Category Archives: Uncategorized

Robley Wilson Jr. The Opera- Love lost.

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Robley Wilson Jr.

The Opera

I regret the going back
to old places— the streets
that are made into freeways,
the plazas and airfields
named after great men who
were alive when we loved.

It is as if by stopping
our attentions to each other
we set something heartless
in motion— that you redid
the world, that I altered
its common names to hide you.

Now that you are lost to me,
I believe I never took you
to hear Rimsky-Korsakov—
you wearing your white dress
with the hot orange shapes
I called kisses-in-the-snow.

Have You Got a Brook in your Little Heart.

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Beautiful.

Have You Got a Brook in your Little Heart.

Have you got a brook in your little heart,
Where bashful flowers blow,
And blushing birds go down to drink,
And shadows tremble so?

And nobody knows, so still it flows,
That any brook is there;
And yet your little draught of life
Is daily drunken there.

Then look out for the little brook in March,
When the rivers overflow,
And the snows come hurrying from the hills,
And the bridges often go.

And later, in August it may be,
When the meadows parching lie,
Beware, lest this little brook of life
Some burning noon go dry.

Emily Dickinson.

Bits of time and sound by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond. A poet hidden and then almost lost!

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Beautiful!

[…]

I am the rails on which the moment passes,
The megaphone for many words and voices:
I am the graph diagram,
Composite face.

[…]

I am the man they call the nation’s backbone,
Who am boneless – playable castgut, pliable clay:
The Man they label Little lest one day
I dare to grow.

I am the led, the easily-fed,
The tool, the not-quite-fool,
The would-be-safe-and-sound,
The uncomplaining, bound,
The dust fine-ground,
Stone-for-a-statue waveworn pebble-round

Arthur Seymour John Tessimond

And in the correct order:

The Man In The Bowler Hat

I am the unnoticed, the unnoticable man:
The man who sat on your right in the morning train:
The man who looked through like a windowpane:
The man who was the colour of the carriage, the colour of the mounting
Morning pipe smoke.
I am the man too busy with a living to live,
Too hurried and worried to see and smell and touch:
The man who is patient too long and obeys too much
And wishes too softly and seldom.

I am the man they call the nation’s backbone,
Who am boneless – playable castgut, pliable clay:
The Man they label Little lest one day
I dare to grow.

I am the rails on which the moment passes,
The megaphone for many words and voices:
I am the graph diagram,
Composite face.

I am the led, the easily-fed,
The tool, the not-quite-fool,
The would-be-safe-and-sound,
The uncomplaining, bound,
The dust fine-ground,
Stone-for-a-statue waveworn pebble-round

 

http://vimeo.com/70885550 a radio recording of himself reading a poem.

http://thefilter.blogs.com/thefilter/asj_tessimond/

 

In Canterbury Cathedral

Trees, but straighter than birches, rise to the sky
Of stone. Their branches meet in the sky of stone.
Stone fountains leap and meet: their traceries are
As light as lace. These prayers of stone were prayed
To a God I can’t believe in, but were made
By Man, men almost gods, in whom I can
Believe: were made as strong, to last as long
As time. I stare and pray to Man alone.

 

[…] leave as your final legacy
A box double-locked by the spider
Packed with your unsolved problems

‘The Children Look at the Parents’

Spring Haikus by Issa – Japanese poet.

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Early spring –                                From the bough
stream flows                                 floating downriver,
toward my door                            insect song.

In spring rain
A pretty girl
yawning.

Face of the spring moon –
About twelve years old,
I’d say.

The cricket
proudly pricks up its whiskers
and sings

My spring is just this:
a single bamboo shoot,
a willow branch

Moist spring moon –
raise a finger
and it drips.

The spring day
Lingers
In the pools.

Blossoms at night,
and the faces of people
moved by music.

 

A world of trials,
and if the cherry blossoms,
it simply blossom

 

Moon, plum blossoms,
this, that,
and the day goes.

Not very anxious
to bloom,
my plum tree

The new year arrived
in utter simplicity –
and a deep blue sky

People working fields,
from my deepest heart, I bow.
Now a little nap.

Before I arrived,
who were the people living here?
Only violets remain.

 

Black History- Poetry. John Agard celebrates the British Anthem!

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Alternative Anthem

Put the kettle on
Put the kettle on
It is the British answer
to Armageddon.

