All the Songs We Sing, page 4
Emerging,
I am born, again
pushing
through air holes in madness
God created
for flames stillness sustains
whose glitter extinguishes
ash piles
stacked
in soot-filled corners
where you
once used to go
and set yourself
on fire.
sons of the dark
Brian H. Jackson
we cry unshed tears
our screams go unheard
questioning if our prayers
ride the wind without
a place of rest
never to be heard
by the one
who can hear them
we work all day
our bodies are beaten
by the sun
we work all night
our minds spin
like spools in sweatshops
our sleep
is not sleep
at all
for where
there is no peace
there is no rest
we the sons
of the dark
continue to march
hoping to shed
the pains
and regrets
of our fathers
correcting
shame
of sons
after sons
and our march
will continue
until
there is light
and we will
be called
sons of the dark
no more
Ghazali
Chantal James
we never see the spiders, only their traces to tell us
the house is inhabited, even in silence
cotton-candy webs catching dust as they’d caught pests: traces
left behind, like the husks of cicadas on oak bark, frozen in poses of emergence
and cracked through like we crack, into newer selves
our skin slick, wet with innocence, unhardened.
we, twin stars, revolve around the home we make, spinning,
like spiders, silk from the hot cores of these bodies god has made
cracked into a new life, its unexpected joy startling
as sunlight to cicadas who’ve birthed themselves—sweet as their song.
First Breath
Valjeanne Jeffers
With blood
beating at my temples
and horizons
beckoning for discovery
land, magical
strange
taboo
waited
for my pen
Miles and Coltrane’s
nightingales
awoke to trill of moonbeams
and desire
Zora,
Langston, and
Octavia whispered:
“We waiting on
you,
you better create
worlds …”
That’s when I knew
it was time to speak
rivers—funky motifs
rip a piece
of soulful sinew
Sweeten it
Season it
cry loud
my passion
And shards of gold flecked
violet spit the air
with sound and fury!
With laughter, love, and
tears I touched my lips to them
breathed life into these spirits
freed them to walk across
the page
In that hour liberation found me
In that hour I embraced her
And gave voice to my writing hand
Out of This World
Valjeanne Jeffers
In Memory of John Coltrane
Shadowed nightspot
sister beaded and hooped
beards, afros
dashikis
On platform
the connoisseur of alto
and his entourage
conjure aural sorcery
Invitation:
to sojourn in darkness
resonance and color
Inside indigo hued
rhythms of Blackness unbound
To journey with immortality
in Coltrane’s mode
Glide on azure notes—
wings fashioned of horn
piano
drum
In this space
life
is comprehensible
rapturous
eternal
Soul embraces Divinity
My Best Days
Valjeanne Jeffers
Summer
we walk the concrete
Me, Sukie, and Laconya
with dusty feet
midriff tops
cutoff shorts
Past knee-high grass
purple and fuchsia wildflowers
junebugs
Liberate blackberries from the vine
— “Don’t worry ’bout no snakes.”
Join a gathering of elders
eighteen to twenty-five
A lean ebony sapling
grins white and gold
He shares his forty with us
Another watermelon
The sun tucks itself in
In youthful innocence
we await tomorrow
Do it all over again
In a Place Where
Patricia A. Johnson
crepe myrtle hangs
brushes the ground
japanese beetles
ride each other’s back
the leaf eaten
away beneath them
hills and mountains
carve out the sky
random pieces
in a rag quilt
queen anne’s lace, ragweed
sweet peas and joe-pye weed
choke the roadside
there are no signs stating:
wild flowers, do not pick
in a place where crows big as cats feed
in fields dotted
with wagon-wheel hay bales
cattle, flies sipping
from their eyes
seek shade from trees
along the fence line
in a place where
you drink a breath and
hay, manure, magnolia
clover, and wild primroses
ride the intake of air
a dirt road is swallowed by pines
smoke rises above silver maples
the smell of hog killing
hangs in the air
heavy shoes crunch gravel
down and up an incline
to the trailer
offset by trash
circled by weeds
on a mattress
in the front yard
crumpled and headless
a Black man burns
July 25, 1997; G. P. Johnson
was burned alive and decapitated
in rural Grayson County Virginia
in a place where
I call home.
