Look! my friend.
See! and weep no more
I have them here,
preserved by
your perserverance
Inside, they mill in
tranquil expectation that
you will see them all,
and claim them for your own.
Behold!
Your dreams
Your longings
Your desires
Your loves
They are here within
The orb of your life
But you must reach in
through
Your doubts
Your fears
Your rejections
Your hatreds
And be able to tell
the difference
for they are double-sided
but they are
all yours.
Let bone fingers,
gentler than colder scythe,
close my eyes
in
eternal sleep
I would seek
Death’s Handmaiden,
dressed in mourning finery,
And plead a softer touch,
no less final for
all its gentleness
For all her smiling
reassuringly in
my final moment,
I would hear
at least
the faint echo of a
woman’s heart
where
none exists
I would kneel
in abject
Obeisance
to her
gory majesty
And take her hand
in gratitude
for mercy,
though I bleed
No sunset,
just darkness
without stars
I go
and wait for
you
in the drafty caverns,
the void
of her many- shadowed palace,
in a vast and ebon realm,
disguised as
a humble cottage
in the midst
of
woods and meadow.
The eyes of my elders
Defiant and Bold
The eyes of my elders
hold secrets untold
The eyes of my elders
saw wonders and pain
The eyes of my elders
see spring in the rain
The eyes of my elders
have knowledge of stars
The eyes of my elders
are healing my scars
The eyes of my elders
saw friends to their graves
The eyes of my elders
sailed harrowing waves
The eyes of my elders
know babies by heart
The eyes of my elders
keep music and art
The eyes of my elders
the stories they tell
The eyes of my elders
are tolling the knell
The eyes of my elders
spread love all around
The eyes of my elders
now look at the ground
The eyes of my elders
are closing to sleep
The eyes of my elders
are now mine to keep
Within the world
we wandered
and walked without
a care
Within our hearts
we reached
and opened them
so they were bare
Within ourselves
we wondered
at what the other
sought
Of that bare heart
within us
we offered without
thought
And so within our love
without the world
we left behind
Without a backward glance
we closed the door and
drew the blind
And deep within each other
we put our trust and fears
and then discovered real love
is not without its tears
And so without you
now I live within my memories
The tears within my eyes will stay
I’ll live without love, please.
© Alfred W. Smith Jr. 2015
And yes, I still believe in love
I still believe it’s there
It’s trembling out there somewhere in
the frosty winter air
Or trapped inside a mountain cave
from which it can’t escape
because it fell while running out
and gave its knee a scrape
Or floating on the raging sea
and looking for a light
to guide it safely home to shore
before it’s out of sight
Perhaps it’s on a city street
outside at a café
You didn’t hear it call your name
and hurried on your way
Perhap it’s somewhere crying
it cannot find a heart
that seems to want to keep it
not tell it to depart
So when we say we ‘look for love’
that happens to be true
I still believe it’s out there and
it’s looking for us too.
I carried Poem within my hands
So soft and warm and trusting
I dropped it through a sewer grate
And now it’s wet and rusting
I carried Poem within my hands
And felt its small heart beating
A cold wind blew and though I tried
Death would allow no cheating
A Poem cannot be carried long
Its life is in the sharing
Of love and life and lyric song
And everybody caring
So if you ever carry Poem
Know that it must surely die
If you don’t make your heart its home
And write it down to let it fly.
Blogging 101: Assignment 1 Introduce Yourself
I started writing late in life, after some things had happened, after some losses and victories, after some pain, after some memories were made. It’s been an interesting journey, and this is not where I saw myself in my younger days.
There are a lot of us who can probably say that, but it’s what you do with it when you realize it that matters.
That being said, I’m glad I’m here. I’ve learned some things about me on the way, things that I liked about myself, things I achieved that I didn’t think I was capable of, and I’m looking forward to what the future holds for me.
There have, of course, been setbacks, but I’m not the type to sit down and accept defeat. I guess I got that from my father, and watching him do his projects. He never took a short cut when it got difficult, and a shortcut was available. And the one time he was tempted to do it I was so surprised that he even told me he was thinking about it, he changed his mind, and we did it the right way.
But I knew then that he was slowing down…
So the characters and lands and stories are here; the young and old are here; the lovers and the warriors are here, the men and women, the children, the dragons, the demons, the magic (both dark and light) are all clamoring to get out while they can, and since I don’t believe in holding onto things or people against their will, I’m going to free as many as I can in the time that remains.
