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COLORED CHILD AT CARNIVAL

Where is the Jim Crow section
On this merry-go-round,
Mister, cause I want to ride?
Down South where I come from
White and colored
Can't sit side by side.
Down South on the train
There's a Jim Crow car.
On the bus we're put in the back--
But there ain't no back
To a merry-go-round!
Where's the horse
For a kid that's black?
 Dec 2013 Primrose Clare
Joey B
There was, still is, a tree in my front yard.
It’s made of oak, I think, but I don’t care.
I just remember when it died for me.
It was when he said he was leaving.

He opened the red front door and I saw it.  
It didn’t shield me from the bright light like it was supposed to.
The leaves parted and the light was blinding.
When I finally adjusted, I knew that he was gone.  

I watched as he was protected by shade, bathed in filtered light. His steps crunched leaves
Beneath black shoes with a sound I used to love.
The tree escorted him to his car with an inviting path while
Its branches did nothing to stop him.

After that I couldn’t listen.
I couldn’t hear the breeze I once remembered.
I hit the tree to knock it down. My knuckles bled, my forearms burned.
It just stood and I wished that it would hit me back.  

Then, I saw the backyard tree.
Knowing it would never betray me while aiding a hasty exit.
It would never cast a comfortable shade on an unexpected ending.
Its branches would comfort me when I needed help.

I sat beneath the backyard tree and felt a breeze
I used to know. A breeze I once remembered.
I felt the breeze remember me and
Wished that I felt nothing.
Vast and grey, the sky
is a simulacrum
to all but him whose days
and vast and grey, and—
In the tall, dried grasses
a goat stirs
with nozzle searching the ground.
—my head is in the air
but who am I . . ?
And amazed my heart leaps
at the thought of love
vast and grey
yearning silently over me.
The owl winged night is hanging low
in marshy fragrance moon's powdery glow
winds whisper day's sun tanned pain
what happened once can happen again!

The moon lights up the hidden hulls
some in view some within walls
there's no class in her beaming reach
by magic wand sleep the poor and rich!

On their thorny beds the aching souls
in feathery dew by glowing coals
their eyes moving in silvery gleam
fly on wings catch a passing dream!

It's time for the cloud to play mischief
darken the night usher in relief
to veil the moon when her job is done
so she no more hinders sleep's healing run!
Today I watched as dawn waters flowed,
And the never ending rays of sun were kisses upon a broken rose
It is the fate of a flower that plagues a widow's memory,
As she rocks back and forth in front of a dying tree
The grave inscribed with scornful years collects dust in an empty field,
Dandelions in the wind carrying voices of dead angels
Nobody can understand me
can understand my malady
nor is there a foolproof therapy
a curing remedy!

You talk about helping me
try to be friendly
it seems so silly
I'm an alien to my own family!

Can lift my surround mist
no psychiatrist
they really don't get
what's wrong and medicate!

Where I stand
won't reach your helping hand

I don't understand myself.

How can you be of any help?
her question, she is suffering from depression, factual.
Bones in the ashless fire
bright
from the growth of vitalic hands
from surpassing echo
of careless ground
letting all of the roads just
go
into the charging and dug-out
roads
as we walk in one body  
and the uncared for birds ate
with the cared for birds
lifting their heads up and down
in agreement
of shadow suns - sun’s shadow
the knuckled cocoons open
in the hemisphere’s grace  
that are not held back
by the dams that were fathers
to you
and the mothers eating their jammed crowns
of animalised peace
along with the ****
ha!
even they are cheered also, the hunters
of the field, arrows obliterating through eternity,
your heels creating, it
that song that tempers the cities reflection
returning mine
and season less unions inside,
desert storm, and warmed ice breathes
in toasts across seas
force open the laughing cage-

And the farm machine says:

“We will take more animals-
from you
tonight
we will
make you pay by the long tongue
of submissive crawl
and your livers
and liver brought
hum
by the hand-made knife
by the half-made, gesture

the horizons will laugh with boredom, at you  
pummelling dry, the mountains  
if you do not-

light!
LIGHT!
light...

