Oooh! Spooky--

Validation is a former student/program participant telling me that they read my poem, 'Obama' to their 3rd grade son and that it led them to research and further discuss who and what the Tuskegee Airmen were because of it!

What does it sound like in my head when I write a poem?

Something like this--

DEATH AT THE MANOR

This world is dying, slowly.

Suffering a long, painful death by decay

as everything that seems to underpin

the floorboards in this great house

and the lot upon which

our civilization sits,

a great and stately manor

manned by the surcoated

subservient, happy to maintain

the symmetry that defines

this great estate for appearances' sake,

rots away from within,

and rust creeps up through the steel girders

that once served as a show of strength,

back when the world moved along on rails

and dynamite blasted away

at such minor distractions as mountains

and felled forests reaped fortunes

for the Merchant Kings who stood tall

on the precipice of greatness,

erasing and rewriting histories

and cultures to suit their needs

while convincing the rest

that this is what's best

in a successful attempt

to justify their greed.

But now, all that's meaningful,

what was once considered great,

even among the unwashed,

has been taken away from those who rest

easily and govern from places

of comfort and our summers are marked

by an oppressive, urban heat, stretched out

like a thick, downy blanket that smothers

and tests the limits of an aging

infrastructure, built during

a wild lark of a progressive era;

short-lived, yet indelible in the scars

left behind, seared across the native face

of an expanse that seemed inexhaustible

to the consumer, cut off from the chain

of industrial destruction

that stretches from far-off foreign soils

and settles into the carbon footprint

of the local Sam's Store

that displaced the Mom and Pop

who sold their soul to this

dying enterprise, only to find

that their pensions were spent

to pay for the funeral

and that they weren't invited

to the reading of the will.

CHICAGO

An encapsulated oasis,

negro gardens surrounded by red-lined

highways and freeways and expressways

that wend way out past

the pristine parks and magnificent miles

and high rise luxuries, the views

extending out across the distant smoke

and heat that buckles the city streets

and knees and bends and breaks

the fractured infrastructures,

unsupported, taxing bodies blind

to the needs of the plebeians

who plead for concession in Court

for traffic fines and noise complaints

and lost momentum in a culture

fueled by perpetual motion,

a kinetic abhorrence, broken

and distorted, the laws of physics

rendered meaningless

to a contortionists' expressive art,

deployed on nightly news recaps

to tamp down any hint of dissension,

leaving behind a shambling hoard

of participants, eager to pursue

the fleeting comforts found

in Gucci belts and Diamond grills

and stolen Hellcats, running red lights

in the downtown shopping district

while the police, and the politicians,

shoot back with practiced precision