Freeway overpass–
Blossoms in graffiti on
fog-wrapped June mornings
M.R. Collins
The morning paper
harbinger of good and ill
— I step over it
D. McCroskey
They’ve gone…
Where the beach umbrella was
the sand not quite so hot
Dhugal Lindsay
Quiet around the point; ducks;
up down birches
helicopter
Thomas Grieg
The summer river;
Although there is a bridge, my horse
goes through the water
Shiki Masaoka
ONE FOR ALL NEWBORNS
By Thylias Moss
They kick and flail like crabs on their backs.
Parents outside the nursery window do not believe
they might raise assassins or thieves, at the very worst.
a poet or obscure jazz Musician whose politics
spill loudly from his horn.
Everything about it was wonderful, the method
of conception, the gestation, the womb opening
in perfect analogy to the mind’s expansion.
[…]
Woohoo!
‘Contemporary Black American poets’ came in the post.
From New Orleans Public Library- Algiers Point. They got it in 1995.
Here is one funny piece of a poem from Thylias Moss.
((TRIGGER warning-sexual assault/rape.))
Moss had “beautiful, laughing speech” – like Yeats said of Blake’s says Harold Bloom.
“Doubts during Catastrophe.”
“No better time to recall God’s fascination
with his image. He put something of himself
in every creation. When he was tired
he made lazy idiots. When he had hiccups
he made tumbleweeds. When he needed a twin
he made Adam. And whenever he needed to
he watched Adam seduce Eve. And when once Eve refused
God’s eyebrows raised , merged and flew off, a caracara
seeking carrion. And then there was wrath. ‘Vengeance
is mine’ he said. And then there was his seduction
of Mary who had to submit, could not disobey the Lord.”
Harold Bloom comments:
“”Here the black congregation exemplifies the saddest truth that this poetic visionary intuits about her people’s intense resort to faith:
“Our shouting, our jubilation scares the ominous into
crouching behind our ribs where it intercepts what
would best serve us if it reached our hearts.”
That is so bleak an intimation that only masterly language saves it from being unbearable as a truth.””
Awesome poetry from all over. 