Traveling Uptown on the D Train

4 step on
3 adults and 1 child

Their accent belies

their American attire

Africa / they once called home

It is Sunday afternoon / they
appear to be coming from church

They fill the empty seats
beside me

Rhythms and syntaxes fall

from their lips / African hieroglyphics 

tapping smooth syncopated beats on my ear 

drums, but I cannot discern them

Our chocolate hue silently
testifies of a history interrupted / broken brother
hoods / and the estrangement of sisters…

My American attire belies my full lineage

Although we sit side by side

I am / we are / separated still by an ocean

Lotus Rising (UPDATED)

I

will play big and bold in the world;

I

will play on my terms.

I

will play loud in the world;

I

will play intelligently without apology.

Forever

my enormous feet will change landscapes.

Forever

my hands will landmark the spots where

I've dug, and dreams unimaginable will adorn 

my fingers, like diamonds, and crown my head. 

Love will guide me, arm-in-arm, to that promised land where

my name is Sheba, and all sing 

my praises...

Forever

Soul Reclamation

  In an empty room 

within an empty house,

stands a figure: my Persephone

A feast of colors blooms arounds Her. 

/

            I enter at the back, 

through Her kitchen's door--it's unlocked!

           Her back faces me. Her dress is 

white, terry-textured and embroidered in

           indigo blue; softly it kisses the floor. 

Her back slowly turns to the left, 

           Her shoulders too, 

and Her eyes welcome mine…

\

            I am famished, 

famished from enduring Her enduring 

          absence and barren from our forced 

separation. But I am not too late:

           Her belly grows...

and we are still young.

/

           ... I approach Her.

Her face is mine;

           weariness warmed with relief and desire 

 pour from Her eyes and fill us both...

          My arms embrace Her, Her arms embrace me

and gently we rock from side to side,

          turning in a circle…

REPOST: Friendship for Sale

Friendship for sale! Friendship for sale!
Friendship for sale! Friendship for sale!

My collection of friends, or
semi-friends, or never-were-my-friends,
friends...

are available for sale.

My collection of friends:
deceiving friends, lying friends, back-biting friends, spying friends, always mocking friends, and never letting me live friends. Always parenting me friends, jealous competitive friends, always gotta win friends, take the fun out of fun friends, judgmental friends, controlling, juckin'-n-jivin' friends. Talking behind your back friends, never calling me back friends, laughing at your expense friends, always talking but never listening friends, always right never wrong friends, over bearing and pushy friends, overstepping their bounds friends, unapologetic friends, complaining friends, using me for their own good friends, agenda-seeking friends...

are available for sale.

...loud and obnoxious friends, disrespectful friends,foul-mouth and ungrateful friends;
always-have-to-be-the-center-of-attention friends, codependent friends, provoking friends, unloving friends, low self-esteem friends, low financial means friends, going nowhere friends, extreme friends, unbelieving friends, two-timing friends, childish friends, arrogant friends, greedy friends, spoiled friends, nobody’s friend friends.

are all available for sale.

I am moving out of the neighborhood.

Grand Mother Wood Land

Today (July 4, 2013) is the 19th anniversary of my grandmother's death. In celebration of her I am posting Grand Mother Wood Land. Enjoy

MB's "The Gardener" is Featured on Bentlily's

My poem The Gardener is featured here on Bentlily.com

**UPDATED (2015)**

He humbled himself:
knelt his desire at the foot of his flower's bed,
like a penitent sinner. He saw her over

whelmed with green and understood her

hard earth would soften by offering a little water.

Stretched across her wooden frame, using bare-skinned hands, 

he skillfully plucked each weed suffocating his garden...
Between fore-finger-and-thumb tips he caressed each
hole carved into her withering leaves and determined in his
heart to exterminate the devouring creatures.

He remembered to replenish the soil.

At the side, he unwound the hose attached to the house 

and unstopped the faucet:

water-consumed-drought-jumping-insider-dark-belly,
resurrecting roots giving up the ghost.

Exhausted and dewed,
he rested awhile...Many nights he

communed beneath the stars, savoring 

Moonflower, Honeysuckle, Corn Poppy, Tiger Lily, and Sunflower… 

He ate and was satisfied.

Longing

to wrap you around me
like a hand-made quilt,
to feel your breath
cradling my neck, and
the rise
and fall
and rise
and fall
of your chest...

Longing to feel you
seeing me, smiling at me,
feeding me (with your
kisses), caressing me,
holding me—don't let me go...

Longing to awake
to the sound of
your arms whispering,
you are mine...

