MY POETRY

Come Juneteenth

From sun can see, to sun can't see

Heirs of the antebellum coax from the boll the latter harvest.

Denied a moment’s idle, from grief, whip and chain,

Scores are obliged to keep time with the driver.

Come Juneteenth

And so commemorates a stay from sorrow

In song- oath, pledge and celebratory chorus,

Be it ever resolved, wherefore abide in freedom’s promise.

With hands stretched forth in praise and levity

Affixed in refrain that neither withers nor fails,

Teems the full measure of deliverance.

Mid sweet songs of Jubilee,

Let those who keep time with the feet or prance upon the heel

Sleep well and in thy slumber survey

For vast swaths of freedman’s land (if rumor be proved)

Are but the increase of liberty.

Therefore gather stores and heaps for the season

Summon the sinew,

Raise thy keep of faith for the bell tower,

For you be slaves no more.

Advice from a Soothsayer

When addressing the dead, speak not of

Redemption, or pangs endured since their

Bone’s delivery, for only those fated

To everlasting, can appreciate

The damned's lament

Seek rather lessons of the former,

Per oaths and supplication, lest

Divine decree stay thy rest

Make no treatise, offer neither

Cure nor release of things eternal,

For those who bide

In the void, are but shadows

We may ask what is prudent

Perchance a glimpse, or presume by craft

That which neither gulf, nor breadth

Creature, man nor angel

May reveal, as some matters are

Best left insoluble

To those poverished of charity

Take heed therefore and consider thy

Repute, lest by some venture you

Find yourself amongst the

Chorus of innumerable regret

Where all hope is barren therein

None so loved

To my brother Ronald, who died Jan 5, 1997

There was none so loved as my mother’s son

He, in whose tranquil timbre betray'd her smile,

He, in whose gentle aspect tell of eyes ineffable

He, in whose yielding core and selfless manner reviled not, nor contends

None so loved.

Loved was my mother’s son

He, my esteemed sibling, blood and kin,

He, the sum that heritage, manner and urbanity exemplify

He, joined in ceaseless amity, be it ever our remembering of,

One so loved.

Nor was he inordinate (my mother’s son)

He, was a disarming charm, the pith and vigor of youth

He, was a costly balm, “a princely diadem,” said of his father

He, forever numbered amongst the constellations rest,

And be ever so loved

Africa, an Ode

Oh Africa,

Be neither vexed by want or

Famine, nor reel in your repute

Seek solace in thy children,

Cast from onyx, bistre and ebony,

Kept of fertile woodland, neath

Acacia’s canopy, strewn about

With seed for the herds you gather

Consider the flora and fauna,

For though in temper wed, of vernal

Stream and brook, of posh tributaries

Giving breathless chase,

Sprout from no richer soil, nor

Bred of higher kind, as there

Be none more tranquil borne of allegory,

Save this solemn increase

Under firmament braised of ochre,

Scarlet and opal teal trek the

Prodigals of heaven and earth, flocks

of fowl, beasts and creeping things

Give way to wistful impulse,

A cadence which none may fathom

And so span the days

Heirs of the garden, born of dust

And declaration, chronicle the victorious

Hunt upon sandstone’s crude motif

The Antelope, the Wildebeest, Panthera’s

Gilded pride, e’er etched in perpetual keep

Wherein Colossus's lumbering

Tusk declares, its wear upon the land

And by claim reaps

Of the tender shoot and herb,

Plucked from its stem

Withal ponderous footfall

To its last remaining fend,

For such is its caste upon the earth

Be wary therefore Africa

Nor in your able prudence bear

Lest ill men wrest of thy womb,

Precious ores and gem

Tributes and vestments,

Stock and produce

Resource and reserve,

Till death by futility come

Admonishment to Liberty

Gird of holy writ and solemn oaths,

Our lady stands quiescent

Ever beckoning, in barrenness she enfolds

Europe’s emigres to her breasts in righteous idiom,

“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

Howbeit, though her golden lamp raised,

Bedloe’s colossus forswears maternity to Africa’s brood

In spite her comely bosom brimmed with promise,

She gives barely a regard to Niger's children

Their petitions, a shallow mockery: their plea, a piteous reverie.

What say you Libertas?

Have you no succor for heirs of the Sahara?

