Stanzaic Stylings

A Sign Is Just A Start I see your sign-- Yes, I see you, marching on tired feet, filling the streets, raising your voices, singing, shouting; yes, I see you; we all see you. But, at the end of the day, when the sun has gone down and the singing stops; and the tired feet have marched all the way home; and the signs are put away in garages and closets filled to overflowing-- what then? I ask, what is your takeaway? what is my takeaway? Mothers are still losing sons; sons are still losing fathers; women are still going missing; men are still going to prison. Laws are being broken, by those who make them and swore to uphold them; the rich still do not care about the poor; the poor still see no relief. Yes, a sign is just a start, but I know teachers who are having to take second and third jobs just to make ends meet; I see roads and bridges crumbling all around us and we’re talking about paying for a wall that may or may not protect us. A sign is just a start, but I have friends who are ge...

A Portrait of Self     I am sound and fury, signifying everything; strurm und drang, wrapped in black skin; I am what a sinner looks like, broken by grace; the son, my father never had; the apotheosis of blues incarnate and undiluted jazz.   I am the love-infused truth of Baldwin; I am, Nina Simone in a man’s body; you read my words because you can handle the truth.   I am the city of broad shoulders, and all its Bronzeville residents, distilled to represent light and shadow, beauty and pain; my name is verisimilitude; my name is on the lips, unspoken by the one who preached the Sermon on the Mount.   I am not what you think I am, but I am, what you need me to be; touching you to the very core of your soul; I am the moral of the story; I am the riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma, yearning to breathe free; what love looks like in public and...