Ezekiel's Daughter

I sent my boy out
because I missed his voice.

I missed his voice
and watched Suzie swat the boy as he stood
outside the open louvers
allowing flies from the street’s filth to
breeze into the parlor.

The flies drifted into the golden plaster rosettes
as the boy listened
as I heard
“I got strawberries”
“I got blueberries”
the cries of the street
vendors of the morning.

The cries of the morning circled me like flies
as I sat at table with my chicory
with my cream kissed oatmeal
and no bread

“No bread today” the boy said
returned now standing at my side.
“The bread boy’s run off”

The bread nigger’s run off and I slap him—
my boy—
less he get similar ideas
to fly away.

3/13/1847: Brown, the enslaved bread seller, made his escape in 1847. pic.twitter.com/PvzuLCvC60

— Freedom On The Move (@fotmproject) April 11, 2018

Freeport is aflame
Rivulets of blue run from the jailhouse
to the general store
where my hands were bound
for being so Black
that my color swallowed all of their fears.
Steams of red race from the sugarcane
to the brickyards to the steamboats at the docks
limiting my escape
because freedom is a flame
with no respect for fairness.

I shucked that dress
Found a gunnysack with two ears of corn on the docks
Enough to stop my gullet’s teeth
from chewing through my rough skin
The bag an easy fit.
Last night rolled myself in dog shit.
Enough to make the pretty noses
in town
and the sharp eyes
above them
turn away
from my Burlap slip
Truer than
cottonade: a weft of
Louisiana Cotton
a warp of Tennessee jute
and indigo
The color
staining my thin thighs purple
with the blood of my kin
red
embracing the work of their hands
blue.

Two panels that I attended were poetry workshops.

• The Poet as Activist: On Seeing and Saving the Natural World


• Speculative Poetry Workshop

An early panel , the first was somewhat unfocused. However the presenters did note that while most literary poetry journals pay in copies, most SF magazines actually pay for poetry.  They gave the attendees the names of market lists.  Part of the problem was the focus on “the natural world”.   One participant asked about how to use poetry to reach mental patients and students in high school.  I immediately thought of Kalamu’s story circles.  The other note that I made in my little yellow tablet was the definition of “lune” poetry - a haiku styled poem with the 5-3-5 syllable count.

The Speculative Poetry workshop was interesting even though I got there a little late.  (It was murder trying to get from one wing of the convention center to another.)  I got there in time to be handed three words from three different canisters with the instruction to write a speculative poem using those 3 words.  I felt very happy with myself when I finished early, despite writing 3 drafts.  Someone in the front row was more productive.  She wrote  3 effective poems using her 3 words using her experience on a recent tour of San Antonio.

My three words were misty, interstellar medium, regent.  Go ahead. Try to write your own.

My poem

readwritepoem.org/blog/2010/01/08/read-write-prompt-109-beg-borrow-steal/

Genesis

My questions are few and simple
Did Rachel wonder at the injury to Jacob’s thigh?
Did Leah inquire why brother was sundered from brother?
Did young Reuben ask “why these stones at Bethel?”
I want to hear their doubts as well as their certainties
I want to see the dust that gathered,
drew breath and
became man.

I have probably internalized Kalamu’s workshop.  They would jump up and say what?  You switched from one story to another.  Yeah, I did.  I do like the last image though.  Consider this a down payment on RWP #109.   It’s late and I’ll think some more one it.

draft two at makeda42.livejournal.com/52545.html

These are on “stickies” on my desk.  Before I lose them under legitimate work, I had better post them.  They are responses to the following prompt:

readwritepoem.org/blog/2009/11/13/read-write-prompt-101-p-p-p-poetry/ 

(1)

Paiku

Fancy as pheasant
gumbo, pagan as pounding
drums is New Orleans.

(2)

Weep

You partition my
heart, when in your pain, you part
kin from their portion

(3)
Vision

Phantoms flee before the
penetrating might of minds
sharpened by physics

Posted via LiveJournal.app.


 

It is a strange thing--for me--to write poetry that is not prompted by anger or depression or joy.  Just by words.  Just by request.