The show is poetry in motion
even on the black canvas of the night
it remains a live showdown the stars
one that's hardly dark in the dark.

The fireflies fly through
highlighting in silver lines
that could barely shed new light
amid the spectator stars
eye on upon it from the far.

The sea in black in the night
billows with full of ink
only to wish to ink a beauty spot
above its forehead on a shining Moon-dew.

Looking down on it from the stars
the sea in black is bedewed with moonlight.
It’s not that there is no red no purple no colour
it's the garden of every morning's new sun
in bloom in the shady bud of the night.

Assume the employee smiles as you
wait in line for a sanitized shopping cart.
Assume she has slight imperfections
in her front teeth as you do.
Tiny chips from hard candy mishaps
back in the early 2000s
that you choose to notice while
you examine your mouth in the mirror.
Assume that they're eyes are telling the truth--
they didn't wake up with a fever this morning,
and neither did the lady or her four kids behind you.
Assume by their relaxed body language
that we're all still safe from something we can't see.
Assume that since your own smile is naked,
somehow, you'll get out of this public place untouched.
It feels like you do. You hope, anyway.
Assume that the governor knows what's best when he says
"It is suggested that all citizens wear facemasks,
regardless if they're showing symptoms."
You put the peanut butter in the cupboard
and the paper plates on the counter.
You wash your hands for twenty seconds,
singing "Happy Birthday" twice, just like they said.
You touch your face because you assume you're clean.
Assuming your own risk, you pick up your phone and
in a rigid, robotic fashion, your search begins.
Assume you will see "out of stock" and "due to high demand,"
and assume that you will come up empty-handed, again.
You find her though,
a young girl who has made hundreds face masks to sell
on her online shop.
She asks you to select your pattern,
and as I scan my choices,
I imagine what would accompany my feverish face the best.
"Cats," I say to her through a series of clicks.
"Cats, and I think, I'll take the one with roses too."

i don't remember the name of your city anymore.
just that it's 4,483 miles away and i sent you my
sweater in the post four... five years ago.

for seven months we were each others' shoulder to lean on, had each others' arms to fall into,
eyes to get lost inside.

i still remember the way you'd hide your face in your hands every time i looked at you for a second too long
through the blurry webcam.

i still hear your giggle and the way you'd ask why i look at you like that, and the way i'd say it's because
i was in love with you.

the way you'd say 'i love you' and i'd say it back.

it's been years since i wrote about you.
the last time i did, i wondered if either of us fell off
the face of the earth, would we ever know?

and tonight, i write this with a smile,
a little bit of pain and regret,
and my mind going what if, what if, what if.

you showed me what love means even across continents,
even though we knew we'd never really
be able to hold each other,
even though we knew it would end.

distance.
it's what brought us together,
what set us apart,
and what finally broke our hearts.

Six-feet between me and
forty-six vignettes of adventurous times.
The slick, shiny gloss used to put a sheen
on moments made for smiling.
Now, ancient beaches and haunting deserts,
where my footprints are planted,
are a dream I fight to remember
after the alarm sounds.
Aches for lost chances of overpriced
airport snacks
and shared glances with strangers
seem to slowly construct "fun's" obituary
on the bored corners of my mind.
But I wait, six-feet away,
to relive it all anyway.
Six-feet between me and some one-hour photos.
Six-feet between me and a graveyard of freedoms.

Black is power
Power is black
400 years of pain and torture
Bodies Confined in ghettos
Government planted drugs
Drug stores on every ghetto corner
owned by white owners
Guns and violence labeled communities
Living in fixed income homes
Kings and Queens with no thrown
Facing poverty, while chasing a fantasy
Crime becomes vital as it is part of reality
Malcolm tried to save them, so they had to take him
Martin was also taken by an assassin
Society labels blacks as superior athletes
but fails to applaud our superior mindsets
Education in our bloodlines
Look at what the Egyptians accomplished
Voices of the numb taken to regret-filled coffins
Rosa Parks sat down so we could stand up for civil justice
What is justice?
Freedom or is it just a word for acceptance
These are words for young Kings and Queens
You are more than a statistic
your skin shade doesn't determine your worth  
your mindset controls the narrative
so don't let society control it
For the racist, I pray you learn to resist
The urge to hurt us, label us, or control us
Because our black minds will never be boxed

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.