(...//light.)”
...

throw ****** grunts like burping darts directly at the puddled lipped sky

run by, and through
the days of collapsing flesh
raining

Juggernauting mist!///

be unable to find sound

or sand hold

where the lights incept fog

and give it form,

be the crows in saliva
with no threat
as they fly by
between knife and bread
spewing cello grips
along the graffetied walls
of music
and moss burning teeth
in lines of paint  
into the secret wars
and charities
that nothing can touch
and the face at the end of that
brick’s
mind

is a welcome,
face

we walk by//////
sweeps that cannot
smell, themselves
at 5
a.m
fish shattering
by the entry
of our dive
into synapse blue - gulls bound to moon
the waves and the salt and ourselves
moments of dance
in conversation away from the roar
after the vermin
has roared
it’s last spittle
and has dispersed into low
figments
and the juice of that spittle
drapes over our shoulders
in curtainous glowing rocks

Come now junkerd star, trembling
gloats drooling with Cerberus' tears, through space
encountering unwashed books, and curving onyx lips
down hallow of easy river, of moor walk and gait
hares thump the ground of the fields, exchanging
the wilderness for sustenant flight, across it
up flow the silence as it reacts upon your gut
and sends sleep near lass and lad, back by a thousand hands of stars
into sewer skies of rats and eager swans,
growing from the dust of your gone fear,
the penultimate circles that cascade in the sleeplessness
of cigarette sounds and our waltzing vice
Hear Bound the stimulus! Of new sinewed blood
be the one trembling as the dwarf stars explode
into you, and our grips calm, sends them back
and are normal nights of coffeed jokes
sculpted from the clay of time
cascading outer vehicles driving along, the mocking hands glance,
and the hands of menace
ate artichokes
pealing plumes
and handing
one –
to you
the feet of your veins

pouring growth
of root
near mine
stopping only when

the roof top
is ripped clean//////////////

dry from every car, so that it settles
across naked architecture, giants in our hemoglobin
smile, the silhouettes, the wall, and the agonyless
streets, see our shadows standing to attention
devouring the suns toll-in the departure of our being

in the unwavering strikes of our dark hands upon the earth
that bring light to our iris, soaring,
It is this fortune that the soul gets to spend, only,
returning to the work, of life.
 Dec 2013 Primrose Clare
Gabriel
I’m running
Through a dense brush
Trees so thick I can’t see ahead
But daylight creeps in
Teasing me
Of salvation, with dehydration

I come to a clearing
Only to face desert
Blazing sun
Blaring noises
In my mind, driving me mad
Propelling my onward
Upward
Crashing back down

Arms outstretched
Soaring in my mind
Never leaving the ground
Feet aching, breathless and enduring
This fatigue

I think I can see the end
Just a line in the sand
This endless desert we cross
Until we close our eyes
That sleep we’ve been hiding from

Wake me up
Lace me up
Mess me up

I’ll just keep going
Until the daylight ends
Along with my lies
Across this terrain to your door

Fed up
Messed up
Please oh please
Knock knock
Open up
"Why one writes is a question I can never answer easily, having so often asked it of myself. I believe one writes because one has to create a world in which one can live. I could not live in any of the worlds offered to me – the world of my parents, the world of war, the world of politics. I had to create a world of my own, like a climate, a country, an atmosphere in which I could breathe, reign, and recreate myself when destroyed by living. That, I believe, is the reason for every work of art.
...
"We also write to heighten our own awareness of life. We write to lure and enchant and console others. We write to serenade our lovers. We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection. We write, like Proust, to render all of it eternal, and to persuade ourselves that it is eternal. We write to be able to transcend our life, to reach beyond it. We write to teach ourselves to speak with others, to record the journey into the labyrinth. We write to expand our world when we feel strangled, or constricted, or lonely … When I don’t write, feel my world shrinking. I feel I am in prison. I feel I lose my fire and my color. It should be a necessity, as the sea needs to heave, and I call it breathing."
('The New Woman', 1974)
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