Somebody’s Child
Patricia A. Johnson
It’s a sign of the times,
They’re burning Black churches in the South.
They’re burning Black churches in the South.
Thin-haired deacons shake their heads
On bended knee at the prayer bench
Grey-haired sisters press their fists
To grim lips and hum
The old Negroes pray
Forgotten prayers
Of freedom, faith fortitude
They wear out their knees
Refuse to wag their tongues
Or shake their fists
Somebody’s child couldn’t stand
To hear a sister hum her woes
“Precious Lord, take my hand”
Somebody’s child couldn’t stand
To hear a brother pour out his soul:
“We come Father on bended knee
Humbly asking for your blessings.
We ask that you bless the weak, the weary!
We ask that you lift them up!
Lift them up, Father!”
Somebody’s child couldn’t stand
To hear the congregation sing praises:
“Glory! Hallelujah!
Thank you, Jesus!
Thank you, Lord!”
They are burning Black churches in the South.
Looking through the smoke,
I wonder whether you see
How of a time, the walls folded up
To become the cloak that hid the runaway,
Shield that protected the unjustly accused,
Sword that defended the helpless
Sifting through the ashes,
I wonder whether you see
How of a time, church pews
Became Monday morning school desks
Preachers, political activists
Standing amidst the rubble,
I wonder whether you see
Reflected in shards of shattered glass
The generations of families
Dressed in their best
The Homecomings and suppers
Served on the ground
Staring at the charred church bell,
I wonder whether you hear
The young people lift their voices
In a gospel song:
“We’ve come this far, by faith”
Can you see, how of a time
Choir robes replaced gang colors
Somebody’s child is being prayed for
By the membership of a church
He burned to the ground.
They pray: “Mercy, mercy!” and
“Loose Father!
Loose from the hands of Satan”
Somebody’s child
Somebody’s child could have skin
Blackened by genes old as sound
Somebody’s child could have started
A race war
The old Negroes sigh,
“It’s a sign of the times”
They recognize,
Somebody’s child
Is burning Black churches in the South.
In My Father’s House
Patricia A. Johnson
If I could, I’d tell you how light fills my room
in the morning, teasing me out of bed. I would tell you about
standing at the kitchen window watching the sun crest treetops,
casting an amber glow on the dawn. Somedays,
screaming streaks of red with shocks of pink
cause my jaw to drop, breath to stop. Other mornings,
orange lays atop black clouds shouldered by saffron rays
so majestically, I run out and bow down to the earth.
I’d tell you about walking the sun-warmed garden
barefoot after it’s been turned by the plough.
Pushing my feet down ’til earth engulfs my ankles
squiggle my toes through the top like budding plants
whiff the soil’s deep, dark, hearty musk.
Lay off rows, watch the moon, sow seed,
bless each one to grow strong and fruitful.
I would tell you about lying in grass
hanging my head and arms over the bank
to cup the coldest sweetest water
ever pushed to surface by a spring.
I’d tell you about my grandma collecting yellow tommy-toes
Yelling over her shoulder, “Get up from there you’ll get chiggers.”
I’d tell you about honeysuckle riding red Virginia banks,
pulling a pistil through its blossom
for a drop of nectar no bigger than a tear. On the tongue
it’s golden-honey, crystal-water, and sun.
I’d tell you about apple, pear, and cherry tree blooming.
Take a blossom from each and I cannot tell one from the other,
only that they are fruits not nuts. I would tell you about my parents
81 and 79 leaning against each other to stand without canes.
Sitting under the tree I picked it from, I bite into an apple;
its juice splashes my face. I would tell you about
walking into the hills with a bucket I hope to fill
with wild raspberries, blackberries, or blueberries.
The berry’s flavor sharpened by its pungent aroma
and slick feel in my mouth. Jesus, if I only had words enough,
tears enough, laughter enough, I would tell you
about the magnificence of God.
Father Sound
Fred Joiner
M.
