Words
Viewer’s Choice
Those who can afford tickets
to the theater, opera,
savoring the culture
of a city of prosperity,
where millions skimp on meals,
worry about their children
denied opportunity
because of poverty,
tormented...
Disassembled
4 wallsSurrounded and safe like a fly in a cupConfused and lost beyond wordsA hideous reminder of what we could be.Had we taken that...
When Everything Falls Away
This is the place of the dead.
Smooth, square, polished stones stand in a meadow.
There are names carved on these stones
As if to say, “This...
Reflections on Baking
Who knew the pecans float to the top ofthe pie? Who knew —When a knife comesclean it is done?
While I recordthat the sun is making a...
Cold Night
I see him, maybe a 100 yds off, drunkenly moving from car to car checking to see if anyone left a door unlocked. Nope....
While Your Parents Danced
in the next room, their heels
skimming over dark oak
to Sinatra and Como and Bennett
crooning from the dusty stereo,
we lay in your small bed, sheets
thrown...
Summer Time
I can’t think about summer enough.
The gooey melancholy warm inside me like
FAT Krinkle-Kut French Fries dipped in ketchup
In between pool games and juke box...
the form of a tempest
and sometimes it doesn’t rhyme but just seeps out like effluent washing over the cobbled streets of a town you’ve never been to and stumbling, burdened with the mannerisms of my father’s...
An Ode to the Sounds of Blackness
When Ray Charles asked, “Come live with me and won’t you be my love?” Gladys said she’s leaving to be with him On a midnight train...
Turnaround
One hundred and eightyDegree turnaroundMade several timesIn one lifetime—
From numbers runner and burglarBreaking into mansions of moneyed White menTo writer and Muslim messengerReaching into...
