In the dark, his skeletal fingers are frantic on the fringe of
nameless ghosts.
The savage carves himself out an ear
in hope someone will listen.
Instead, they bring more detail for him to colour.
On the cliff's breast both knees will be shaking,
hand-on-temple soul fretting, the moustache not knowing
love will turn him down again.
He is already long gone into his loneliness.
Troubled syncopate, this great idealist,
gestated from the West,
plenty self-destructive and tasting a salty mix:
paint cramping blood on the floor.
Chained and bound,
how deeply imbedded he is within himself,
and how Arles loves him still!
- Neil Morgan
Confession
The church confesses its part
in slavery, but lies prevail;
we're born again, and the pastor
beats his wife in a wholly human act.
What do we expect a man-child to do?
We all lie and fall short of the throne.
Mother Theresa's heart bleeds
for the lies she cannot confess;
saintly and afraid, she dies.
Martin and Malcolm die for the lies,
while we disown our part in truth
and black people as refugees stand
in 400-year-long bread lines
applying for citizenship, forgetting
their fathers built the platform
on which we stand, and lie.
- Sonja Harris
Vagrant
Sweet dreams beneath a clear blue sky -
you smile (though there's no lullaby),
breathing in the fly-fanned air,
your cap fallen from coarse, knotted hair.
In your domain no sleep's as sweet
as when cuddled from the pavement's cold
by cardboard sheets; you turn and grin
with dirty arms across your chest.
Though others look on and detest
you, arise not from your slumber;
mock with sleep the pangs of hunger.
Sweet dreams, nomadic, urban soul!
Sleep well.
- Camille Smith
Yellow Rain
Sidewalks of the plain dissolve
in work-bound feet; worry,
in dull morning clothes sucks
on hot air; impatient traffic weaves
a coloured ribbon through bone-dry streets.
And then a rain of yellow butterflies descends,
sprinkling the scenery with daffodil wings,
spraying a smile on even artificial lips!
The Lignum Vitae has proffered
it's brief, life-giving, yearly gift.
Imprisoned in cold metal, I look out and say
'Thanks.'
- Paula A. Ellis
Dear Christopher
I loved you for the petals (red)
brushed against my cheeks
and the whispers of tomorrow;
for the end of my touch and the
wood smoke
scent you left behind you in the tangled sheets.
'I'll quit,' you said; and you smiled.
I cried on your fingertips
that night with the moon;
she will be here soon. Tomorrow
I will ask my mother:
Do you know
for a dark moment
I loved him?
- Angel Beswick
The Stump
The stump is not a tree -
it is a wound,
an absence of shade and bird-song, mute death daubed in bands
of red, blue, black, yellow,
round and round the hurt,
the garish angst of loss:
an accusation.
- Raymond Mair