Never mind taxes rise
Never mind trains are late
One thing you can be sure of
and that’s the kettle, mate.

It’s not whether you lose
It’s not whether you win
It’s whether or not
you’ve plugged the kettle in.

May the kettle ever hiss
May the kettle ever steam
It is the engine
that drives our nation’s dream.

Long live the kettle
that rules over us
May it be limescale free
and may it never rust.

Sing it on the beaches
Sing it from the housetops
The sun may set on empire
but the kettle never stops.”
― John Agard, Alternative Anthem: Selected Poems

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He has a twinkle in his eye!

Black History: The World is Your Body. “Teaching My Mother to Give Birth” by Warsan Shire

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London’s first young poet laureate!!!

Teaching My Mother to Give Birth by Warsan Shire:

“later that night
i held an atlas in my lap
ran my fingers across the whole world
and whispered
where does it hurt?”

it answered
everywhere
everywhere
everywhere.”
― Warsan Shire

USED: http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=11212527987
NEW: http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781905233298

Poems about The Body. Black poet Sterling A. Brown- Ma Rainey. Will pierce your heart.

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Professor Sterling Brown, Duke Ellington, G Frederick Stanton– http://www.howard.edu/msrc/treasures_howardiana_vips-honorees.html

Poems about The Body. Black poet Sterling A. Brown- Ma Rainey.

[…]
I talked to a fellow, an’ the fellow say,
“She jes’ catch hold of us, somekindaway.
She sang Backwater Blues one day:

‘It rained fo’ days an’ de skies was dark as night,
Trouble taken place in de lowlands at night.

‘Thundered an’ lightened an’ the storm begin to roll
Thousan’s of people ain’t got no place to go.

‘Den I went an’ stood upon some high ol’ lonesome hill,
An’ looked down on the place where I used to live.’

An’ den de folks, dey natchally bowed dey heads an’ cried,
Bowed dey heavy heads, shet dey moufs up tight an’ cried,
An’ Ma lef’ de stage, an’ followed some de folks outside.”

Dere wasn’t much more de fellow say:
She jes’ gits hold of us dataway.

23_huarchives_sterling_brown

Black History- Poems about The Body. Calvin Forbes, “Picture of a Man”

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Poems about The Body. Calvin Forbes, Black poet- “Picture of a Man”

He draws a man,
bright swirls of red.
And I say give me a tree.
He points to the middle
of his red and says
“there’s a tree!”
Tonight without complaining
he goes off to sleep
asking why in his story book
the big boats have little
boats. He shouts
goodnight: I ask if he wants
the lights out-

he says no, that he can’t see
without the light.
A different excuse than
last night when he was plain scared.
Later I turn off the light-
his face soft as a breast.
And I know then what another man
meant when he said
maybe I could have loved
better
but couldn’t have loved more.
I thought of a woman like that once.
This child is all I have left…

—–

BUY:
USED: http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?an=calvin+forbes&kn=poetry&sts=t
NEW: http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780807126660

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/calvin-forbes

“Calvin Forbes teaches writing, literature, and jazz history at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago. Blues and jazz inform both the rhythm and content of his poetry. He often uses ballads to tell family stories or the ups and downs of romance. But Forbes updates the tradition with surreal techniques, epigrammatic humor, and changing voices. He described his work as “simplicity shacked up with complexity.” His first book, Blue Monday, appeared in 1974 and his most recent, The Shine Poems, a book that resurrects the African-American folk character, was issued in 2001.”Image

Black History- poems about your body. Waring Cuney- No images.

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Black History Month- poems about your body.

She does not know
her beauty,
she thinks her brown body
has no glory.

If she could dance
naked
under palm trees
and see her image in the river,
she would know.

But there are no palm trees
on the street,
and dish water gives back
no images.

Waring Cuney- No images.

“He is best known for his poem “No Images”, which won first prize in the 1926 Opportunity poetry contest. The poem was later used by jazz singer/pianist/songwriter Nina Simone on her 1966 album Let It All Out.”

“William Waring Cuney, “No images” from Storefront Church, published in 1973 by Paul Breman Limited. After exhaustive efforts have been made to identify and contact a rights holder, this material is believed to be in the public domain.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6vZwsJu7co

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/william-waring-cuney

http://www.aaregistry.org/historic_events/view/waring-cuney-poet-harlem-rennissance

 

“He is the consummate artist when it comes to drawing vivid sketches of character with brevity and clarity of words. Cuney, as he was better known among his contemporaries, is often referred to either as one of the minor poets of the Harlem Renaissance or one of the “second echelon” poets of the New Negro Movement. However, among his contemporaries he was considered one of the favorites of the Renaissance group.”

