her life.” Convicted not of murder / but of “womanslaughter” because “Men cannot kill their wives. / They passion them to death.” For this murder in Texas, he served […]
learn moreSwing low, sweet chariotComing for to carry me homeSwing low, sweet chariotComing for to carry he home I looked over Jordan and what did I seeComing for to carry he homeA band of angels coming after meComing for to carry me home Swing low, sweet chariotComing for to carry me homeSwing low, sweet chariotComing for […]
learn moreNiggers are scared of revolution But niggers shouldn’t be scared of revolution Because revolution is nothing but change And all niggers do is change Niggers come in from work and change into pimping clothes and hit the streets to make some quick change Niggers change their hair from black to red to blond and hope […]
learn moreThe old woman across the way is whipping the boy again and shouting to the neighborhood her goodness and his wrongs. Wildly he crashes through elephant ears, pleads in dusty zinnias, while she in spite of crippling fat pursues and corners him. She strikes and strikes the shrilly circling boy till the stick breaks in […]
learn moreShe wanted to be a blade of grass amid the fields But he wouldn’t agree to be the dandelion She wanted to be a robin singing through the leaves but he refused to be her tree She spun herself into a web and looking for a place to rest turned to him but he stood […]
learn moreThe American love, the American heart, The American song, Sing I, The song of America, Full of beautiful Americanism and Americanness. Come, let us at least, come, join me at least With me in my imagery and scenic presentation Far from, I on this shore, you on that And I getting the cable messages in […]
learn moreour mothers wrung hell and hardtack from row and boll. fenced others’ gardens with bones of lovers. embarking from Africa in chains reluctant pilgrims stolen by Jehovah’s light planted here the bitter seed of blight and here eternal torches mark the shame of Moloch’s mansions built in slavery’s name. our hungered eyes do see/refuse the […]
learn moreI called you human tumbleweed And chided you for sowing seed Of misanthropic malcontent; Yet I suspect my savage breast Would never nurture seeds of rest, Even if you sowed them there. Wallace Thurman, Opportunity, July 1926.
learn more Signs read all along — as roadside signs are
claim to absolute newness and mastery of all mystery
as signs are, the ones that you see go down the road —
with you, as are trumped all universal sorts of energy
that emerges from them — are mystery
(I said, as I thought if I would ever see her again)
and the condition of them being put there
seen all along the highway.
Signs are called, then, these original works of art
designed to snare and hold the human heart — before,
like on a prior occasion when you have seen them
