Wicked Wednesday

 

Wicked Wednesdays

This week’s Wicked Wednesday will feature poets with natural hair in honor of National Poetry Month! By far, one of my favorite months of the year thanks to 30/30. Hope you enjoy this installation of Wicked Wednesday!

Gil Scott-Heron

ANGEL DUST

He was groovin'
and that was when he coulda sworn
the room was movin'
But that was only in his mind
He was sailin'
he never really seemed to notice
vision failin'
'cause that was all part of the high
Sweat was pourin' --
he couldn't take it
The room was exploding --
he might not make it.
Angel Dust/Please, children would you listen.
Angel Dust/Just ain't where it's at.
Angel Dust/You won't remember what you're
missin', but down some dead end streets
there ain't no turnin' back.

They were standin'
ev'rybody in a circle;
the whole family
listening to the preacher's words
Sis was cryin'
She alone held all the secrets
'bout his dyin'
tears fallin' to earth
Maybe her fault
He was so trusting
God only knew why
they was dustin'!
Angel Dust/Please children would you listen.
Angel Dust/Just ain't where it's at.
Angel Dust/You won't remember what you're
missin', but down some dead end streets
there ain't no turnin' back.

Carl Phillips

Custom

There is a difference it used to make,
seeing three swans in this versus four in that
quadrant of sky. I am not imagining. It was very large, as its
effects were. Declarations of war, the timing fixed upon for a sea-departure; or,
about love, a sudden decision not to, to pretend instead to a kind
of choice. It was dramatic, as it should be. Without drama,
what is ritual? I look for omens everywhere, because they are everywhere
to be found. They come to me like strays, like the damaged,
something that could know better, and should, therefore-but does not:
a form of faith, you've said. I call it sacrifice-an instinct for it, or a habit at first, that
becomes required, the way art can become, eventually, all we have
of what was true. You shouldn't look at me like that. Like one of those saints
on whom the birds once settled freely.

Carolyn M. Rodgers

From Space to Time

on a day when
we were dark
and not so full of
light
we met
    what did we find?
nothing.
everything, when we closed
our eyes
which anyway
had never been open.

once, we thought we
loved each other
       who can reverse
    time?
we tried.
we stepped out
of space
into some new
step of distance
and fell-
and not in love.

 Ai

Conversation

We smile at each other
and I lean back against the wicker couch.
How does it feel to be dead? I say.
You touch my knees with your blue fingers.
And when you open your mouth,
a ball of yellow light falls to the floor
and burns a hole through it.
Don't tell me, I say. I don't want to hear.
Did you ever, you start,
wear a certain kind of dress
and just by accident,
so inconsequential you barely notice it,
your fingers graze that dress
and you hear the sound of a knife cutting paper,
you see it too
and you realize how that image
is simply the extension of another image,
that your own life
is a chain of words
that one day will snap.
Words, you say, young girls in a circle, holding hands,
and beginning to rise heavenward
in their confirmation dresses,
like white helium balloons,
the wreathes of flowers on their heads spinning,
and above all that,
that's where I'm floating,
and that's what it's like
only ten times clearer,
ten times more horrible.
Could anyone alive survive it?

Mari Evans

The Rebel

When I
die
I'm sure
I will have a
Big Funeral ...

Curiosity
seekers ...
coming to see
if I
am really
Dead ...
or just
trying to make
Trouble ...

Cornelius Eady

Grief Bird

After those buildings fell,
And New York City stank from bad intent,
And the wind twirled with human pigment,
And the sky darkened in one spot and howled,

There we walked, newborn, holding flashlights and shovels,
Dusty with shock, the streets painted mad,
Ears still smarting from the evil crumble.

Now the combing, the sifting,
Now the hauling, the uncovering.
The astonished song.

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