I lift my camera unto thee for thou to bless that I might see I take the shot; I shall not dread but shoot o’er Bill’s giant head I look to thee, as he records the majesty my kit affords And by your light I get the shot Hot damn! This gear is really hot!…
Here is a poem I started in 1986 and never finished after getting feedback from the editor of a poetry journal. She was right, of course, but until now, I didn’t know how to finish it. Works-in-progress often take that — progress not in the work, but in the poet. On one level, it feels…
“Naw, I don’t get into jazz,” she said, finger popping, club hopping all the while. “I’m sure it’s fine but not my style. ‘Sides, can’t you see I’m dancing now? An’ what’s a coal train anyhow?” Club hopping, finger popping, all the while. Danced so fine, that gal of mine. Fake hair fling, brown flesh…
A common theme in my writing during the late 80s was Africanism, the flip side of which, I suppose, was Negroism. This was one of my favorite poems about Negrishness. It’s never been published anywhere before. Word. Met this cat name Luce other night on The Corner hunnet twenny-fif’ street an’ Lenox. He was just…
When I look back on my dusty, handwritten poems from my early days, I’m struck by three things. First, how bad some of them were. Second, that some of them–with minor improvement–aren’t bad at all. And third, always, how much race and ethnicity featured in my writing. It’s not so much that times have changed,…
Heat is the remnant of what has been A response of chemical signals It is merely radiant noise the mind tells when it hates silence. Light is the bringer of illusion, reflecting of what might be when what is has no gloss of its own. We’re given passionate songs and finger-spoken promises that light and…
I was never an artist. Not I, no sir. I was far too busy being an obedient sycophant in pursuit of the American dream that my handlers convinced me was my own. When my childish heart beat a syncopated timpani to the strokes of my pen, I did not sing its foolish rhythm. While wanton…
From November 2008: it happens in the mind long before you there were thoughts of you waiting I thought of your firm, round places that, begging for kisses, have awaited my touch chemistry from the start that will die within us our minds make love in ways they can’t understand and my dark places are…
Another poetry reading. Not sure how the sound became out of synch on YouTube, but oh well. Peace, babies.
My reading of a poem I wrote entitled “Lessons from a Zambian Road.” Be gentle, babies. It’s my first time.
The Artists' Sanctum 