Skylands July 12, 2020

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Lake Henry July 11, 2020

album

lingering afterlife

If you saw the black and white photograph 

You might think it could be Ernest Hemingway 

Standing there being posed holding the big fish

Bundled in a parka against the cold snow and ice.

Twelve years since my friend David died

Three years since that photo appeared 

Beside a remembrance another friend wrote

Published in the 50th reunion compendium. 

As a dear friend Rosie once explained

Not long before she died this year

The dead exist in a kind of lingering afterlife 

In the memories of those who knew them.

The David I remember would surely laugh

Seeing that photo of himself like the way he laughed 

Reading aloud Brautigan’s Trout Fishing In America 

Mocking the manly Hemingway having sex with a fish.

For me the words of praise for David filling that page 

Beside the bemused expression I see in the photo 

Left out the essence of the person I loved to be with 

The one I knew not yet forgotten to me

The one with the melodious good natured chuckle

The one who dared to speak from the heart 

The one who had no truck with pretense

The one who stayed true to his roots in Flint.

The one who gave me encouragement for my writing 

The one who introduced me to Black jazz musicians

The one who opened my world up to new possibilities 

Though I never quite understood his meaning 

As he read his poem almost shouting the final words

"If the shoe fits, WALK!"

Until many years later more subdued 

Having lived through his losses and disappointment 

The divorce late in life of his parents 

The suicide of his mother afterwards 

The disillusionment with his older brother 

The friend who failed him in his time of need.

All that weighed on him in such a human way

As he took a sober inventory of his life

Never wavering from trying to do the right thing 

Being a good and generous person

Running a small bookstore with his adored Liz

Putting out boxes of free books for the community 

Forever enjoying reciting his favorite Jack Spicer

"The sounding brass of my heart says 'love'."

Lake Henry July 6, 2020

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declaration

People who were born into slavery 

Were still alive when I was born 

Not so very long ago

Not so far removed from current events. 

Native Americans with treaty rights to their land

Belonging to them by right in the first place 

Stolen even more recently 

Forced onto reservations to live in poverty. 

Abolition remains unfinished business 

Reparations yet another broken promise 

Slavery reconstructed through imprisonment 

Democracy deconstructed through disenfranchisement.

The way things are today has not changed really

The systemic racism behind the professed ideals

The ongoing history of genocide and betrayal 

White man speaks with forked tongue. 

Japanese immigrants sent to concentration camps 

Yesterday's news overtaken by the latest outrage 

Latinx immigrant children separated from their parents 

Placed in cages like dangerous animals. 

On the Fourth of July I do not celebrate 

Living in a place where freedom does not ring

Where people of color live in fear

There can be no truth and reconciliation possible.

Hanks Pond July 4, 2020

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Laurelwood July 2, 2020

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answering back

When you get right down to it

Some people who should know better 

Support the police even now 

Despite all the images of brutality and murder.

A neighbor put up a sign on their lawn

Provoking us to put signs in our windows 

Facing them answering back 

Black Lives Matter.  Stop Police Violence. 

Probably someone they know asked them 

To put up the sign with the blue line across 

Praising cops who assault defenseless protestors

As heroes bravely defending us.

Probably they have watched too many cop shows

Making them out to be the good guys

Protecting us from all the bad people everywhere 

Even as they break the law interrogating suspects.

Perhaps they have a relative who is a cop

Or the person who asked them is related to a cop

Who chooses to take the money and go against us

Serving this system of injustice and oppression.

Because it's the PBA who distributed their sign

Giving it away free to try to get a show of support

In our neighborhood where almost everyone is white 

Making it the best place around to confront racism.

Where we are privileged to be safe from profiling

But not from offensive racist displays and remarks

We were happy to see a huge Black Lives Matter sign

On the lawn across from where we know a cop lives.

this time for keeps

If the coincidence of what else happened

On any particular calendar date in the past

Determined anything about our lives based on our birth date

Then you might as well believe in astrology.

But the contours of the events that surround us

Growing up in a particular place and time

Do inform our awareness of the world as adults

What we know personally without a doubt. 

You living in Detroit in the 1950s automobile prosperity 

When almost everything was made in USA

To the summer of 1967 when the rebellion was crushed

Awakening awareness of racism and resistance. 

Me witnessing that inner city burning

And the poor whites joining in taking home the goods

And the airborne troops arriving in their convoy

On the anniversary of the Cuban revolution. 

Taking our lessons from events

Taking a new look at everything we had been taught 

Changing the course of our lives

Like what we see happening today. 

More than fifty years later this much has changed 

The increasing climate crisis threatening humanity 

The Soviet Union dismembered but China ascendant 

Cell phones capturing the brutality of racist police.

The utter failure of the decadent capitalist government

To effectively contain the spread of the COVID pandemic 

Compelling more and more people to consider alternatives 

Including the youth who bring their energy to the struggle. 

There's going to be a day like Bastille Day again 

With the poor and oppressed jubilantly released from prison 

When the entire ruling class is dispossessed 

Liberating reparations and the promise of a better future.

What is possible with a government set up for all of us 

Especially the essential workers and poorest people 

Dismantling the police state and global finance empire 

This time for keeps.