I am Jonah in the belly of Leviathan
living only when the beast surfaces,
exchanging liquid grief, heavy air
for the unwanted gasps of new life.

I pray out of this belly for gills
and only the ocean hears my voice,  
It deepens and encompasses me,
its  waves billowing me in absolution.

The beast vomits me out to her caress,
a body of weeds penetrating to my soul.
I dream of sinking, my thoughts fainting,
lungs releasing their corruption.

I relax and the waters reject me.
It refuses me gills knowing
that land creatures were meant
to see only mountains and sky.

It was chanted for five Sabbaths in a row
in the small synagogue with the charred bimah,
ashes staining the tzitzits of the rebbe’s tallit,
as he raised his arms above his head, closed his eyes
and sang the first alaf of seven thousand dabars,
the oral memory passed down six generations,
a psalm for a hundred sabas and savtas,  
abbas and eemas, nursery rhymes for ben and bat,
stopping, receding, picked up again, one by one
from cantor to congregant in a low moan
until all nine hundred thousand silenced voices
of Treblinka sang in the knesset’s bright light.  
    

bimah-  lectern from which the Torah is unscrolled on
tzitzit- the knotted fringes of a Hebrew prayer shawl
tallit- a Hebrew prayer shawl worn by rabbis
alaf- the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet
dabar- Hebrew for word
saba- grandfather
savta- grandmother
abba- father
eema- mother
ben- son
bat- daughter
knesset- the members of a synagogue

1.   Greensboro boys at a counter
watch dead astronauts rain on Texas,
2. hear the scream of eight states  
being ripped from Hidalgo’s belly,
3. imagine themselves the first black hand
to cast a ballot in front of snarling mastiffs-
4.  Cochise chanting a war chant
in front of white captors-
5. A free Mexican crossing the Rio Grande-
6. the black Babe Ruth circling the bases-
7. a dark Sinclair Lewis accepting the Noble-
8. an Eagle Scout-
9. their fathers fighting in Guadalcanal,
10. receiving the Medal of Honor from FDR,
succeeding him as President,
11.  even Nelson Mandela blinking in the bright light,
12.  grateful no Lincolns need ever be born.

13. They paint American Gothics,
14. write Valentines to their sweets,
15. take the A-train,
16. score 30k dunks like Wilt the Stilt,
17. toil for minimum wage,
18. are jailed and freed a la the Chicago Seven,
19. speeding free in a T-bird singing Smokey Robinson,
20. imagining they’re Batman and Robin,
21. knowing their bodies will wash ashore on Zawiya,
22. no WEB Dubois,
23. just American casualties of Desert Storm,
24. wishing upon a star,
25. the nightmare that has Liston beat Clay,
26. nobodies never seeing the Grand Canyon,
27. never playing Ebony and Ivory on a Baby Grand,
28. everyone saying “Goodbye, farewell and amen”,
as the last episode of MAS*H fades off

29. as they die on the bonus day in February
no one wishes to be born on.
The day Gone With the Wind wins it all.


This is not only a February poem but also a black history month one as well.  Note the numbers 1-29 denote events that happened on that particular day in. February history.

In the shadow of Lincoln
he heard Mahalia shout out
“Tell them about the dream, Martin!
Tell them about the dream.”

He remembered the vision
and the words that came to him
on that long walk to freedom
on that 75 degree June Detroit day.

It was evident as the clear water
of the mall’s reflecting pool,
the Washington monument in front,
the declarations of Jefferson behind him.

He again heard Mahalia’s words sing in him,
the dream of 12 thousand 500 score faces,
wanting to listen, pleading to listen
but only Mahalia’s rising above this soul’s choir.

He pushed the papers to the lectern’s left
and his old preacher voice remembered Detroit,
Montgomery, Albany, Birmingham.
He rose, called to them and the mountains beyond.

Southern justice is the snake
that slithers up the tree
before the buzz
of  the lumberjack’s saw,
the duck of the head
to  fit it into the squad car,
the dark voice  
singing in a  dark cell
put on death row
before his trial,
convicted for the
color of his skin
before he was even born,
living everyday,
never hoping
for just mercy.

Remember the sky even though
it won’t remember you.

Know the constellations tales
even as they know not yours.

Remember the moon’s pull
despite its denying your shadow.

Remember the sun, the dawn even
as its novas your sight,
singes your memories
in forgetfulness, grief and time.

Remember the sunset,
that yields to night
that hardly embraces you.

Remember not your birth,
the maternal pains,
the gasps to your first breath,
the silent cursing of your first form.

Remember not your life’s mistakes,
your mother’s and hers.

Disperse them in the wind,
awaiting angels to hurl
them into the sun.

Remember not
your father’s indifference,
the times he chose
not to be a part of your life.

Remember the earth in all its colors
even as  it entombs everything.
that skins it.

Remember every plant, animal eaten;
the fallen tree that is your house frame
and every book you have read-

for their death and your life
is the child of every poem written
and consumed in the soul.

Remember the howl of the wind
in its indifference,
the universe’s deafness
that seems not to listen
or know you.

Remember that language,
your scream is the retort
to the universe’s grudge.

Shout “I remember”
even as it whispers
“I remember you not.”

December 3, 2019

She was displayed before me
with her eyes closed
and mouth agape,
leaving me to wonder whether
she died in terror or awe.

Was her last breath
the honest gurgle
I’ve been seeing
for the last few days,
that I took comfort
in hearing restart
every time I called her name
between bouts of irregular apnea
(our last little private game)-
or the silence caused by Benadryl?

All I know is that
the call came at 6 am
and I spent one hour with her
and then walked into
the last of the darkness
and the first of the light.

My first breath outside the hospital
stretched back thirty years
and each tear was
full of joy and sorrow,
the ash of memory.

By the time I got home
the long movie
I had shared with her
was over.

January 3, 2020

Now, hope fails me.
Grief is my truth.
Yet, I refuse to be
deluded by grief
nor abandon hope
one month since
your passing.

Your death was your
greatest gift to me
and now I must struggle
with how to live with it
and accept it kindly
because in the end
you folded your life into my timeline,
fitting everything and all neatly
between my cancer and cure.

For 10,604 days-29 years, 12 days
I am grateful  for the
joy only you(I) can embrace
the sorrow
just only you(I)  can endure.