Long Alabama Poems

Alone I arrive, walking from Frederick
over the gaps, across gentle hills
out onto a knoll
overlooking this burnished landscape.
Before me I see countless writhing rows
of indiscernible shapes gathered
in terrible rituals mid fire and smoke
darkening the sun.
From distant...

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"Fragments and crumbs of life, all the little pieces"

                    John Ruskin, 1853


I think of youth’s sweet...

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Those were such happy days, for I had lately been deeded a farm,
My aunt and uncle were retiring, so tillage had lost its charm.

Since they were childless, and to a retirement community bound,
It seemed I...

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You must be laughing your head off at me thinking I'm so stupid that I don't know what is really going on, sorry to bust your little bubble but I know what is exactly going...

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Martin, a very senior citizen, wants to get a bucket and knife and go hunt up some greens in a field in Alabama. But in spite of his yearnings for a big bowl of greens,...

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Inevitable death defines afterlife

I mull mortality 
thru lens crafted occipital orbs
regarding a better future
experience sing a space oddity – 
whar incessant yaks
exuding a big hurt
emanate as cosmic atomic 
bipedal hominids replete roof lee wax
during a...

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a force for good
(for john coltrane and ahmed obafemi
based on ‘trane’s treatment of ‘nature boy’)

“…I wanna be a force for good…”
		-John Coltrane
 
…there was a man…
a very brave, enchanted man…
and he spoke of many things…
peace...

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we sat, my brother and I
leaning against the old wood pannels of the room
the smoke engulfed us like breath
as the threat of violence loomed

his voice was quiet still
passion and regret burned in his eyes
when he...

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Preface: 
On February 4, 1861,
the seven states that had seceded
by this point convened and created
the Confederate States of America
under the leadership of Jefferson Davis.

Just under two months later,
on April 12, 1861, Confederate forces
opened fire on...

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To Kill a Mockingbird is both a young girl’s coming-of-age story and a more nebulous production about the reasons and consequences of bigotry and discrimination, examining how good and evil can coexist within a particular...

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It's sometimes interesting what you learn about someone you thought you knew quite well when you visit with their family members, or their other, much better friends, particularly at that person's funeral! 



Remember Ezra Whitney…from...

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My mother-in-law
drinks her morning gin
out of a pint-size Mason jar,
and self-righteously prides herself
for not wasting water by adding any in
and for not pouring or drinking
before her biscuit and red-gravy breakfast,
usually about eight a.m.
now that she's...

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MY BUCKET LIST

Years and years ago, I made a bucket list.
I looked everywhere and could not find it.
I don’t remember everything I listed,
so it’s time for a new one to be created
or just to go...

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A total Jedi mind f*ck from Hell is what this is. I feel like a nuclear bomb has exploded in 
my mind of Hiroshima proportions and I am on the brink of a Chernobyl meltdown....

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Born in New England in the wake of the Civil War,
Her folks fled Irish famine and landed on our shore.
At age five, she took sick, losing almost all her sight.    
At eight,...

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I was talking to my solitary self again, grumbling how life held no adventure,
And my parrot, Cherry, often echoed me, as moon echoes golden splendors.

She'd ruffle her feathers and preen, as she perched redly upon...

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This poem wants to make a change . . .

To be a strong yet silent raised fist in Mexico, 1968.

To stand at a window w/a shotgun writing the words
“By any means necessary”

To sit in at...

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Gunshots and tasers aimed at the back
tracking the movements and memories
of unsuspecting dark-skinned citizens 
marked by the scars of a history denied

For Rumain Brisbon, 34
it was crime to be black in Arizona
For Tamir Rice, 12
it...

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He was coming.
He was coming fast.
He was coming to pay us a visit.
A brooding, lethal monster 30 miles out.
He was coming straight at us
and nothing or no one could stop him

Our house was on the...

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When Miss Lily Jane Bobbit arrived in that Alabama town,
jaws dropped; all eyes were riveted on her.
The ordinary street on which she lived would be no longer common,
for Lily Jane now graced it with her...

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Your life may be full of sparkles and ove-lay but the rest of us sometimes struggle under storm clouds.

Anna (one of my roommates) broke up with her BF of a year. It seemed to happen...

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Last night I was mesmerized
by James Baldwin
in a documentary
"I Am Not Your Negro"
in which Baldwin reflects on
Medger, Malcolm, and Martin
who were shot in that order
within six years of each other,
all under age forty,
by guns newer...

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Today I met with my daughter to swim.We finished at eleven oclock.I drove to a place near the airport named Sandys for her first ever thanksgiving
buffet.
She used to be located at the actual airport but...

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It's  hard to think about now 
as easy as it was then 
It flowed effortlessly like conversation with a life long friend 
I hate thinking about back when 
but love living back then
And I...

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Home is where the heart is,
Or so the saying goes.
There Is really much more than this,
As everyone, surely, knows.

Home is where you hang your hat,
Is another slogan that Is nifty.
There’s much, much more than that
In...

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