African American Poets

February 8, 2010

“Driving Under the Full Wolf Moon” by Martha Modena Vertreace-DoodyPosted by

Martha Modena Vertreace-Doody

DRIVING UNDER THE FULL WOLF MOON

The car grows colder with each no-turn-over
the engine gives to your key—
                                              this—and snow
scatters like rags across the parking lot kept bright all day
with our headlights.
                               A hook-and-ladder wails
down Woodlawn Avenue chasing fire which waits for the end

to come one way or another.
                               Wind chill factor. Eggnog lattes.
Some nights I lie next to you
as you sleep, your eyelids flutter like butterflies
over zinnias in our summer garden.
But in January, the Wolf Moon,
                                             the Snow Moon, lurks

behind the honey locust, his gold
                              melting on us between thin slats

of the half-open blinds.
Rain darkens the firs where we wait for a jump—drizzle
late afternoon into the evening,
                              then wet snow. Wind
in the Christmas lights still hanging off the church roof—

the days beyond winter solstice
last longer. You wonder why rain
                                              does not clean our car,
just redefines the dirt streaks. I tell you about salt, oil, wax—
the whole nine yards of ways
                              we invent to kill each other.

—from Rattle #31, Summer 2009
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February 6, 2010

“Ain’t Gonna Play Sun City” by Patricia SmithPosted by

Patricia Smith

AIN’T GONNA PLAY SUN CITY

Sun City Resort, Bophuthatswana,
South Africa 1994

Slash on the horizon, shameless throne
of skin and gimme, the behemoth
relentlessly winks and rises from
Bophuthatswana’s dull copper dust.
In its wake, roads burp sudden shanties,
grimy boys mournfully consider
the blur of traffic. Roadside vendors
hawk sugarcane, sticks of dried kudu.
Billboards bellow their gilt deceptions:
You’re just steps away from your fortune!
Win up to 25,000 rand!
Bullet monorails blitz the border
of this drooping Vegas, where neon,
damned insistent upon perkiness,
blazes at noon. The privileged pale
gape and gamble, grin into the sleek
eeriness of patent-polished shoes.
They stumble into sticky theaters
to sweat out the formidable plot
of Tongue Love, gobble greasy whitefish
and hacked white potatoes, hoard their chips—
all part of the gold organized fun.
Black folks, bused in at dawn from the camps,
bustle about in much-bleached cotton,
sweep stench from faux Oriental carpets,
hawk tokens and convince the revelers
they are having the time of their lives.

Her skin aflame in the merriment,
Ruth fights sleep in her booth. Stooped peddler
of scratch-and-scratch-and scratch one more time,
she is circled by tossed-off tickets,
cups of dying ice, losers’ spittle.
Chemical hair rides high on her head.

Hey, look out! It’s the bogus earthquake!
The ground shakes, crevices sputter steam,
columns of flame climb toward their deadline.
Miles from the Sun, a family runs
from their pock-roofed shack. Chills sculpt their awe
as the computerized inferno
erupts in its measured orange rumba.
The grandmother runs for her battered
bucket, draws water by the false light,
tilts up her face, shivers, praises God.
She knows not to question miracles.
Listen. Her rotting teeth click like dice.

—from Rattle #31, Summer 2009
Tribute to African American Poets

__________

Patricia Smith: “Back in 1994, I traveled to South Africa for the first all-inclusive elections, and took a regrettable but mesmerizing trip to Sun City, which is as glittering, overwrought and insidiously icky as the brochures suggest. In this poem, I tried to poke through the bling-bling veneer to reveal some of the commercial nastiness that makes the place such a travesty. Oh, and my name’s Patricia Smith, I’m now 53, and I’m having a kickass year.” (website)

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February 3, 2010

“Overheard at Starbucks: A Black Hat Saying” by Lynne ThompsonPosted by

Lynne Thompson

OVERHEARD AT STARBUCKS: A BLACK HAT SAYING

you can’t be sure, can you—am I Father Time, the ghost of North by Northwest or your sister in drag? Even though your wallet’s been blessed by the Church of Luck be a Lady, no one will tell you and your heart is in your throat because I’m so beguiling/so confusing/so sad-white-poverty train on a Sunday afternoon when you’ve just dropped in for a decaf latte with cocoa shavings and to tickle the ATM. Don’t you wish your Father was here? Of course, He couldn’t help you—He doesn’t know the damned from piss-soup either! Can’t be sure, huh? Suppose I hack off my dreads? Wouldn’t matter—I’m your new job or your ole man with a new job or your lost pappy finally come home and you know you’ve always liked the nickel slots! Betcha, by golly, wow! Don’t know, do you, you saucy wench—but you pays your lira and you takes your chances and what’s the worst: that I’m a door knob—a seedy waterfront? Like you ain’t been there before! C’mon, seize my paw for a good time, pretty lady, because just what does saying oh Christ mean?

—from Rattle #31, Summer 2009
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February 1, 2010

“Civil Rights Cold Case #62 (Or the Yellow Dress)” by Lolita Stewart-WhitePosted by

Lolita Stewart-White

CIVIL RIGHTS COLD CASE #62 (OR THE YELLOW DRESS)

Mattie Green, a domestic worker and mother of five
was killed in 1960 when a dynamite blast ripped
through her home. Her murder was never solved.

