Explore Poems: History & Politics

Dear America, my love.
If my blackness turns to fruit
do not pull it from the vine;
let it grow from…

“I can’t breathe,” he said.
But there was no air.
Only the absence of trees
and rope. The swaying
of…

i will die this month. how
i do not know. still there
is much work to be done. i
am afraid not for myself…

i suppose i should be
grateful to the white man
letting me out. where can
a black man in america go…

in the early twenties
a boat brought
my father to america
his first impressions
were spoken in spanish

years…

Israel’s started
bombing
Gaza again
I don’t know
where to put it
in relation
to the ordinary
sadness…

here
near the entrance to the subway
the underground
we stand in each other’s eyes
once lovers
now …

I caught her on reruns—Nichelle Nichols
from the original Star Trek series. She was
Black like me. …

gaza at daybreak
dogs sniff among the ruins
the graves are multiplying

You strive to cling on to the baton
of integrity, like some heroic runner.
On the barren hill your sage…

Αγωνίζεσαι, σαν ηϱωιϰός δϱομέας,
να ϰϱατήσεις τη σϰυτάλη της αξιοπϱέπειας.
Στις γυμνές ανηϕοϱιές σοϕός…

1. Recent death of mother, keeps house for old father.

Arrival of  boats from faraway
headlines, newspaper stands selling
packet gum, candy bars, cigars. Ships…

do you remember in fifth grade
when i was all of eighty pounds
soaking wet and fully clothed
i told you…

You stood beside our god, you anointed a human king, and yet you are forever

rendered the shortest of…

It’s as though the birds all know each other, and how naively

they seem to believe the world will go…

i.

But Noah found grace in the eyes of the lord
and thus formed the habit of my non-naming,

there …

These days, the plants are overtaking the plants,
abandoned factory packing centers overgrown

with …

Wild for once, we drenched and drugged and flung
our sunstarved bodies into brunching and clubbing and…