Long Harlem Poems

 Translation of Eric Mottram’s Poem 33 in Interrogation Rooms by T. Wignesan

33.  on a vu un homme courir/ de la scène de crime un homme est maintenant en train d’aider/ la police avec...

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“ANTE BELLUM”


BEIGEBest served where it can’t be seen
On Stirling Silver platters
With redruM narcotics
Delivered by sharp Blood-Red
Well-mannered talons
Strutting in sleek wet rolling tight-skirted
Long French Silk Stockinged legs all the way down to 
Lethal Six Inch stilettos...

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There is a new mythology emerging, 
Howling from the hind end of the pack, 
Scorching the composted leavings 
Of established orthodoxy as a pillar of flame 
Showing the way for true rock & rollers. 
It’s...

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In 1920, my father, 16, was a guest of the British government. He was a prisoner of their forces occupying Ireland at the time, a group called the Black and Tans.

One day he and seven...

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“ I Never Loved A Man” as much as I loved you.
My darling you continued to give me ” Respect” as well.
“Baby I Love You” so, I'm so glad we said I do.
In the past...

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Learning disabled, hopelessly unemployed
Troy can't write the address for his next interview.
Warehouse stock, 331 Tiffany Street, in the Bronx.
His girlfriend, Trinity, also unemployed,
with one child by Troy. She's more resourceful
but doesn't realize it. For one...

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My people love marching!
Attending rain dancing parades,
doing a bunch of fire-breathing talking
Little drummer boys and girls
playing foot soldier pretend grown up
Just defending the truth,
those marionette walkers will yell at you
in designer protest fashion
Motion activate the...

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A Harlem hoodlum, (albeit respectable)...

ready for night time in bedlam
after swallowing me favorite dram,
cuz reasonable rhyme resembles flimflam.

Whiling away his time playing solitaire...
initially prepped, honed, and crafted
November second two thousand and twenty
slightly tweaked February nineteenth
two...

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Just because an impetus arose...

to repost poem
(I chanced to locate
amidst plethora of poems on hard drive
of Macbook Pro)
written more'n a half decade ago
before yours truly 
blissfully oblivious to crypto- 
currency shenanigans linked into

fiendish scammers after...

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I I write because I’m aware of the fact 
I’m losing time
I’m Struggling to gain insight 
In a world that’s blind
Outlining the blueprint 
that’s stuck in my mind
Acting with a reason
And intention to rhyme
An intention...

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EXCERPT (Approximately 30% of Poem)
                              ...

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Could I entertain your intellectual osseous matter                            ...

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It's night now in harlem, time to explore
Snakes are diurnal, rats love their nocturnal
Life, the subway is a swinging door.
A cockroach crawls before it falls
Catalectic between the broken walls.
It's time to pay the rent and...

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Color me white like the color of the wall
Color me white to be seen by all
Color me white to stand tall

The patches of black all over me 
The dark spots that all can see
Are my...

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When I go home damn
Its really quiet 
Never thought I'd find this amount of white noise
In the pitch black face silence 
As I flip scenarios of something like self inflicted violence
making, my room, look....just a...

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i tried to notice without noticing.
i tried to fit in by not standing out,
but i knew i was different.
their walls much bigger.
their yards much nicer.

in elementary it seemed everyone
was in the same class: lower class,
but...

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While writing about the History of Jazz Music in verse , I got the idea for composing this 
fictitious poem ! I hope the readers will like it ! 


     ...

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Amazing Grace A Sparrow Died Today An Angel Unfolded Their Wings Sings   Aretha Louise Franklin  

A sparrow died today
An angel unfolded their wings
Break it to me gently young, gifted and black
She began her...

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Lying awake listening to the sounds of sirens, echoing through the night
Alone in the apartment with his younger siblings, hoping his mother comes home all right
Drug addicts pounding on the front door, wanting to buy...

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It was no cosmic coincidence that a persnickety intergalactic wise guy named Hub
with an arrogant swagger morphed into the center of a crowded  fast-moving Harlem jazz club 
on February 11th, 1933 at dusk, preplanned...

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Give me that old skool love, a groovy throw back

kind of love that is black and white like the first TVs.

A tapered leg acid washed jean trouser and a crop

top feeling sexy.

A striped miniskirt with...

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Trying to get in the game  my whole life. 
Don't know what team I'm on. 
Which one wants me? 
Who will accept me? 
Been going to the field for 52 years and still trying...

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Marcus, as a child heard it all, the oral stories
Ancient in glories quickening his vein. Like blood
Rolling where the Roaring river runs, peonies
Calling up ancestral history in dream and flood
Unfold desires of in streams of...

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Marcus Mosiah Garvey arose from a little town, yes my lord
A Leo lifting Harlem, kingdom bound, yes my lord
Resuscitated religion around the black man’s looks, yes my lord
Cuddling pickaxe, hoe, and cradling books, yes my...

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Frances

Twas the night before Thanksgiving
An’ all through the tenement
Mama was sleeping
When Big Dady came in again
And there in the night sweet Frances lost her innocence

Hopscotch in Harlem Summer 1944

"If I don’t win this time
I aint...

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