Your favorite yellow dress is what you wore the night
before you died. The one with the hand-stitched,
blood-red roses, passed on to you by Miss Cora Lee,
the well-to-do white lady who you did days work
for until she took sick and passed. Sunday evening
you slipped into its cool fabric, after a hard day
of shelling peas, cooking greens, and baking biscuits
for the five miniature versions of yourself. Daddy raved.
Said, “You put your foot in that meal, girl.”
You threw your head back and laughed out loud.
Spun around in the dress that complimented your dusty
red skin. None of us knowing then that it is what we
would bury you in.

—from Rattle #31, Summer 2009
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January 28, 2010

“The Hour of Our Belief” by Mary Mclaughlin SlechtaPosted by

Mary McLaughlin Slechta

THE HOUR OF OUR BELIEF

I want to know who cried for the toy I found out back this afternoon.
Was it the same child who ate a sandwich made from the bread
out of the plastic bag I found last week? So difficult to date plastic.
The toy gas pump promises five cents a gallon.
That would make a dollar’s worth about a tank.
Maybe 1960. Maybe a politician now. Small world.
Someone who keeps voting for war to save our way of life.
The Onondagas want the land returned to their stewardship.
They want the lake cleaned properly.
They want everything back the way it was
before that odious Simon LeMoyne grabbed all the salt
for his three-minute egg. Before his flock fouled the water.
I want everything put back. The toy put back in the boy’s pocket
and the boy’s father back on a ship beside his parents.
I want the ship setting a reverse course for the shores of Europe.
Before they arrive I want Hitler back in his mother’s womb
and the reset stone in her garden wall
back in the path of her thin-soled slipper.
The passengers will insist on sandwiches, I suppose,
lovely little sandwiches wrapped in paper.
If they trim the bread, let them leave the crusts behind
to feed the birds a lavish supper. Then let the birds go back
to eating whatever it is they did before McDonald’s.
I’ll go back too, a circuitous route by wagon first,
returning my skillet to the forge, my rolling pin to the forest,
discharging my nose and hair like a Halloween mask,
my skin like a suit of mail: a withered champion,
at last, more onion and potato than flesh and bone,
ascending the bow of a ship from the cool dry cellar of my soul.
Oh, amazing grace! To cross the dangerous shoals
where the bones sing home all the ships at sea.
Let the women swallow back air they churned to storm.
Let them refill the lungs of children
they pull from waves and wrest their husbands
from the teeth of sharks. In the restored calm,
let memory whet my tongue
for the anchor of my mother’s food.
On shore, my father waits.
His hands are empty with missing me.
Let the glint at his feet in the sand
be only the sun, chasing the tail
of a golden worm.

—from Rattle #31, Summer 2009
Tribute to African American Poets

__________

Mary Mclaughlin Slechta: “As I restored the soil of my city garden, each token of former human activity became a little mystery. I also thought a lot about the much abused Onondaga Lake we can almost see from the back window and the Onondaga land claim that embraces the lake as well as this poorly treated land. This poem is dedicated to all of us moved and removed, but mostly to the long, juicy worms that have wiggled back from who knows where.”

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January 26, 2010

“For the Man Whose Son My Son Killed” by Gary Earl RossPosted by

Gary Earl Ross

FOR THE MAN WHOSE SON MY SON KILLED

You must understand this: my son
called me after his first firefight,
distraught that he had taken life
when I had taught him to cherish it.
He called me, said he felt weird
and needed to talk to somebody.
Who better than the father who
carried him in a backpack, read
him a bedtime story each night,
and would always love him?
I’m here, I said. Tell me about it.
He did, and I listened, offering
mmm-hmms and yesses and words
of comfort when his voice caught.

Afterward he felt better and returned
to his duties in this dubious war.
Meanwhile, I was relieved he had
survived another day of the insanity.
On his second tour his vehicle hit a
roadside bomb. Bleeding from his
eyes because of a concussion, he flew
to the military hospital in Germany and
later came home. Again I was relieved.
Today, on the first leg of his third trip
to the Twilight Zone we’ve made of
your home, he called. I was glad to hear
his voice. Glad every damn time, ever-
terrified your experience will be mine.

Later, when NPR broadcast a wailing
Iraqi father who’d lost two sons in this
chaos, I thought of you for the first time,
wondered if you were that father. It was
purely chance that your son aimed at mine
and mine squeezed off an auto-burst first.
Two—no, three fathers in agony because
our leaders are all fools. Still, someone
should recognize your pain. I do, sir,
and so does my son, himself a father.
We are both sorry for your loss.

—from Rattle #31, Summer 2009
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January 23, 2010

“A Guide for Black and White Crossing” by Katy RicheyPosted by

Katy Richey

A GUIDE FOR BLACK AND WHITE CROSSING

The hardest part about
being a zebra
is crossing the river.

Quick or slow,
dip a hoof or plunge it in—
the result is the same.

One way is to set yourself at the edge.
Don’t charade or face pose, simply giraffe your neck,
keep your head tortoised and pinching,

flex your haunches and believe.
Believe you are meant to be wet.
No predator dares taste the reconciled.

Presume the current is fortuned
to carry you. Know this is only travel—
That the water is better off for each striped swirl of you.

—from Rattle #31, Summer 2009
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