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Category: Auburn

POEM: Ray Charles is singing about Georgia

rain

Ray Charles is singing about Georgia

Ray Charles is singing about Georgia
while the rain pours down outside
I’m reading about the freedom struggle
drinking a tall glass of sweet tea
and thinking of you
traveling back to a dozen or so people
in folding chairs, listening intently to the music
I’d say “Who could have predicted?”
but even on that first night I knew
I didn’t see how it would all turn out
but if I had it would have been worth it
at least that’s how I feel now
as the radio switches to Dean Martin
and a burly woodsman with a big red beard
sings along to “Ain’t That A Kick In The Head”
while I wait for the rain to stop

14 August 2013
Auburn, AL

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POEM: sesame sharrock boxers

sonny

sesame sharrock boxers

let’s sit around in our boxers
drinking organic lemonade
crunching sesame crackers
listening to Sonny Sharrock
then let’s take off our boxers
make love in the humid
Southern afternoon; what better
could we possibly do with our time?

13 August 2013
Auburn AL

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POEM: what the world needs now

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what the world needs now

more photos of you in a bathroom mirror
more TV shows about people arguing
more ways to eat chicken
more screens in the palms of our hands
more private contractors monitoring us
more long-distance shots of stars’ genitalia
more creative ways to drink sugar
more things to yell at women on the street
more unmanned aerial vehicles
more canvas bags of money on Capitol Hill
more places to connect on social media
more miles of tar sands pipeline
more food photos with 22,000 dead children daily
more front lawns and golf courses in Tuscon
more teaching to the test
more #hashtags
more laws written with the Bible in mind
more fuel made from dinosaurs
more people by themselves in cars
more self-help books
more corporate music
more shame about the wrong things
more images to make us feel inadequate
more bags and boxes for our stuff
more private insurance
more Google
more middle-of-the-road public radio news
more they said they said journalism
more false equivalence
more guns
more bullets
more words
less action

12 August 2013
Auburn AL

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POEM: superheroes

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superheroes

well into my teenage years
I had Batman posters on my walls
and a painting of the Dark Knight
done by a friend (now departed)

after every heroic action movie
I emerged into daylight
imagining myself stronger, faster
ready to take on all comers
to defend what I thought was right

in later years I saw immigrant women
stand up against powerful rich men
on behalf of themselves
and their coworkers

I realized superheroes do exist
but we spend so much time looking
up into the sky for them
that we miss them all around us
down here on the ground

11 August 2012
Auburn AL

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POEM: standing on the Edmund Pettus Bridge

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standing on the Edmund Pettus Bridge

what most worries me
is that for my sons
what happened here
is so far in the past
it won’t even be history

10 August 2013
Auburn, AL

/ / /

It’s my job to ensure that doesn’t happen.

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POEM: home

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home

soon I’ll be where the people
press against you from all sides
where you can go hours without
hearing anyone speak English
where at 3 a.m. on a Tuesday night
if you decide you need a snack
there’ll be a place open on the block
where people know what bagels are
and the subway will take you anywhere
it’s the place where I know how I fit in
where I understand the rhythms
where pizza tastes like pizza
and there are flowers growing
on the High Line

9 August 2013
Auburn AL

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POEM: a memory of fire

Flame_of_fire

a memory of fire

there was that one time
when the heat was so intense
that we couldn’t breathe
we were hunched over
under the pitiless sun
gasping like spent runners

8 August 2013
Auburn AL

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POEM: I, Eye, Aye (for Rahsaan Roland Kirk)

rolandkirk2010_mr

I, Eye, Aye
(for Rahsaan Roland Kirk
7 August 2013-5 December 1977)

I said I can’t see but I can see
not the way you see, not with my eyes
I see through the sounds from the crowd
the roar of voices flying toward me
like fighter jets screaming out of the sky
I see through the ends of my fingers
pressing the mother of pearl
stopping the air, letting it pass
I see through the crash of cymbals
the dry thump of bass strings
hammers pounding inside the piano
I see through the windows in my dreams
out of which come magic words of power
talismanic names to guide me forward
I see through the needle on wax
like a forest fire captured in a wine bottle
waiting for you to let it out

7 August 2013
Auburn AL

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POEM: a few photographs

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a few photographs

looking at pictures
isn’t nearly the same
as feeling their hands
in mine as we cross
a busy street or
their laughter as they
pile on me and wrestle
it can’t hold a candle
to a kiss when I tuck them in
or the sleepy “good night”
when their walls are down
but given a choice between
seeing their smiling faces
from a thousand miles away
and not seeing them at all
I’m pretty damn grateful
for pictures

6 August 2013
Auburn AL

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POEM: what I choose to remember

what I choose to remember

she said I only remember the bad things
not the good things that happened since

but the bad things are so easy to remember
even if they didn’t leave physical scars

I’ve seen my blood on someone else’s hand
felt the crack of the knuckles across my face

those are things you can’t be expected to forget
no matter how many years move slowly by

we sit on opposite sides of a vast sea of silence
and for once in my life, I can hear myself think

5 August 2013
Auburn AL

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POEM: the band across the river

City, New York skyline

the band across the river

we sit in silence, looking across the river
New Jersey shines like a constellation
eventually the quiet is broken
by a loud cover band on the Jersey side
a Bob Seeger song drifts across the water
we both laugh as we wonder if this is the end
it is, though we won’t know for sure for weeks yet
a man on the next bench strikes up a conversation
it’s one in the morning and we’re all enjoying
the silky feeling of a summer night in New York
after a while we stand, say goodbye to our new friend
walk off in search of a train that will take us back
to our hotel room in Brooklyn, the place we’re staying
because we no longer have a home together
and the home was just a room anyway
and everything is ending slowly
and the band across the river plays Mustang Sally

4 August 2013
Auburn AL

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POEM: a typical night in the West Village

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a typical night in the West Village

there was an iguana
the size of a dinosaur
waiting on the sidewalk
outside the 55 Bar
we eased past it cautiously
headed up Christopher Street
toward 7th Avenue
the drunk kids on the corner
were arguing about dancing
as their argument got louder
they attracted the attention
of the oversized iguana
we slipped into an ATM lobby
took out our smart phones
and Instagrammed the carnage
when it was over and the iguana
had lumbered down 7th
we eased out of the lobby
strolled arm in arm down the street
arriving at Soy & Sake
just in time for our reservation

3 August 2013
Auburn AL

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POEM: smile and call you buddy

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smile and call you buddy

an ocean of lights and windows
on which sail eight million voices
speaking eight hundred languages
at night the city becomes a galaxy
office windows like clusters of stars
headlights zooming through the black
trailing their comet tails behind them
or maybe it’s a forest of pointed towers
trunks with no branches, no leaves
thrusting toward the sunlight obscured
on the concrete and asphalt below
more than anything it is home
the ground is firm, the grid makes sense
the street vendors sell falafel
smile and call you buddy

2 August 2013
Auburn AL

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POEM: tactile

Screenshot from 2013-07-31 19:00:33

tactile

I’m tired of typing
tired of the clicking keys
the noises my phone makes
I want to hear your laugh
feel the curls in your hair
learn what you smell like
put our fingers together

let’s end this day
with a kiss not a keystroke
a touch, not a text
this dance should be danced
together, not apart
till we fall asleep entangled
the way lovers do

31 July 2013
Auburn AL

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