Another poem that’s not about my inner emotions

 A POEM WITHOUT A PERIOD

might also be 

without pain

or be read

in a different way

to about half

the population

what does it mean

to deal with this

only once

every blue moon?

National Poetry Month 2024

 Y’all already know what it is—30 poems in 30 days. Per usual it’s going to be mostly haiku & senryu. 

drip by drip

through the saline bag

blare of sunrise

the trinity

a three body problem

rock paper scissors

sunrise

an offering of clementines

and rum

4’33”

a bottle of sunshine

on the sill

“The Dead Lilacs”

had just one decent album

Eliot (maybe)

WHY JAZZ ISN’T DEAD

(for Mary Ruefle)

most people (even Libras)

seem to be born 

with 32 crayons

each bone white

they only call them teeth

most fish have teeth too

on the inside & out

with a molar of prism music 

some call grey scales

and if G Dorian 

grates like Earl Grey

one could resolve to call this

a gnash equilibrium

Little song for big John

AN IDEA OF IMPROVISATION AS 

A FOUND SONNET IN ‘A CONVEX MIRROR’

“But what is this universe the [portrait] of 

As it veers in and out, back and forth, 

Refusing to surround us and still the only

Thing we can see? [Epiphany] once 

Tipped the scales but now is shadowed, invisible,

Though mysteriously present, around somewhere.

But we know it cannot be sandwiched 

Between two adjacent moments, that its windings 

Lead nowhere except to further tributaries 

And that these empty themselves into a vague 

Sense of something that can never be known 

Even though it seems likely that each of us 

Knows what it is and is capable of 

Communicating it to the other.”

You Already Know

 AN IDEA OF IMPROVISATION AS MUCH ADU ABOUT NOTHING

“Didn’t I tell you what I believe,

didn’t I say that . . .”

Sade

Ifemi, how many REM cycles 

since your love leaped 

the ravine of No Return

to open me as a sommelier

would a wine bottle,

since the bright crescents

of my nails waxed across

the black sky of your back,

since the saxophone

signaled tomorrow?

Learnèd astrologer

I found your love

amidst a constellation

of mercurial lips

glossy enough

to lapse all logic,

& unlike logic

you bid me crave

the crow-colored tresses

of what many pray

to be saved from.

Freckled cheeks of Jesus,

who can tell how many

calligraphic kisses

could be needed to spell 

or dispel what butterflies

write in rooms filled

with strawberry irises. 

It’s been written

—sense the saxophone

signal’s sorrow,

a fool for roses

is a fool for rain—

but how to uproot

the twin legends

of your legs

blooming into heels

stiletto enough

to fell a forest entire?

Ifemi, I found your love

both freed and fried 

as the symbols inside

a theorem derived 

from four types of feral.

Yet not symbols & not derived. 

Scents the saxophone

signals borrowed—

let’s not wrestle

with how you left me

or the difference between

a half wound and what

wound up happening.

Or what it could mean

to remain untethered

by an ankle tattoo’s

brassy passion 

for adinkra charms

and police bracelets.

Perhaps I hummed

the wrong songs

with the right lyrics

or the right songs

with the wrong lyrics,

but how many dawns

found your love

hung over the railing

of Old Crow moans

or sizzling unstrung

between a first flame of bud

& one last good buy?

And how many more

need spot me flitting

like a Leopard moth

around a porch light,

turning to unlock

a mystery like magnetism

with keys hidden under

the tea rose carpet

of another woman’s tongue?

BHM!

 

NaHaiWriMo album

 It’s National Haiku Writing Month (and Black History Month too) so this page is going to be the one I use to collect all the haiku I write this month. As usual I will try to write at least 30. 

this low buzz

after a quick smoke

hornet’s nest

wind chimes

the rising melody

of light rain

w w w

in the left of the field

goose tracks

filled mostly

with moonshine

ghost apples

Spring balloon

a line from Sylvia Plath

trails behind

luz di kel lua

riba ponta di anda

tubaron azul

moonlight

at the point of a wave

a blue shark

dripping faucet not just water slipping down the drain

[This is probably the blackest haiku I will ever write—]

May breeze  Frankie & Comet & Lysol & Maze

spreading frost

an old man combs his beard

in a store window

bay waters

a black woman brushes

a boy’s hair

stiff breeze

the skateboarder’s back

gets gnarly

old newspaper

moves down the street

kick kick glide

Black History Month

we admire 28 ways

to eat peanuts 

February breeze

outside the break room

night time stars

February first

the librarian’s red lips

black liner green eyes

train ride

the grin of the small boy

inside

moving 

from rider to rider

the conductor’s smile

mid-February

only the pine barrens

pine

deep winter

a white blanket

is everything

swept up

in a woman’s hairstyle

gold leaf

across the room

filling a woman’s glass

bartender’s smile 

cloud moving

across the church roof

a black cat

navel orange

the sea beneath

peeling

geese honking

at the intersection

of sky and pond

still water

where the treetops

meet the sky

National Zoo

under the afternoon sun

a lion’s mane

New Poem

 A NOTE AFTER EQUINOX

In the crescent moonlight 

perhaps some of these motes

could form a chorus.

But have we derived this far, 

come this close to a calculus, 

just to make of speck a song?