Today’s Pics 3/19/18

March 20, 2018

Perhaps No…Though I Believe So

February 27, 2018

Common sense says
It’s no longer a matter
Of if you like

Him. he’s got “nigger”, “spic”, “kike”, among
Other slurs, lodged

Between his bottom lip
& gums, & I’m just waiting
For him to let them slip

From the tip of his tongue
Maybe then, you’ll call
Him what he is…a racist–

Who, bit off
more than he can
Chew.

Immortal Fusion (or: this Life wedded to Death)

February 27, 2018 — 1 Comment

“When a griot dies, it is as if a library
has burned to the ground.”
— Alex Haley

the end
is where we
begin

but
tomorrow

is
the question.

& life never shutters an eye
on the panorama
of paradox

as seen through
the rearview mirror:
conversing

with ourselves
listening to red,
black & green

drum voices still
dream, manifesting
the sound of our

own background

as soliloquies
of syncopated grace
suspended in vers libre*

transbluesent
in the tradition
of Amiri.

after/thought
comes revelations
of a quiet

revolution

echoing history’s
heartbeat in the ethos of heroes
evoking oral epitaphs

dedicated to memory
of those godsent
from the foreshadows

of Sol**. with earthtones,
we are the curators of consciousness
preservers of progress:

survivalists

in the present tense
liberating the shades
of indigenous skin

we are in, enveloped
by a sea of love greater than
the sum of its parts.

we are orators
from the original poet/tree:
annotators

of antidotal
anecdotes scrolled away in places
of personal oasis

where freedom
is an idiom
relentless

as the refuge
of reflection tripping
the life fantastic

through tunnel revisions.

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*vers libre means free verse.
**Sol is latin for the sun. (my main reason for using Sol in place of just plain old sun is to play off of it sounding just like soul.)

this poem is based on a Ralph Ellison quote from his book, The Invisible Man (in which the protagonist says his invisibility is due to the refusal of others to see him as he would like to be seen, not just as a Black man but as a Human Being). it is as follows: “The end is the beginning and lies far ahead.” from my point of view and my beliefs, the quote means that neither life nor death is final or absolute, because every end is a new beginning, and one never absolutely knows what’s going to happen but can Hope. to me, it is very analogous to a work by world-renowned street artist, Banksy, that says, “Every Exit Is An Entrance Somewhere Else.” in retrospect, this poem has been revised numerous times, but i’ve always meant it to be like a personal homage to Black History.

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