Explore Poems: Sorrow & Grieving

The Realization of a Negro's Ambition requires melatonin & the soft dying body of a monkey face orchid.

The brilliant strangeness of watching everyone not you grow comfortable with themselves.

Trying to rehabilitate one or multiple racists.

Learning death does not fear you.

I...

was, according to Virgil, always a fickle, unstable thing. Woman. Wyf. Merger of wife and man. To indicate: not-girl. Not-yet-claimed, not-yet weeping. And aren’t they often weeping? The mother, tearing her hair out, running toward the battle lines, filling heaven...

Today four little robins
left the nest and flew away.
I turn time to a month ago
and see their nest growing
over my home’s lamp
stick by stick
beat by beat
song by song.
I turn to yesterday
and see their sunlit wings
lifting from the nest
leaving shadows with...

Brother, this morning was full of movement, sun flooding
the windows and dew on every green thing. The clouds

slow motion behind the screen of leaves. I wish you
could see the treetops starting to turn into flames.

I wish you could see the...

At my beloved’s burial,
I can’t see his body.

Only carnations. I hear
your name and my beloved’s

in the …

It’s New Year’s.
It’s New Year’s & the stars are white-hot & all your favorite dishes
are flushed warm on the island: tteokguk for fortune, knife-cut noodles
for longevity, persimmon pudding & a tin can of sardines.
The nectarines are in season in our...

Crip (noun): slang for a disabled person/the whole of
     the disabled community/
a school of thought
Example: “I’m on crip time” 
Meaning: Time bends differently when the universe that is
     my body dictates it 

Crip (noun): a Black gang that originated in...

the sac
itself wasclear      
        and I cleaned itlike a window
and in the windowsaw my baby
our baby[birdlike  
mouth opennasalarea still    
oversizedlike a beak]eye’s aperture blue-black    
head thrownbackand twisted beginning  
to separateneck brok
en in the contractions’violencetwo arms
two legstailbone translucent... [whatcolor is
the baby?]silent heart [sac contains“chorionic cavity”]
with utmost tendernessI...

You will tell your babies, someday,
of the little house behind the wall clock.

They will love most the part about the window
sloped inside a six’s hollow, silhouettes

of Sundays, shadows having dinner.
How they walk along the edges of  hands

at night, skipping pebbles...

my doctor named this weeping.
a month of quartered lemon slices sucked from skin.
a month of ibuprofen in a deathless wound.
red raspberry leaves ground in green capsule,
slosh in jars of diluted vinegar.
so many tricks to braid the blood. clouds
of swaddled ply...

If for a day joy masters me,
Think not my wounds are healed;
Far deeper than the scars you see,
I keep the roots concealed.

They shall bear blossoms with the fall;
I have their word for this,
Who tend my roots with rains of gall,
And...

My delirium is a transformocean
Rocking me like the seven thousand waves
That brought Wangolo to Ziltik.

Cric . . .
Crack . . .
Tim Tim
Bwa sèch

It’s a tale of salty foam,
Of centuries-old laughter
Breaking out anew in wet reflections,

Of the coming and going of...

The brutality of those two men
                                                 who broke into her apartment
and murdered her boyfriend,
       ...

I come from the kidnapped,
                                    the assaulted—
my country’tis of reparations as in-store credit
                     ...

Here, the sentence will be respected.

I will compose each sentence with care, by minding what the rules of writing dictate.

For example, all sentences will begin with capital letters.

Likewise, the history of the sentence will be honored by ending each one...

In springtime, chief of all seasons,
        in May when new joys rise and flourish,
                the sun is lord and messenger at once and sends down to us
        to rouse our bodies and be merry:
humankind to...

In a sesone of somere þat souerayne ys of alle,
Þat was þe myry monþ of May when many myrthys spryng,
Þe sonne ys somnore and syre and sendyth tyl vs doun,
And byddyth vs bisy for to be oure bodys for to glade;
Man for to myrth hym in al maner wys,
Bestys for to buske ham on bentys tyl abyde,

Naturally, broken glass, throbbing bass, a roll of bills and a paper bag passed between the hands of hustlers. Just as true: the rows of corn planted by the family at the end of the street. Even in this leaded...

                                                            Hunger like her mama
                                                            Most strong in White gaze as in
                                                            a Cowbird’s flirtation
                                                            Sprouted in eyes to tongues
                                                            to bellies pregnant with stolen milk
                                                            to restless hands
                                                            These fingernails filled with Black body,

Some are transformed just once
And live their whole lives after in that shape.
Others have a facility
For changing themselves as they please.