THE THORN [ EXCERPT ]
THE THORN [ EXCERPT ]
___________________
March 2014:
The Thorn I knew
Still stands on Rose Street, off Market,
Across from Zuni's.
The shell, anyway.
The last technological
Gold Rush in the 2000s--
Biotech--changed parts of San Fran
And with them, my old squat.
1908 stable house--
A piece of obsolescence
Attached to new school
St...
Friday 21st February 2025 7:52 pm
FEED
FEED
____
This ain't no charity.
This is a protest.
Supermarkets, hotels,
Eateries, coffeeshops
Make waste out of fresh & prepared
Food, tonnes, at day's end.
This ain't no church function.
This is a protest.
Bullets, assault rifles, tanks,
Aeroplanes, destroyer ships, bombs
Make far-away lands killing fields.
National budget spent mostly ...
Thursday 20th February 2025 2:50 pm
HOMECOMING
HOMECOMING
____________
Back from the combatzones
Of the rest of Europe
And patriotic ticker-tape parades,
England's sons
Had no homes
To come back to
In the mid-1940s.
Military camps
Luxury flats
City hotels
Were abandoned.
Fears of air raids
By Nazi planes
Dropping bombs
Power outages
Cities blown to the bare bricks
Sent every...
Wednesday 19th February 2025 11:32 pm
DELIGHT
DELIGHT
_______
Potato starch,
Soy sauce,
Garlic granules,
Vegetable broth
Is how the whole thing begins.
Then add two
Dollops of tahini.
Nut-like taste.
Easy to remember.
Then add
To pool of olive oil
Minced garlic
And seitan strips,
The primary element.
Then add
Secondary element,
Chopped criminis.
These will make
The mixture sing.
...Tuesday 12th November 2024 2:41 pm
THE LAMENT CONFIGURATION
THE LAMENT CONFIGURATION
_________________________
Time to play.
You find an unusual relic.
A golden puzzle box of unknown origin.
You hold it in both hands.
Turn a corner, turn another and another.
You feel the slice of a blade
In the palm of your hand. Drop the box--
Which lifts, changes shape. The puzzle solves itself.
Plays a short tune. The wall sp...
Tuesday 12th November 2024 2:24 pm
FOXY
FOXY
_____
You never forget your first
Infatuation.
Mine was the big thing
Decades before
Other honeys
Entered the picture.
Soul Cinema action queen
Did her own stunts,
Did her own Afro,
Wasted no time
Kicking ass on the big screen.
First of her kind.
The baddest one-chick hit squad that ever hit town!
Mine had no is...
Friday 17th May 2024 4:02 pm
TWO MODELS
TWO MODELS
___________
"Game recognises game"
Popular saying
Used in some
Black people's
Conversations
Normally blurted out
When someone sees
Their best qualities
In another.
Example given:
Back in the 1950s,
A Florida
Cheesecake model
Didn't want to
Limit herself to being
Before flashing cameras.
So she switched positio...
Friday 17th May 2024 3:38 pm
SILVER OVER EYES
SILVER OVER EYES
_______________
Silver over eyes
Modest payment
Left for hooded Charon
For the boat voayge across
The river Styx into that feared long black silence.
Two silver dollars
Laid upon closed
Lids of eyes.
This is your estimated worth.
A misspent existence and it yielded
Silver over eyes.
Cold round slivers. They're only tr...
Friday 17th May 2024 3:04 pm
TO AN APPARITION
TO AN APPARITION
________________
How could you forsake
The affection I
Gave to you?
How could you forsake
The affection you'd
Given back?
How could you forget
The affection we'd
Mutually felt?
Aren't artists
And writers
Good enough
For you anymore?
Are the strange ones
Scaring you
That much?
Why did you detest
Black people
So sudde...
Friday 17th May 2024 4:18 am
DISCOVERY [ EXCERPT ]
DISCOVERY [ EXCERPT ]
___________________
Patrolling the street
On the Brooklyn beat
Wasn't enough for
Jerry Tibbs.