You who proffer isonomy yet despises, who teases birthright but withholds

Deliverance, yet in paradox were you loosed from tyranny’s reign.

Is the metaphor you exemplify worth its metal?

Heavy be the crown of sea and continents,

Whereupon men of conscience seek resolve

To matters select portioners of edict are obliged to weigh

Be it war, faith or liberty (which we’re all vested)

Most notably the darker subjects of your realm

Lest others expose your haughtiness,

(Plaited tapestry, duplicity and bombast)

Repent your legacy and by thy name forswear

Your sin and creed towards thy darker subjects.

Further, embrace, augment and enact this day of recompense,

Their sovereign rights inalienable,

Without restraint, an ever abiding mandate.

Of history inalterable, with equity before the law

With neither favor nor benefit: distinction or bias,

May it be your standard from this day hence.

To My Dearest Bafflegab

There was an old millwright named Joseph Parch Dennett

Who devised a great keep, to stash doodads within it

Chief among his treasure, itemized in their entirety

Were whatchamacallits and whatnot (of the rarest variety),

There were hoojamaflips (with and without brass fittings)

Tarnished ball bearings, of questionable milling.

Trivial appliances, hand-tools and odd implements

Rugged ole boobenwoozles, of fiber-n-filament.

A hoozy-whatsit with adaptable baffler,

Phlanges of all types, makes and manufacture.

Three oblique gubbins-grade meshed-gear dojiggers,

For blivets that rotated (push-buttoned or hand-triggered).

Gears with gimcracks,
Palm granites and hand jacks
Widgets on whatsits (with attachments) for bending
Kadigans and gimahst, which often need mending.

Piffles, cobblers and a bunch of old rivets

Nonsensical palm-grips, claptrap and hand-gimmicks

A can of slipslop, for crackers and fine breads

Corrupted by rust and tommyrot instead.

Long-stroke pneumatic fnords, of indeterminate origin

A fickle device if jarred just a smidgen

One non-descript Oojamaflip of variable aperture

Flex gas hoses of an unnamed character

Hoopajoobs! Straight out of Podunk, Texas

With an adjustable dumaflache that rotates and flexes,

(Courtesy of What's-his-or-her-name & Son)

The contents of which must weigh a gross ton.

One should not be remiss in assessing

The gizmo he uses for bashing and pressing

Like cast-iron doowhichits welded to pan cobblers

Employed by the youngsters when crushing gobstoppers

All items tagged and sorted for safe keeping

Bubble-wrapped in some cases to prevent joints from seeping

Priceless the hoard of Joseph Parch Dennett,

And such was his keep of curio within it.

Concerning Faith

Faith is often a volatile medley,

Of voices roused in eclectic rhythm,

Awash in earnest din (prayerful and haunting),

In no less solemn a chorus

Than the rancor and isms respired by oppressors

It answers, if pursued by

It comforts when availed of

And in its increase, revives when called upon

Be it of necessity, hope: providence or distress

There’s no other balm save faith

In faculty and form how wondrous its work

In endowment how generous a charity

Whereas in passion, or suffering it lends flight

To every soul that’s ever breathed its mention

Or probed its depths

Either stirred in vespers amongst Baroque motifs

Or affirmed through ceaseless fidelity,

Faith: sustained by watch & vigil, prayer and sacrifice,

Is an ever-abiding keep

Good for timbre and agency in times of refrain.

Creation

Thru proof of divine accord the cover parted

With his hand bade he the yielding dawn’s retort,

Wresting light from the nocturne waters,

And the day from within the muted deep.

By rousing the firmament, arrayed of erythraean- indigo,

Warm ochres, distinctive schemes and vignettes

The heavens are portioned in consummate splendor

To govern the ether nights

From barren voids and shifting depths

Come swells of heaping waters, lush plain and towering peaks,

Bred of igneous release, intractable rudiment and debris

Where all good things give rise

Save man’s noble aspect

Of clay and earth, in his likeness shaped he him,

Drawn from the rib a wife and so blessed their increase.

Til those days be extinguished upon the earth

My Paragon

Has anyone seen our needful thing?