Grandma moans,
the first sound of the broken,
baby baths in the kitchen sink,
the sound of
water heals all,
Grandma’s hands
F.
In my Grandfather’s house,
poor but proud,
a basement full of church,
only holy rolling horns hollered,
make only God’s music under
this roof on fire,
shut up in the bones
Holy Shout or Silence
S.
Aunt Margaret, the voice that turns,
Aunt Nita, all hammers & hands, strings in box,
Aunt Anna, a nurse, the healer & trickster
everybody played something,
Ivory & Ebony, Wind, Blood, Flesh
B.
Uncle Russell, Gabriel’s kin, the horn that calls forth the chosen
Uncle Kenny, the doubter, a horn in the shape of question
Outside, a world of sound,
on the street the fish man yells “Porgies, Whiting, here,”
block by block the bounce
of basketball with milk crates nailed
to the tarred telephone pole, another kind of killing,
doo-wop boys on every corner sing,
the sound of getting by,
the sound of getting over
the sound of moving one block over
My father, played a horn that slides
between worlds
As a boy,
cross-town music lessons meant
stand & fight on your way
as a Black boy
cross-town music lessons meant
fight then run back home, meant
fight then blow, fight then play
Brass or Body.
Seven Ways of Looking at Black Flowers
Fred Joiner
XIII
What is more beautiful than black flowers,
Or the Blackmen in fields
Gathering them?
— Raymond Patterson, “Twenty-Six Ways of Looking at a Blackman”
I
In what mellow tone
Do black flowers
Sing their blues?
II
Black flowers like black
Hands—colored: reaching toward
A mystery. Up South.
III
Black flowers, the gift
Of open palms
Facing North, but
Rooted South
IV
A man & a woman
Are one
A man & a woman & black flowers
Are dust
V
Against a sky white
Like fists full of Sea
Island cotton the sky raining
Blood on black flowers
VI
In our world / The tongue speaks
Only a binary song, always a black
Flowering problem, against a white
Canvas—blood in between
VII
The sound possibilities of black flowers
Were choices made by the hands, breath
& brass of a gifted man
Looking inward, blood on his lips
After Gene Davis’s painting Black Flowers, Raymond Patterson’s poem “Twenty-Six Ways of Looking at a Blackman,” and Wallace Stevens’s poem “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird”
Gullah
Fred Joiner
when I think of you,
I think of all the questions, on my plate,
of the okra, tomatoes, & corn
all gone. I sift the last scattered grains
of rice for answers, like the last words
of a saltwater prayer
I think of the fictitious distance
the blood-darkened Atlantic
put between our tongues & bodies,
massa still means bondage, burden
gumbo still means okra
How long before your body’s story is
bleached like the seashells & tabby
at the Point or before every acre
of my legacy is subdivided
for empire’s many mansions?
I still dream
of all the history sold at the market,
of the mirror in the waters
on the Gold Coast,
of crumbling schoolhouse
in the palm
of my grandfather’s hand.
Aftermath
Diane Judge
they wait
on hands and knees
in fetal positions
or flat on their backs
as the earth echoes
with hunger pangs
even after devouring thousands
they mourn
as bodies around them
ripen in the Haitian heat
without cool vaults
or consecration
awakening machinery
rumbles stirs ash
coats their hair their bodies
with one more layer of gray and grit
then the machines power down
so that all can hear
voices atop a tower of Babel
erected by earth’s upheaval
Creole French English
calling the buried to exhumation
survivors lifted into light
spread their arms wide
mouth prayers or songs
as rescuers carry them away
to the rest of their lives
Because of Emmett Till
Diane Judge
The boy, the moment,
sparked a nuclear fire,
scorched the South
with freedom rides, sit-ins,
and a Selma Sunday.
The murder, the spectacle,
soldered spines with anger,
propelled Thurgood’s siege
of the Supreme Court
and Elizabeth Eckford’s
martyr’s march through
the Central High gauntlet.
The son, the sacrifice,
ignited Mother Mamie’s courage
to rebirth him
in that funereal womb.
His open coffin opened eyes,