The married N.Y.P.D. officer
On some days would shed
His dark blue uniform & wore
The sable one he was
Born with.
Just a man enjoying his spare time,
His busy hands worked a camera.
On Coney Island's
White sandy beach,
He found...
Friday 17th May 2024 3:36 am
DEEP NORTH
DEEP NORTH
__________
Headed for the "promised land" in droves
Attracted to bright urban lights
Like a swarm of sepia-toned moths,
They arrive
In search of work,
Safer homes,
Altars to pray to,
In search of the peace that
Living in the so-called
"Bible Belt" did not give them.
What kind of god
Would allow his own children to
Endure the jail cel...
Wednesday 6th March 2024 4:58 pm
PEWTER HEART
PEWTER HEART
_____________
Lost:
One small metallic
Treasure, laying untouched in blades of grass.
Heart-shaped,
Pewter-made,
Chain connected to its form.
A love
Freely given,
Refused in disgust.
Never kept,
Never worn,
Tossed into the tall green grass
Like a shiny hunk of trash,
Grown cold,
Left to rust.
Found:
B...
Thursday 29th February 2024 3:40 am
FLAMETHROWER
FLAMETHROWER
_____________
My internal spirit of rebellion
Is far from calm--
Incendiary
Anger builds
Single spark ignites
Observing injustice
From figures of authority,
Power moves, prejudice--
Inferno in the making
Refusing to be
The next victim, the next pawn,
I know these sensations well--
Long ago, I marched on California's streets
...Thursday 29th February 2024 3:23 am
DERELICT
DERELICT
[ SONG-LYRICS ]
______________
I am no one but I am
Known by everybody
Only seen but never heard
Just part of the scenery
Hated, ridiculed & shunned
For the way I live
I survive through every day
On what others give
Nothing to my name by a heavy load
And plenty of freedom
Never knowing where the road takes me
Where ...
Tuesday 27th February 2024 7:07 pm
CRIMSON STAIN
CRIMSON STAIN
_____________
Brighter than day, the sunlight reflects
Making each of them gleam
Individually & set into necklaces
Clear, beautiful stones in a storefront window.
The shine alone was enough
To bring you inside the store for a closer look.
The counter clerk eagerly
Shows you his vast collection of shiny stones
On display.
Only one of them ca...
Tuesday 27th February 2024 6:52 pm
OUT FRONT
OUT FRONT
_________
I am grateful for...
The arched roof above my head
The twin rafters with
The twin lights, holding it in place
The four walls surrounding me
The two windows with
The two Venetian blinds, down & shut at all times
The red brick floor below my feet
The wooden shelves full of books & movies
The VHS by themselves & DVDs in clear totes
Th...
Tuesday 20th September 2022 6:10 pm
SAMARITAN
SAMARITAN
__________
Anyone else
Would've left that Far Right
Reactionary sprawled on the concrete
To bleed out, suffer in his
Paroxysms of serious hurt, receive
Disaster of the steel-toed kind.
But not you.
The Good Samaritan
Reflex kicked in,
Wouldn't let you
Abandon someone in need of help.
Distinctions such as
"Friend" and "foe" did...
Tuesday 20th September 2022 5:43 pm
DISEASE BREEDS DISEASE
DISEASE BREEDS DISEASE
_____________________
Strange new ailment
Giving pneumonia-like symptoms
Has a ripple effect
Spanning our globe.
Floating on the wind, harm to health,
Diaspora of microbes--
Point of outbreak:
Wuhan, China.
Within a month, fate's transmission
Country by country. Bad news travels fast.
Reported cases of Coronavirus
Breeds ...
Tuesday 20th September 2022 5:14 pm
ABSENT FATHER
ABSENT FATHER
_____________
The father of
Seven children
Is absent from home.
Seven children are
Missing a playmate,
Missing a teacher,
Missing a provider.
He was lured
Away from his
Personal kingdom, beyond
The wildlife sanctuary.
A rifle,
A crossbow
Hastened his subtraction
From the dense
Equation of life.