I had it a moment ago

It was about such an such a size

Wrought of a unique- yet nondescript nomenclature

We left it precisely where I can’t remember

By the place bereft of details and specifics

How it came to we- my own, escapes us

As I’ve raised no ire, or spoke of its acclaim

It was right at the tip of my thought

As typically called to mind in use or function

Or applicable task, let alone how its purpose,

Might give air to shadows, or things unseen

However misremembered, or misplaced

In whatever cause, chance- or enigma so privy

Pray tell us the current state or whereabouts

Of my fondest accoutrement

Readily discernible to those of the consument eye

With an air that’s undeniable

The make of which I’m at loss to define

Save its diminutive size, (which belies its value).

Nevertheless, none so desired than that which is lost

No costlier a gem than the one earnestly sought

For such is this heirloom, our immortal amour-

My own, my love- my precious…

She, My Wife

Dedicated to My Lovely Wife: Karen Gibson

Possessed of her, I’ve become

Inured, impoverished of ardor's embrace

It seemed no small matter that one

Should be rapt of a bloom so comely

Drawn tenderly by her sweet after,

She who lured with fawning eyes, kindled me

Bade me, and as rapture took leave of reason

Depleted my last claim, till love cede’d

Whatever hope or expectations of delivery

I shall in service to her forsake

Save for the surety of this corporal form’s repose,

'Til the astral lights be quenched

The Principal Thing

To those poverished of wisdom
Souls that vex, or covet from want of substance,
Mammon, or carnal things
Receive the precepts of a learned
Apostle given to the travails of understanding

For all that is of God, withstands
Endures, and ascribes
The sum of his good pleasure, affording temper
Not so we yearn after fleeting things
But of that treasured eternal

Save beyond the faculty of hands
Device or breadth of enterprise
So stablished his throne
O’re flesh and spirit, bone and marrow
Til angels bear thee hence

Therefore I am swayed that neither death,
Nor pain of life
Peak or abyss, rampart or dread of
Things corporeal or accursed,
Could ever stay his love for us

Come Daybreak

Upon my awakening
Should these eyes behold the blush
Of morn and find it wanting,
Let not my heart falter

Only give my spirit haven til the even

At most, accord me grace
So that in alms
My savor’s increase might ascend beyond
The yielding veil,
Where sovereign bide the stars

Were it feasible,
One might subdue the offending nebula,
Or perchance by some prodigious
Move of heaven, compel the winds
To stir the firmament and by decree

Cede the breach of dawn
So that prayerful eyes may gaze
Upon the scattering’s fiery aspect
Reaching, protruding beams of apricot,
When o’er the peak it breaks

In heralds of crimson,
Spokes of ochers and scarlet,
Shattered rays of blue, streams of violent light
Declare and affirm his handiwork,
So that we may trust upon the morrow

As to your query

To my son Michael

His is the youth of my remembrance,
Rather the noble type, borne
Of a yielding refrain rarely
Observed in those of his distinction

He’s my beloved, a steadfast
Muse of air and substance, in whose
Camaraderie bides regard
For truth and erudition

As often the case, fidelity precedes repute
Wherefore in matters of service,
There are none so 'nevolent
As he the ingot, quenched and tempered

Annealed, yet dexterous
Suitable in counsel and matters of restraint
Cast in the same mold as I
Spun from the same thread are we

Thus, upon my expiry Lord
Pray thee his increase
For I know of no other man,
Worthy of such laurel, save he my son

Love's First Blush

She touched my hand
And while a trace of her sweet
Refrain kept pace
With my yielding core,

It was the draw of her gaze,
Those deep, russet eyes in
Whose keep I accorded
Temerity, my boon and marrow

Fated beyond cure or hope of
Release, snared by the bloom of her
Aspect, ignoring pretense
Or whatever grasp of esteem

One might avail, save for
Those fleeting sighs or whispers
Of protest whilst she lay siege
To my inmost bastion

Where hidden stores of untold
Fidelity lay rife amid scattered
Remnants of youthful regret
And feckless dreams, rashly

Pillaged for ill gain and treasure,
Suitable for neither plunder nor profit,
Amassed of loose sediment and
Debris, to all but she alone,

And so nursed, my canvass under
Gypsum and muted hues, coaxed
With care and facility, being subject
To acclaim or critique as any

