River Crossing
for Langston Hughes
My descent
is to the South.
And it makes my pen itch
with anxiety.
For I have spent days
holding my breath
rattling alongside
white faces only
to enter a world of
brown.
I am following your gridwork
like a good son with
similar coloring.
But I know I would map
out those lines
ineffectually on large blue
carbonized paper.
You cannot edit mistakes like that.
I could have
been the man who connected
our two lives with this railway.
But the heat of that work
makes me want to undo my collar
and then never wear one again.
And instead, I will write pages,
for you.
Pages covered with stories
made of the black
and the white.
It will fill the time while, I,
a man of 18, come with news
of how I plan on charting my life.
I will write pages for you, Father,
will you read them?
This is what I wish to do-
This, is my livelihood.
Black letters rising,
escaping, transcending,
and then transmuting
to gold on the
barren, blank,
white page.
Why do you abhor us?
Sadness filling me,
I am remembering how you refuse to even attempt
an Exodus.
Your brown desert is a cut and dry refuge
from a world of black and white.
Maybe I was the one
who received the
sacraficial gene.
One that apparently
skips a generation.
and while you cower
in that shroud of denial,
remember that yours is not
covered with bloodstains
and bullet holes.
Excuse me, Father,
I must spend the last few
hours, busy at work.
The black blood
coursing through the
vein of my pen.
Escaping to,
and then from,
the two-sided
whiteness of you.
I, the Negro,
must Speak of Rivers
and crossing them.
Monday, April 12, 2010
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Reach for the clouds. . .
Tickle your toes. . .
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there ain't no other place like you to roam. where I dug in my heels and said "No, I won't come home!" Dancing in the warb...
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In my dreams I am the fictional version of myself. The one I seek to be in my short-stories and prose. The one who gets her point across but...
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nipped at the ankles which is how I wander through life sometimes I must be pushed through a door finally opened after years of knock...
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and now that the anger is gone there may be a few more glimpses like looking out of the window through a thin veil of silk. a look in...
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motionless sap. ogling your shadow, you have much thinking to do. has the potassium kicked you in the arse yet-and got you going? you a...
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A woman's stance feet parted so that like a breezy window the mantle opened slightly lets in curves of salty air- but here there is no, ...
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RICK: Hey Rick? DICK: Yea, Dick? RICK: See that sky roll on by? (points) DICK: ...Oh, my... RICK: Don't i-t'almost makes yer wanner....
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two squinting painted eyes looking solemn on a leathery face. this knight of the golden age has a 20 gallon bucket of a hat atop his slicked...
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secret fancies don't really bother me, alright? but know that once you tell me I become either like a turtle and snap my smile...
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The Opera The eyes of the firing-squad are aimed with lashed cross-hairs for now we, the chorus, all look like oiled up black ducks in a ro...
wonderful. ugh, Langston. so good. love it. <3
ReplyDeleteaw, Dana, thanks so much. <3
ReplyDeleteI never know the people who you write poems for (or enough about them to understand the poems) but I love love love two parts of this poem especially.
ReplyDelete"I will write pages for you, Father,
will you read them?
This is what I wish to do-
This, is my livelihood."
and
"The black blood
coursing through the
vein of my pen."
I hope the poems work to introduce you to them, if you don't know much going into it...
ReplyDeleteThat's how they work as stand alone. I hope that is the case.