Now the royal
...Saturday 27th August 2022 4:37 pm
ONLY THESE REMAIN
ONLY THESE REMAIN
_________________
Only these remain
Anatomical remains.
Construction
Sites unearth
Disconnected
Joints.
Only these remain
Skeletal remains.
Shellmounds disturbed--
Buried no more.
Bagged, tagged & stored
In a file cabinet drawer.
Only these remain
Ancestral remains.
Evidence that they
Existed here l...
Saturday 27th August 2022 4:21 pm
THIRST
THIRST
______
Did you ever wonder how our planet's end may come?
By warming or by freezing? The warming arrives first.
As the Golden State continues to desiccate, people scramble for some
Water, any amount, to moisten their throats, remove their thirst.
____________________________________________________
W: 6.20.14
[ From the book Plans, Nomadic Press, 2022. ]
...Saturday 27th August 2022 3:56 pm
PREFERENCE
PREFERENCE
_________
Statuesque.
Beautiful.
Exotic.
High-maintenence.
Men from all quarters would
Slay each other to the death to
Get close enough to
She of milk-like pallor, shadow
Painted lips, shadow
Painted nails, flowing hair and
Garments that compliment her supple shape,
Fine-boned corset that embraces her
Ribs tightly, all black
As evening w...
Saturday 5th June 2021 3:57 am
MINNEAPOLIS WEEK
MINNEAPOLIS WEEK
________________
Most Black men
In the U.S.A. have
An oppressor's leather boot
Applied to their necks.
George Floyd
Died untimely
With the knee of
Police repression on his.
George Floyd
Complained of
The knee's pressure restricting his oxygen.
He couldn't breathe--we couldn't breathe.
Derek Chauvin
Never respected the li...
Saturday 5th June 2021 3:38 am
SERAPH WINGS
SERAPH WINGS
____________
She--English student-to-be
He--Art student
Accessorised well in cool black
Clothes as two roving assassins would
But they weren't assassins
They were just young, creative, self-expressive
Goths in love, bonded souls
With a beautiful future ahead of them
They both enjoyed the quietude before midnight
In a walk through Stubbylee Park--
...
Monday 24th May 2021 4:32 pm
CONUNDRUM
CONUNDRUM
As a twiggy little boy of 9,
I was so curious
About the bumblebees hovering
Over blood-red roses, flesh-pink roses,
Bushes filled with pale-yellow honeysuckles
That grew in my Grandmother's yard.
So curious, when I reached out to touch one,
That bumblebee stung me with its
Needlelike tail, leaving behind a mark,
Swollen red, painful,
On the caramel ...
Monday 19th October 2020 5:48 pm
SCARLET TRIANGLE
SCARLET TRIANGLE
Desperate bid
For re-election
Social media master plan:
Twist public perception
Of who the real
Public enemy is
The real dangerous mob
The real security risk
"And you shall know them
By this distinctive sign":
Scarlet triangle
Inverted design
Bright red as anger
Hardly concealed
Bright red as blood wrath
On these stree...
Monday 19th October 2020 5:13 pm
WASHA-QUON-ASIN
WASHA-QUON-ASIN*
Many who had hiked through Canadian wilderness
[ A cenutry ago ] Took notice of a bird in flight
A rare one the Ojibwa called
Washa-quon-asin--He who flies by night
At once: a hunter, a guide, a trapper
A living made from the furs in his sight
A rare one the Ojibwa called
Washa-quon-asin--He who flies by night
Into his forest lair, he...
Tuesday 22nd September 2020 8:26 pm
APOCALYPTIC SKY
APOCALYPTIC SKY
Yesterday
Had proven science fact
Much stranger than fiction:
Vivid orange night
Replaced
Bright turquoise morning.
Sunlight was postponed.
Normalcy took a holiday.
My neighbour's
Barnyard animals,
Five chickens, two goats,
Didn't know what was going on
With their immediate surroundings.
Neither did that lone bird in flight.
...Tuesday 22nd September 2020 7:47 pm
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