Good work warrants
Nevertheless, she touched my hand
Wherefore, let the trace of her refrain
Lend suit to this ode, in lasting acclaim

An Ode of Encouragement

Speak to children of lost dreams,
To saplings and tender shoots felled
By trees, even as want of
Sun and ache for succor bodes

Ill comfort to fledglings who,
While neither marking nor grasping
Life’s travail, may even so, suffer
Loss before casting their lot

Give praise, for elders and matrons
Gather’d round ossuary and earthen plot,
Proffering grief and oaths for
The vanquish’d young, imparting

Truth to the living with edifying
Milk for the chaste, burgeoning stems
Athirst for love’s eternal in goodly
Measure, like a latter rain that

Weeps upon the teeming soil
Therefore, speak to mothers of
Sons and daughters, and pray
Their keep through war-torn blight

Where pitfall lies for those
That stray, verily,
Where quandary waits for those
That tarry, thru dour gardens

Instead, suffer their soul’s delivery
From tribulation and in thy faithfulness
Abide, for grace has no greater store
Or reach, than in a mother’s arms

Inquisitive sort

But for

A taste’ of

That divine, if perchance

One could importune, or else

Coax from a lesser Seraph, leave

For just a glimpse of Eden’s

Demesne, I’d

Forswear my

Earthly

Shell

To bide

Nigh within the

Hallow’d reach and realms of

Celestial rapt- in ceaseless repose,

Or book passage towards the ether

Brim, hemmed with the finest paragon

Of gem and stone, veneered in rare

Measures of precious find,

Midst frills of jasper,

Topaz and

Agate,

Set in

Adjuncts of

Emerald and beryl, in

Whose cast the astral flame

Fawns in deference, as neither the

Brightest day, nor darkest night may

Whelm such an apt, but suitable

Opus, fashioned not from

Vain indulgence, but

Of perfect

Will

Pride’s Intolerant

There're coffers of bias buried
In the human heart, an impregnable
Fast where neither lithe hands nor
The shrewdest heart may judge

Its depth with certainty, save for that
Fortuity when charity fails to keep the
Full measure of our bigotry
From breaching, as a failing dam

In torrents of molten bile,
Breaking and thrashing o’er gentle
Airs in powerful tides of slurs and
Epithet, seeking its own level,

Adjoined from tangled runs
Of stream along foothills in climatic
Swells where rancid pools, steeped
With animus and ruin beset

Those, who thru no fault of their
Own are pegged by caste and
Color, weighed by race and status,
Of one drop rules and codes

Irrespective of wealth or pedigree
So inured to norms most could
Neither brave nor shed their yoke
Without grief, or lost life

Thus Nubians of common blood
Gather round, and lend your ears
Sahara, darkest Egypt, esteemed
Dwellers of the Nile, you ancients of

Ethiopia, Nilotic numbers of the plain,
Jewels of Senegal, you contraband
From the Middle Passage, Remnant
Of chain, whips and salt, anecdotes

Of strange fruit festooned upon
The branch in somber narratives,
Shall our own selves rise from our
Debris, as grassland from the flames

To what end, none but the
Astute can fully secern, but as
For iniquity’s offspring, only truth
Betrays the bias in our coffer

Of Life and Time

Of all the souls I was in life,

The former, sowed in folly whilst

The latter, reap’d an understanding

The younger, addled by vain pursuit

Frittered his lot, whilst the elder

Gave increase in alms from what

Was gained, payment for that

Which was coveted, in thanks

For what was freely given by

Others, with no more deliberation

Than when a mother feeds her

Children, for in charity she

Bestows, in love she forbears,

In empathy she fosters and affirms,

Whilst in prudence she corrects

Of all the souls I was in life,

I was my father’s son, measured

But never inordinate, spirited but

Never the drunkard, affable yet

At no time inimical, or coarse

Chaste as to be revered, yet the

Introvert In worldly matters, t’was

He the connoisseur who set my

Teeth on edge, kindled the fierce

Craving towards lofty things in such

Manner as to typically expand my

Periphery, allowing these hands

To perform, these eyes to judge,

Save for this mind to wed the two

In one voice as beauty compels

Of all the souls I was in life

The latter, humbled by time rejoices

In the passing of the former

Nocturnal Oeuvre

Where did my dream begin?