Nameless

My poem Nameless is featured here : Theresa Ruth Howard's blog my Body, my Image. Enjoy

Longing (Part II)

The day crashes
through the window.
Searing light slices
through our velvet
darkness, and the
warmth of our
embrace, and the
solace tucked between
our conjoined limbs,
and the comfort of our
solitude, forcing
our intertwined bodies
to peel apart. I try
to remain glued to you
forever, but forever
is now gone...

 

Eaglet

The time has come…

mamma eagle,

stands mid

air, wings

flapping, eyes

fixating but

coaxing, pleading 

her eagle-

to-be

to step

beyond the

familiar nest:

to trust

her, to

surrender to

the air.

 

Moments pass…

the eaglet

gets the

message and

steps forward,

trembling, on

to the

bristled edge,

lays it

self on

top the

wind—wings

stretched long

and wide—

and discovers

its strength

to fly.

Sam

Gangly and lengthy—
She knew from a young 
age She was different:
that She would travel
a different lover’s lane
than Her Mother. Her
Mother had one. She
would have none. When
She told Her Mother,
it was this dampened
dream She felt in Her
Mother’s (subtle)
disappointment.

…She wobbles
now in jean shorts,
cut-off- at-the-knee,
and combat boots—
the ones She wore
that disappointing
day; her hair: still
cropped short and
boylike; her face:
young and freshly
plumped; her frame:                      
lengthy, but plush—her
stomach...grows: a favor for
a friend whose womb is closed.

New Haven, Connecticut (Circa 2012):

A freshly brewed cup of coffee
     slightly organic, slightly not;

An awkward pre-pubescent,
     gangly and pimpled faced,
     seeking its own identity under
     the eye of The Old Parent;

An unstirred batter of Gothic charm
     and modern-day chic;

Suits and ties and jeans and t-shirts
     cars and bikes and buses,
     trains and shuttles;

A clash of old hierarchy and new-age liberalism;

A slightly-sharp jazz quintet still finding its melodic line;

A briary bird’s nest, nestled betwixt New York and Boston;

A new Neapolitan scoop of multiculturalism;

A diverse delicatessen;

A half-penned, unopened book;

An unfinished nook;

A ...
(to be continued)

The Art of Nothingness...

 

Faith

Under
            a steel white blanket,
            a decrepitly barren tree
            arcs its arthritic limbs

upward
             in childlike abandonment
             waiting—patiently—
             for spring.

             

Confidence

A red-feathered,
black-chested bird
stands poised on a
pale-yellow picket fence.

Rain beats the
earth senseless.

The bird remains
poised: puffing
its chest, arching
its back.

2 Boys on a Stoop

Hormones
brought them
here: to fatherhood.
…too young to drink, or
go to college,
or vote…
both their present-
day & their futures 
scream from the
playpen beside them:
unhappy, unsatisfied, and
unfulfilled…
they sit & listen, unsure
how to answer the call…

 

Under the Stage Lights

I can’t breathe!
Some vine has snaked its way
up my throat from my belly below;
it lays heavy on my tongue.

I’ve been here before:
abandoned by Confidence
in a last-minute ambush.
My heart punches mercilessly.
I fear it will break through, and flop,
like a fish, on the wooden floor.
My trembling hands clench together for
comfort, but find none.

At last I open my mouth to speak.
Out falls dead leaves.
The wobble in my voice is not vibrato;
nothing operatic unfolds.
...

I will try again tomorrow

Sunday Morning, After My New York Recital

Drenched—yet again— in failure
I rise from the ashes in holy strength
White, and red with determination
to untangle the beauty inside me.
I arise to be a Me I don’t yet hear or see.

Dead Flesh Erected on Walking Sticks

Click…
the sound of robots


Click, click…
the sound of imagination suffocating

                                                           
Click click-click…
the sound of existence waning      
     
                                              

Clickity-clickity-clickity-clickity-clickity, click…
the sound of brains decaying

Offices cloistered, phobic with
Bugged-eyed, severed-wrist zombies
Erected at electric boxed screens
Paying fruitless homage to unfulfilled dreams
Eight hours a day—eternal damnation. Stuffed

Between dingy-white pillars perch, as peacock tails,

The ignorant learnѐd : mere regurgitations of previous
Regurgitations of the esteemed regurgitated, feasting on incestuous
Vomit, segregated from society by empty, meaningless puffs,
Not knowing they are dead flesh erected on walking sticks

Pieced together with insanity’s glue

Click…

                                     

(1 John 4:18 "...But perfect love cast out fear...")

He lives in me like heartburn—
constant.
His seething chemicals clog
my air’s passage way;
all colors
turn gray.
His seed dominates
my emotions’egg;
together,
we conceive
Anxiety.
Come, Love,
sever this cord:
exorcise my demon-child.