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Jg Finch Poem
A white liberal editor said what I wrote wasn’t black enough.
I spoke to him with confidence,
with a hole in my shirt I had tucked in my pants.
I told him I am a man just like him,
and he acted like he didn’t hear what I said.
He said, my writings wasn’t black enough.
I gave him some more essays
and he said, it didn’t represent the people who were struggling.
And on the way home on the bus,
I thought about my father, who was the only black man
receiving his PHD amongst a predominantly white university.
Was his struggle, not struggle enough?
On the way home, I continued to write and look out the bus
window and I saw the prostitutes do their dance as usual...
the gang members watched and peered on the corner.
And I wrote my poems from what I wanted to see.
I wrote about the flowers that grew behind the barbed wired fences.
I wrote about the women on the streets who once admired the flowers or who secretly admire them.
Can we admire flowers too?
Do we have a right to feel some softness in the world?
Do we have the right to be a full human?
Copyright © Jg Finch | Year Posted 2019
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Jg Finch Poem
She slowly grew on him, surrounding his body with brown mold and green moss.
He can’t escape her detachment, her selfless embrace. Her love is only needed from one time to another, like one plant from another, growing and then dying.
And what was that he hoped for but could never find while he was alive?
Some type of love with attachment? She broke him moistly and slowly, piece by piece, while his body sunk deeper into her wet body as the sun and rain touched him.
Right before he died he heard the voice of her, “Shhh, my child, who thinks so highly of himself.”
“You come into me, and I will use you as you are needed! Broken, back into my body, back under my streams of water, back into the cold, soft soil, back where you were born.
You will be used as food for my small creatures. You will be used to fertilize the gardens of my skin.
The tulips in autumn, the dandelions in spring, they all wait to rise and see the rays of the sun just as you did.”
Copyright © Jg Finch | Year Posted 2017
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Jg Finch Poem
Men enjoy the smell of Camel cigarettes at the check-in counter
just like they enjoy the sound of bones tapping on wood
in the late AM in the hallways. Stilettos are from God.
Then, the slow tapping at his door. The heart beats more.
The drunkenness of his eye. They enjoy.
Spider-like, how both women with dyed
blonde hair and coarse, rubicund skin
crawl to John on the bed.
The strange car downstairs with lights on still waits outside.
The women begin to kiss each other’s lips.
One with a small bump above her lip
quickly hooks her fingers at the top edge of his pants.
One bends down in front of him. The other, with her hands, touches what is sacred.
The rickety sound of the window air conditioner shakes and rattles.
The old stench in the carpet swells.
Outside, the rain begins to pour sideways. It bangs dramatically on the roof.
The man working the late shift behind the front counter
with an old, small TV on his lap is drunk again.
A sound of something on the floor moves. He lazily opens his eyes and sees nothing and closes them.
A light-skinned, middle-aged black man in a car parked car outside
with the windshield wipers still on waits in silence.
His body is slumped towards the steering wheel, gun in his hand
as if he was waiting for a sign to make a move if he had to.
Copyright © Jg Finch | Year Posted 2018
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Jg Finch Poem
The heart changes its song every season.
The heart beats and flutters differently every season.
Can you smell it coming?
Can we continue to hold hands in this season?
But I would love for us to walk in many seasons to come.
And if there is heartache, my Lord, we will shelter ourselves by giving each other a little distance. Or we can protect our hearts with no words further spoken, by only caressing our hearts with our hands until deep sleep.
Oh my Lord, my heart beats too strong in winter.
Then it sings softly in spring.
In summer, it waits in shades, not knowing what will come.
Copyright © Jg Finch | Year Posted 2017
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Jg Finch Poem
Dear Sunshine,
I have the window open to see you. I haven’t contemplated you for a while, and before you go, I am now reminded to be thankful of your infinite love.
And now I see the winds moving the leaves. This means, she will soon come . . .
And before I can hear her transparent, cold body moving against the front door, and then her footsteps of small, grey bodies with their many small, beady eyes quietly screeching on the wood floor and drifting into dark corners,
I must say, I am sorry. I didn’t appreciate you like I do now.
But I suppose, there’s more to winter than crisp, cold wind.
The flame on a lit candle that I placed near the window now sways briskly like always when she comes.
Her husky, feminine voice now speaks, rattling against the window I have just closed. The sound of invisible feet moves again as it pleases. My room again colder and colder.
And I will soon hide myself in covers, hearing her concerns about me, then her body feeling like icy wind near mine until the sun rises.
Copyright © Jg Finch | Year Posted 2017
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Jg Finch Poem
A forest of trees leaning in different directions—
intertwining their legs, their arms, their brown necks stretched.
They trapped me, comforted me, gave me fruit when I was hungry. I patiently stayed there, satisfied with the burning in my heart,
watching their hands of leaves, their extended boughs.
I was fed full many times, and I didn’t care what they whispered or what they would do if I stayed.
I was there even when it drizzled and when it rained.
I stayed there with no worries.
I watched them steadily and silently moving as if they were not moving at all, and it appeared there was no time in that space.
Every movement and every touch amplified love— The morning dew on their arms, the smell of honeysuckle, flowery perfumes spilled in the air, and how could I forget?
The soft caress of wind moving against my flesh.
How can I get the thought of being there out of my mind?
How can I ever forget? In the middle of their arms, their legs, their stretched bodies wrapped around me. There, where love trapped me.
1994
Copyright © Jg Finch | Year Posted 2017
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Jg Finch Poem
Heaviness painfully throbbed your beating heart,
as the world could not understand it
and could never see it.
With your slurred words
and tired, dilated eyes,
I smiled, knowing you were not from here,
watching you drenched in sweat,
dripping down from your neck
in the midst of this muggy
unforsaken place.
And as the last song of thunderous sounds from trumpets played
while golden horns slowly waved in and out of the dark,
screaming to a high climax then falling low
and lower as if it was a rhythm of a train in the rain,
slowing making its stop,
many along the walls stood whispering to others
while gazing back and forth in your direction
as those at their tables whispered amongst cigarette smoke,
using their empty glasses as ashtrays.
And miserably, you walked towards me across the room with courage, and I already knew, just like the others, life had already broken you.
And I waited on the other side with a smile until you arrived,
as you stumbled, drunkenly aroused— into my web.
Then your eyes followed my hips outside the front door.
We walked further away from the departing crowd.
And further away.
Then further away
into darkness,
then
you heard the sound of car doors mysteriously opening.
Footsteps crept closer, and you searched and strained your eyes to see what was waiting.
And when you saw them, you were suddenly
transfixed
You cautiously called my name to get an understanding.
And there was a sound of a closing door,
and I had vanished away.
Desperate scrambling sparked, with a quick touch of a blade to your neck.
Movements pushed and pulled against each other.
And a sound of fumbling,
finally ending with a loud screech—
silence.
Heavy footsteps quickly ran away, and time had stood still.
Then you limped back to your car with an empty wallet
and a frown of dried tears—
A fake phone number folded in your pocket.
You were drenched in the darkest of dark,
and I was in my element,
watching and waiting in my car for my share
of the money we earned.
JG Finch
Copyright © Jg Finch | Year Posted 2019
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