At what point or flight from wakeful

Did I drift beyond the morrow’s

Reach?

What bat of eye took me

Hostage, from some treasured

Moment’s horizon and bore me aloft on

Wings,

Straight till morn, past secreted

Chateaus and vistas just beyond

Forever’s secluded knolls.

Whether

Derived of quandary or dire

Repetition I know not, as these wisps

Of imagery are as fleeting as the

Acts

They occupy, so goodnight Sun,

We shall gather presently.

In meantime, welcome Stars, come

Moon

My Virgil, and guide me thru

Afferent realms of wonder,

Where first I nursed of pr'mordial

Milk.

Observed in relish as youthful

Bloom culminated in love’s first kiss,

Then eyed as vignettes of torrential

Monsoons

Deluged floundering ships in ashen’d

Heaps of knotted fury, undulating from

Day to night as the winds gave

Cause.

From my vantage, peaks give way

To posh fields, and vast depths of

Cimmerian, whilst fiery plumes

Ascend

Well-nigh the upmost expanse

Where I the eagle, am sovereign.

And so good Virgil my fairest

Moon,

Upon your pleasure, send

Word to yon Polaris, and at the

Appointed time, coax the timid dawn

From

Hiding, transient as it may be.

Then, good day pale moon, fare thee

Well stars, for my watchman the sun

Approaches.

Prayers Upon My Expiry

When I have lived the common span,
Possessed of no craft or savvy
To prolong my days;
Please, when you spill my
Ashes upon the sea,

Let the tide not claim my balance.
Instead, as my repute crests atop
Each swell, and my refrain
Haunts the gelid depths beneath;
Pay what’s due at my passing.

From dealers in annuals and bloom
To artisans of cenotaph and urn.
Make atonement to those acquainted
With sorrow, clavigers of tombs,
Likewise, orators in holy writ.

Then charge to their keep my
Confession, for the sea is rife with
Legend and tales of unfortunate
Dead, who took no obol for
The Ferryman.

Whereupon d’livery fell,
Doomed to igneous conditions
(Such as need not be told)
And though I be removed anon,
Having no form, or grasp at

Flesh for anchor, forbear judgement;
And receive the overtures of one
Now ceased, as timely prelude
To dreams which prey upon
The living.

In sum, I wish above all that
You prosper, and in my penance-
Peace therefore, til the moment
Of fate’s choosing when
You’ve joined us in rest

To my Loving Wife, in honor of our 36th Anniversary

For you,
I would cede the spark that gives my
Heart measure
Rapt of flesh and bone,
Attuned only
To the soulful ballads of your yielding core.
For you,
I’d douse the light which allowed
These eyes
To gaze upon the visage of she who
Stirred my
Inmost marrow, and led me captive.
For you,
I’d cull the breadth, length and depth
Of Poseidon’s
Pelagic realms, and wed its wealth upon
Your finger
In abiding ardor.
For you,
I’d fleece the dawn of its gilded décor,
Then ply
My hands to craft raiment worthy
Of the
Telltale blush which marks your comely air.
For you,
I would chime each hour with sweet nothings,
Flatter you
In bouquet, and posh yields of fragrant sighs.
For love’s
Labor is but a small service, if only
For you…

My Creative Yoke

Another morn finds me alone in my roost and to some degree,
Aged by this work.
The hours are such that I net barely an ease from my labor,
Whereas around me,

The space seems astir with an air of tincture.
So stark is the affect tis a haze that only idleness allays.
Whilst in this state, the medium takes on miraculous properties,
In that when I lay on, the walls

Expand, and when I take away, the woodwork contracts.
Would but a conjurer ply
Greater wizardry than the conceit I’ve confided to paper,
But having abandoned caution

The anodyne of sleep remains elusive.
Like a wily prey
Which feeds on sprigs by day then

Secretes come twilight.
What small reprieve gained by
Slumber leaves me no more
Sated than a fretful babe in need of amenity.
That said, I’m often found

Poverished in pigment, having the eyes of one possess’d
Who, though drunk with the spirit,
Is cumber’d of facility. Though fatigued to the point of
Despair I am by no means defeated.

Pray, such passion spur the good office of these
Eyes to judge this
Effort worthy a matter to secure
Haven, till I’ve scribed my name across the balance.

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