 

Black History– poems about the body and freedom. This one is by Weldon J. Irvine.

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Black History– poems about the body and freedom. This one is by Weldon J. Irvine.

Young, gifted, and black
Oh what a lovely precious dream.
To be young, gifted, and black
Open your heart to what I mean.
In the whole world you know
There’s a million boys and girls
Who are young, gifted, and black
And that’s a fact!

You are young, gifted, and black
We must begin to tell our young,
“There’s a world waiting for you.
Yours is the quest that’s just begun.
When you’re feeling real low
There’s a great truth that you should know
When you’re young, gifted, and black
Your soul’s intact!”

Ah to be young, gifted, and black
Oh how I’ve longed to know the truth.
There are times when I look back
And I am haunted by my youth.
But my joy of today
Is that we can all be proud to say,
“To be young, gifted, and black
Is where it’s at! Is where it’s at! Is where it’s at!”

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3OIfuVpocU&feature=kp

Nina Simone’s rendition.

 

The Tropics of New York by Claude McKay in 2014 Black History Month’s last days.

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For love of all hot dusty roads, and our childhood memories, The Tropics of New York by Claude McKay in 2014 Black History Month’s last days. Thinking of Jamaica.

Bananas ripe and green, and ginger root
Cocoa in pods and alligator pears,
And tangerines and mangoes and grape fruit,
Fit for the highest prize at parish fairs,

Sat in the window, bringing memories
of fruit-trees laden by low-singing rills,
And dewy dawns, and mystical skies
In benediction over nun-like hills.

My eyes grow dim, and I could no more gaze;
A wave of longing through my body swept,
And, hungry for the old, familiar ways
I turned aside and bowed my head and wept.

I am a Black Woman, Tall as a Cypress- Mari Evans. Black History Month.

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I am a Black Woman

I am a black woman
the music of my song
some sweet arpeggio of tears
is written in a minor key
and I
can be heard humming in the night
Can be heard
humming
in the night

I saw my mate leap screaming to the sea
and I/with these hands/cupped the lifebreath
from my issue in the canebrake
I lost Nat’s swinging body in a rain of tears
and heard my son scream all the way from Anzio
for Peace he never knew….I
learned Da Nang and Pork Chop Hill
in anguish
Now my nostrils know the gas
and these trigger tire/d fingers
seek the softness in my warrior’s beard

I am a black woman
tall as a cypress
strong
beyond all definition still
defying place
and time
and circumstance
assailed
impervious
indestructible
Look
on me and be
renewed

 

Black History Month- poetry. The Source of the Singing by Marilyn Nelson Waniek

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The Source of the Singing

[…]
Under everything this movement,
stars and wind circle around the smaller
circles of the grass, and the birds caged
in the kitchen sing it over and over,
inexplicably in their sweet chirps.

I feel it like sometimes like today
somewhere in my torso, perhaps
sweet in the belly; this must be
what carrying a child is like.
I sit at the table and feel something
move with the pain of just before tears.
What is it the body says to me,
these tender aches that make me glad?
Not even one syllable is clear,
but if you were near I would tell you,
and you might lay your hand where the talking
starts and the pain, where my life
is still moving[…]
and push your warmth into mine,
here, into the source of singing.

Marilyn Nelson Waniek

Black History Month- poetry.

Black History Month- poetry. Whispers in the Country Church by Alvin Aubert

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Photos by: unknown and from corridors magazine.org

Alvin_&__Eugene

Photo by JMU Media Services

Whispers in a Country Church.

Who’s that dark woman
Sittin’ next to the preacher
Eyeing at his feet?
Lord, look at her.
Red hat.
Flowers.
Perfume you can smell
From here.
Look. Making a move.
Asking for water.
Clumsy thing–
All over his
Brand new shoes.
Just what she wanted.
Bending down that way,
Wonder that dress don’t split.
Pretty hair though.
Got to give her that.

by Alvin Aubert.

Black History Month- poetry, 2014.

AUBERT, ALVIN BERNARD Born March 12, 1930 in Lutcher, Louisiana, passed away on January 7, 2014.