POEMS
Son2Mother
Mother, have I told youThat you are the first woman
I ever fell in love with, that what
I’ve always wanted in life is to hear
You say you love me, too?
September 11th
Might it be, as my mother said to me on this ugly, sinful day,That the world is on its last go-round?
Hijacked wild birds strip the sky of its innocent morning breath
Steel towers crumple like playing cards on an uneven metal table
Unrehearsed screams we dare not hear leap from windows
Into the open, bottomless palms of God
I cannot stand to watch life reduce
Itself to powdery dust and soot lathering the devil's inflamed mouth
NO!
for Aishah Shahidah SimmonsWill us boys ever learn that power
can't be pulled from the meat of our third leg
like the last taste of malt liquor sucked from the
bottom of a bottle? Will we ever cease to find
our torsos slow-dragging with death, our dance
a series of grenades aimed at the bellies of our
mothers' daughters? Will us boys ever break ranks
with the devil, his bible telling us it is mad cool
to rape women because the master does it, and
don't we, too, yearn to be masters?
Reality Check
For Kurt Cobain(1967-1994)
i hate myself and want to die
i can hear you saying that now
the words like gunshots blasted into
the skin silencing the nightmares of a
generation we are not an x or twenty-
something
Jersey City
inspired by Richard WrightIt was at 116 Bergen Avenue, in a cluttered first-floor apartment at the back of the building, that Jersey City, where I was born and where I would spend the first eighteen years of my life, began to disrobe itself, fascinating me, annoying me, and tempting me simultaneously. Each event, each moment, outside and indoors, I held onto tightly, afraid that if I let go, then that event, that moment, would be gone forever:
Katrina
HereI am
My lawd
On top of this roof
Can't nobody hear my cry
I said
Here I am my lawd
On top of this roof
Can't nobody hear my cry
My lawd
I am thirsty
for aunt cathy
life ain't never been promised to nobodythat's what grandma lottie used to say
and you
her youngest daughter
and youngest of six children
snuck into the city
on a greyhound bus
with my mother
and scraped the side of a boarding house for good luck