My goal, quite simply, is to write full time for the rest of my life, and leave a body of work that helps, entertains, provokes thought, and establishes across our man-made boundaries of insignificant trivialities (race, class, religion, etc) a common bond.
I want my readers to be, in a word, immersed in the worlds of my imagination, and to come out better for the time they invested there.
It’s a lofty goal, but why aim low?
***********************
The Muse came into my office, looking like new pearls.
Guess that made me the swine.
She moved in close, her hands over my shoulders. I stood up, not wanting her to trap me. I had other things to do…she closed the distance again, standing a little away from me, but close enough to be distracting.
That perfume…like a new book at sunrise.
“But Alfred, don’t you understand” she said, her hand cool and soft on my cheek “it’s difficult to find an agent?”
I took her hand away, walked back across the office behind my desk, took out a pack of Luckies and a lighter.
“Yeah, I do. So let me ask you, doll,” I lit the cigarette, squinting at her curvy beauty through the unfurling, infernal smoke. … “When was it easy?”
So as a cop, you don’t even have to engage the tween with the TOY gun in the department store. No criminal record, no threat to you, himself, or anyone in the store, but he never even got a ‘drop your weapon.’
Just pull up, and bang.
When we’re innocent, cops plant evidence. Alabama ‘police’ did it for 10 years. Where’s the outrage from #ALLLIVESMATTER?
Make up your mind:
Don’t want us ‘thuggin,’ but won’t hire us.
Don’t want us on welfare, but don’t want us educated.
Don’t want us holding political office, but it’s okay if it’s a ball or a microphone we sing and rap into, as long as we’re not decrying supremacist / oligarchal bullshit disguised as ‘policy.’
Then redline the districts to remove black representatives, and put them in districts where prisoners can’t vote.
Then talk about ‘reverse discrimination’ when it used to be called ‘hiring on merit’ before.
Worried about terrorism? Guess it takes one to know one.
Time to segregate, on our own terms, for our own reasons, to rebuild ourselves, our youth, and our communities. Stop celebrating Kwanzaa for a week when we’re not living out the principles 24/7/365.
We weren’t brought over here to live, but to work, and as long as we’re not turning a profit for anyone else, we can ‘go back to Africa.’
But let’s get back to Black Wall Street instead. Let’s build schools where our youth will excel and begin to invade the halls of power: science, law (and its enforcement), finance, technology, and trade, in the same numbers we seek to invade the NFL and NBA.
We’ll be talking about a different country then; help is not coming from the outside, and for damn sure reparations are not coming for slavery. You’re paid less for the work you actually do, as opposed to the work you didn’t, where no one was paid at all.
Stop rapping about money and hoes and guns and drugs, and pull your pants up so you can stand up and man up. You do know by now that showing your ass means anyone can screw you, and screw you over?
If you ‘love your hood,’ stop poisoning its people with drugs imported from countries that don’t like you either, and shooting your brothers, and impregnating your sisters with babies you can’t take care of from behind bars. You leave them vulnerable, like Tamir was vulnerable.
Stop riding around in expensive cars through neighborhoods that look no better than bombed out Syria, talking about ‘I got mine’ before the cops add it to the Criminal Forfeiture fund to pay for their bodycams, which they’ll turn off the next time they aim for your heart.
Poverty is a mindset; it just manifests as an economic factor.
Wake up. Strap up (your mind first, your home second).
The revolution has started, and it’s not only televised, it’s being broadcast all over the world.
Resolve in your spirit, now, to answer this question:
How long are you willing to remain a target?
Stare we no longer
at
the setting sun
The evening starlight
knells
the day is done
And you and I
are here
Love’s victory won
Inner cage Outer rage
Kill the people Turn the page
Bleeding in an alleyway
Watching darkness hunt the day
We’re the only monsters here
Gods of violence, blood and fear
Rule blue heaven overhead
Die not with me when I’m dead
I am dead to faith and hope
Love is but a hanging rope
I’ll not dangle; Best beware
I will roast your heart so fair
Toss you like a broken knife
Dare you still to be my wife
Break inside the inner cage
Sail the sea of outward rage
Take me safely back to land
with your roughened, gentle hand
When your love has calmed the beast
Claim his heart your wedding feast
Ever fast and ever true
In the inner cage
with
you
© Alfred W. Smith Jr. 2015
Beyond Panic 