roamed our city streets in the
shadows quietly observing how the
truth that helped make them more
human is so carefully crushed now
by an authoritarian flattery that has
seduced the nation to a culture of
threat with well-placed lies ready
to violently pounce on the innocent
without consequence. I sat on the
stoop with these old rebels wondering
out loud with them what it would mean
to live unafraid from those you have
called your own? last night with these
old friends, I opened the Bible searching
with a flashlight for a few lines to speak
to our times only to find pages full of words
that pulled back all the blinds and questioned
the piety of this season of hate. these old
insurrectionists who have lived for so long
among those who want to do them in,
still say in this haunted world a new
day will come—so I will remain with them
measuring each day with the intelligence that
offers generous lasting change.
The Walk
let us walk beneath the
half-moon sky in search
of deserted streets, to the
little park on the other side
of Southern Boulevard, the
grandmothers love to visit
to mutter prayers and talk
of everything. let us sit on
a bench to watch the cross
town bus makes it way down
the block with passengers riding
sideways wearing faces wrinkled
by years of trouble, then throw
bread at the unruly pigeons, and
talk with Hank the wino who
after a pint of Midnight Express
recites lines written by the lonely
men who live under the bridge.
let us open our ill at ease eyes to
see the things here that are hardly
understood, the broken windows
of tenements, the gutted cars on
the streets, the children who play
in shortened years, the furnished
rooms with hearts stretched sad,
the rubble of the empty lots, and
congas pounding fatalistic beats
at the Ortiz Funeral home. let us
walk all night long until we find
a drop of twisted light to dry our
damp souls and to rattle us to the
very bottom of our feet.
The Shadows
have we come all this way to
live in the shadow of daily
threat, to stagger through the
days filling our eyes with all
worthwhile just out of reach,
to ponder while living what
will happen at the next work
place raid, the wordless message
our children will have to take to
bed, the useless insistence to the
powers in place that we too are
human beings? have we come
all this way to drown in tears
like crossers swallowed by the
river, to feel stabbing pain at
the sight of the big black cars
delivering us to graves, and the
doors of Hell left wide open just for
us? have we come this far to stand
just beyond the light, to listen to the
calls to prayer, tales of punishment,
the Holy Spirit sobbing, and friends
who say farewell? have we come this
far, floated rivers, walked desserts,
lived years with bent backs, beaten
spirits, stuttering tongues, just to see
our children’s innocence so carefully
not spared? tell me America do you
still dream?
Redemption
my old man sailed the ocean
on a big old ship owned by
Uncle Sam in a second world
war evil wished for a country
that today would not offer shelter
to the Guatemalan likes of him.
my old mother neither black or
white
