Poems

Poems, Videos

#BlackGirlMagic

Video | Posted on by A. Long

‘Mahogany L. Browne is a poet and author coordinating the Women of the World Poetry Slam at New York’s Pratt Institute. She gives her Brief But Spectacular take on “Black Girl Magic” and the struggles facing African-American women in modern society’.

Why Worry Of Tomorrow:Part 2

Posted on by A. Long

I hear her running at break neck speed

over mountains and cliffs

praying the wind will catch her wings

spread eagle

as flying Africans

no constraints up here

no heavy palmed emotions to hold me

no responsibility to weigh me

no time to track me

no more voices in my inner ear

The wind’s so thick

that I can only hear the music

my breathe humming

syncing with my heartbeat

up here

all concepts and constructs are a myth

among cumulus clouds

I wait with patience

Why Worry of Tomorrow: Part 1

Posted on by A. Long

why worry of tomorrow 

with wrinkles from the past

head pounding

heart racing

sweating happiness and pain

fear and joy

hollow rage

clump within, pits of writhing emotion

I stabbed my shoulder to flick the chip out

the remnants dissipate into the blood stream

what is normal

what is today

the present’s absence boils the curd to the surface

I wear the feelings on my skin to keep the secret

I scrub them off every morning 

watch them clog the drain

time whips 

demands attention in all directions

like erections in sleep 

work fades, a monotonous track on repeat

deep introspection

leaves me wallowing inside

replaying lucid memories and poetry

while the world moves around me

I’m never awake

I never left the theater 

the lights are all dimmed

there’s popcorn at my feet next to the sticky candy treats

I’ve been watching this movie for two decades

hoping the heroine will change

rearrange the free floating feelings flowing through

her veins, heroin

misplaced purpose

I scream, don’t just lay there at the screen

unball your fist

dismantle that smile 

save yourself from the sins of your fathers

 

 

 

 

Among Women

Posted on by A. Long

What women wander?
Not many. All. A few.
Most would, now & then,
& no wonder.
Some, and I’m one,
Wander sitting still.
My small grandmother
Bought from every peddler
Less for the ribbons and lace
Than for their scent
Of sleep where you will,
Walk out when you want, choose
Your bread and your company.

 

She warned me, “Have nothing to lose.”

 

She looked fragile but had
High blood, runner’s ankles,
Could endure, endure.
She loved her rooted garden, her
Grand children, her once
Wild once young man.
Women wander
As best they can.
–Marie Ponsot

The Country Autumns

Posted on by A. Long

But it could not be brought to see what it
could be brought. And the leaves are
away again, teamed. A parent at the
last and a parent in the middle. And
as stones I thought it right.

 

Two plates, and on the other side all the
forest pieces. The clock says stay.
The books lower the earth, and in gardens
flat stones spin. The volume was of waiting.
Today is today, until the preposition taken up.
Next to the tree sways.
The sky in pieces the leaves part the
leaves piece together. To and from a hand
given all directions. The bark comes from
below. Takes from the books of the moves under
the sky. Speaker holds up the talks held last.
Motors the dust and the yellow syllables.
A slant on which was never here or
only partly.
–Clark Coolidge

The Day Misery Knocks

Posted on by A. Long

Don’t fret the day misery

knocked at your door

you knew he’d come

take off his shoes

break all your rules

put a squeeze on your toothpaste tube

dirty up the tub

use all the ice cubes

He hadn’t lain in your lap

to tell you he’d stay

If he reaches the door, leaving

he comes right back immediately, saying

i left my keys

can you wash these

more time please

to gather his things

But remember this

you are king of all you survey

if misery has overstayed a welcome

show him the way

because only you have the key

Envoy to Palestine

Posted on by A. Long

I’ve come to this one grassy hill
in Ramallah, off Tokyo Street,
to a place a few red anemones
& a sheaf of wheat on Darwish’s grave.
A borrowed line transported me beneath
a Babylonian moon & I found myself
lucky to have the shadow of a coat
as warmth, listening to a poet’s song
of Jerusalem, the hum of a red string
Caesar stole off Gilgamesh’s lute.
I know a prison of sunlight on the skin.
The land I come from they also dreamt
before they arrived in towering ships
battered by the hard Atlantic winds.
Crows followed me from my home.
My coyote heart is an old runagate
redskin, a noble savage, still Lakota,
& I knew the bow before the arch.
I feel the wildflowers, all the grasses
& insects singing to me. My sacred dead
is the dust of restless plains I come from,
& I love when it gets into my eyes & mouth
telling me of the roads behind & ahead.
I go back to broken treaties & smallpox,
the irony of barbed wire. Your envoy
could be a reprobate whose inheritance
is no more than a swig of firewater.
The sun made a temple of the bones
of my tribe. I know a dried-up riverbed
& extinct animals live in your nightmares
sharp as shark teeth from my mountains
strung into this brave necklace around
my neck. I hear Chief Standing Bear
saying to Judge Dundy, “I am a man,”
& now I know why I’d rather die a poet
than a warrior, tattoo & tomahawk.
–Yusef Komunyakaa