With the deepest, darkest skin
And the brightest, whitest robes
Flowing… billowing, like angel’s wings
The choir director raises a hand, his neck muscles tense as a bridge’s cables
And it drops…
“We… Shall… Overcome…”
Not just sung
But hurled
Like a hammer
Every blow pounding my heart, my soul
“We… Shall… Overcome…”
Over…
And over…
I close my eyes,
And I sing it too
A minute later, lost in the power, I am being shaken.
I open my eyes.
I am flat on my back
The choir director is waving a towel over me.
I guess I was overcome.
Tag: poetry
The American Dream
A priceless treasure is missing.
We’ve lost The American Dream.
Have you seen it?
Check your pockets.
What pants were you wearing last night?
Your jacket. Turn those pockets out too.
No. It’s not there.
Where did you see it last?
Everywhere. In the hearts and hopes of every American.
But it’s not there anymore.
Where did it go?
Stolen? No.
Really, who’d steal it?
Not me either.
Have you checked behind the sofa?
No. It’s not there.
It’s not anywhere.
We’d better find it soon.
Because everyone’s starting to wake up.
And the coffeemaker’s broken.
Check your pockets again.
The Cart
A old, tired Mexican
In a denim work shirt
and faded torn jeans,
a dirty ball cap,
and a makeshift bandage
tied around his knee
Pedaling an unmarked ice cream cart
With a wobbly left front wheel
Up a hill
Slowly
Slowly
I watch him
What is in his cart?
The big white box
With the wobbly wheel
Tamales for the day laborers
Who line the road
Waiting to be picked up
By contractors
In their big shiny pickup trucks?
I hear the rattle of metal
Tools? His tools?
Or chains?
I watch him pedal
Up the hill
And away
Never
Remember that game
Back in High School
Senior year.
The last of the season
Or, was it the state finals?
The state finals,
So hot, the grass drank in the water
From the clack clack clacking sprinklers
Like the town drunk.
Two outs, bottom of the ninth
And you hit one over the fence so far,
I swear, it’s still going.
Rounding the bases,
Grinning wide as the sky,
And you fell to the ground
Threw down your glove
And… and…
Wait. You weren’t the batter
It was you on the mound
Blowing the save.
You never pitched again.
Never.
Who Rules The Body?
“Who rules the body, the heart or the head?
Perhaps it is both, for with neither, we’re dead!
But then, so many parts, without which we would die
And others, like hands, upon which we rely
You can live without eyes, or a tongue, or an ear
Sure, it is nice, if you can see, taste or hear
Fingernails aren’t life-threatening parts in the least
Until they’re clipped during dinner, then you’re as good as deceased.”
I blinked the blood out of my eyes and looked up at the torturer.
“Please kill me before you read me another of those.”
When I put your heart in a cage like a bird
When I put your heart in a cage like a bird, I am keeping it from flying away… away…
When I put your heart in a cage like a bird, I am protecting it from the cat’s claws.
When I put your heart in a cage like a bird, I can hear it sing to the breaking dawn.
When I put your heart in a cage like a bird, I can take it to the doctor when it is sick.
When I put your heart in a cage like a bird, I am keeping it from shitting on my furniture.
A thing of the past
I saw the thing along the roadside among the rocks and litter.
It was a thing of the past, forgotten and neglected, and left by the roadside, in the rear-view mirror, and in the dust.
People don’t bother with things of the past anymore. They’re obsessed always seeking the next big thing.
But sometimes, a sense of nostalgia slows them down, and they stop.
They look for a bit, looking it over.
Sometimes they pick it up and call it an antique. Or a relic.
Or they leave it.
By the roadside.
In the rear-view mirror.
And in the dust.
Radio Over Radio
I don’t listen to radio over the radio anymore.
I listen to it through podcasts and through audio streams on the Internet.
Although, if you think about it, that stuff transmits over radio.
Wireless travels by radio.
A different part of the spectrum. Different set of frequencies.
So, instead of listening to radio over radio’s radio, I listen to radio over the radio that radio doesn’t own.
Streams through the air.
Rivers of music and talk and news and hopes and dreams.
Through the air.
Radio. Over the radio, without radio.
I don’t listen to the radio anymore.
Over radio.
Ill Tempered Dreidel
“I spin my little dreidel
Without a whim or care
No truer words were spoken
Than “A great thing happened there”
I had a little dreidel
I made it out of clay
But the clay came from a golem
Whom the rabbi made obey
Sure, the golem was defeated
By the townspeople of Prague
And the streets were free of evil
Though the sewers all did clog
From the blood of all the victims
That the mighty golem slew
The lesson you should learn
Is to not piss off a Jew”
Rebecca smacked her husband.
“Did you teach him that?”
What’s That Noise?
WHAT’S THAT NOISE?
I have no idea.
WHAT’S THAT NOISE?
It sounds like a vacuum.
WHAT’S THAT NOISE?
Are you vacuuming?
WHAT’S THAT NOISE?
It sounds more like an upright than one of those… well… the not-uprights. Whatever they’re called.
WHAT’S THAT NOISE?
Is something stuck in the agitator brush? A sock? Or… you didn’t run over the cat, did you?
WHAT’S THAT NOISE?
The bag’s full, isn’t it? It uses bags, right? Or is it one of those wind-tunnel vacuums without bags?
WHAT’S THAT NOISE?
They say science abhors a vacuum, but poetry abhors them worse.
TURN IT OFF!