#jamesbaldwin
What’s the difference between hate and love
When they are two sides of the same blade.
Sharpened brandished waving wildly in ghost columns
against the disfigured, burning-white face of abrasion.
Then,
march home with square, taut shoulders – slightly bony –
Body swelled and puffed with
the blood-red energy of something desperate to naked pairs
ramming themselves against each other in an effort to
release.
These colorless concepts, abstract words
that hang in the air the same as
smoke-rings – ghost columns.
Could it give You a religion;
a belief that there is some guiding force in the universe
binding the two of you together by
touch, smell, scratching, grinding --
And he and You quelled
each other’s pleading prayers within
the folds of each muscles
the steeple of each elbow,
the hollow of each throat.
Some spiritualists call this the Kundalini – feel this world through a material base
A Love religion – fixing body and body together
because it’s the one thing that seems to make sense in this crude moment
when the ashes settled to fossilize inside
His and Yours brains.
“My God. His chest, his belly,
the riding and the falling, the moans.
How he clung to me, how he struggled --
Life and death! Life and death!”
The circle of arms is the gateway
to some emotional dry-heave:
the swelling, purging, and crashing
of grief, rage, love, and comfort
those same abstract, colorless concepts
teetering on the edge of a beaten-down slave gospel.
We can give our vegetables a gender:
Female onions. Peel only when ripe then
ferment in a closed plastic bottle.
Color sensations that can only pass between illuminated palms on an
angry evening.
Shakespeare’s Gloucester could only see this world feelingly, woman:
How will you cope after being blinded by his tears?
And when the ream is spent, write a poem on the back.
After your limbs searched for each other after years gone, searched underneath the covers for a comforting hand that could save the loneliness from shaking your souls out of your bodies?
When limbs stretched forward to hold both bodies together,
the backbones that ****** you both pressed against the skin --
The very skin that ****** you, too.
That dream baby bearing the handprint of his ghost --
his skin on your skin on baby skin
Against undifferentiated dark, it may glow beneath the cradle’s mobile.
“Another illegitimate black baby.” Let’s call it Smoke and Mirrors for maybe just a second.
Don’t pay attention to the swerve of small-town eyes.
Then, we can see the light through the parenthesis.
Call it the ghost of his Love. The ghost of meat love. Delirious brilliance.
Ghost of mouth-on-the-screen-door Love.
The same taste of nickels, of iron, of blood --
Leave the porchlight on if you want him to find his way back.
Hang the water-filled jar from the tree to ward away the evil ghosts.
Light it, love it, leave it. Light it, love it, leave it.
Who’s going to guide the insect-feelers
to the light
on the nights
When words split, scatter, and sift
into labor-streaked pyramids between these fingers?
Now do you know where you are? We see a little farther now, a little farther still.
Staked in fury, can we recognize red ants on a red ant hill, now?
Shrouded in a glory-cloud, at least you knew you fit somewhere.
As Women, We know the gospel well. A little farther now and a little farther still.
The maddening dances around *** and Song – it is possible for the rest of Us to understand
and know how You’ve been bleeding.
Dec 18, 2014
Dec 18, 2014 at 3:55 AM UTC
While the mother crow cries
over the dead bodies
of her children
the doves fly away
as if the murdering of crows
is not any kind of crime
as the doves
see evil
hear evil
protect evil
The crows heart
a constant target
of the doves violence
Who's next?
Whose name is destined for hashtags and ******
how many lives
will it take
before the hate
and fear
in the doves heart
bleeds out
The deadline of
the life of a crow
is drawn by the jeweled crown
of loathing the dove wears
on its head
and the fear inside
the loaded gun
of the doves eye
and the hate beating
wildly beneath its wings
and blindly in its heart
Hope is a heavy burden
under the pounding
blood red sky
Where the doves
practice ******
more often than
they protect the peace
As the oath has changed
to protect and serve
their own kind
and lady justice
has been blinded
by a white wash
of white lies
And the murdering of crows
goes on...
and on...
and on...
While the living
can wait their turn
to be murdered
and crucified
and martyred
on the next hashtag
while serving their time
from inside the freedom
they have behind the bars
of the cage of poverty
and there is always
more room for another
and another
and another
inside the skin
of the prison cell life
they were born in
The crow is suspected guilty
until pronounced dead
and its innocence
is nothing the doves
cannot beat out of it
even after it is already dead
as the color
of the doves guilt
is judged to be
more pure than
a corpse with
a crows dead heart
no matter the weight
of its innocence
and the murdering of crows
goes on...
and on...
and on...
While the feathers
of the doves wing
spread out sharp like knives
with a seemingly
bottomless hunger
for the heart of the crows
and we lower the body
of another martyr
into the earth
how much longer
will we allow
the murders of crows
to walk free
as if the murdering of crows
is not a crime
the doves can bury
the body of a crow
after crow
(one after another and another)
but never their songs
never their names
never their hearts
and the dead will speak
for the living
as long as the living
never forget the dead
one day the crows
are going to rise up
over the black asphalt
city skyline
singing into the
blood red sky
hearts crowned
with fire and hope
flying high and free
flying over
the mountain tops
singing of the
promised land
singing for the dead
but not forgotten
singing words
of flame
and poetry
singing for
freedom
and unity
carrying the weight of hope
and hope is a heavy burden
we all must carry into tomorrow
and tomorrow
or tomorrow will never
be better than today
we must always lift our dreams
with love and hope
and one day may we find
our way over the mountain top
and into the land of promise
where birds of every feather
are free to fly in a sky
without violence
and fear
and hate
where tomorrow is a river
flowing into a better today
Feb 18, 2019
Feb 18, 2019 at 2:22 PM UTC