How did I know that life would be like a slippery bar of soap

Don't know what happened. Didn't know

Certainly didn't want to be my momma's sorrow.

      from Hallelujah Anyhow

Introduction

        The poems included in this piece that I have written for Short Takes On Identity and Intervention are a significant departure from the story-poem, my usual poetic style.  They are an experiment in short-form poetry, in which I express myself using the fewest words possible.  So instead of creating lengthy three or four page poems, I have written poems consisting of fewer than ten lines.

        There is a practical side to writing shorter poems.  Beginning last fall, I was faced with
the task of finding a way to continue writing poetry, while maintaining my commitments to the novel that I have undertaken and my journalism assignments.  Short poems are not necessarily easier to write, but they take less time than lengthy narrative poems, and the editing process is quicker for me.

        I credit Nate Tate, a New York City poet, and especially E. Ethelbert Miller, a master poet based at Howard University in Washington, DC, for animating me to write minimalist poetry.  Their words are pungent, meaningful and uncluttered. Ethelbert even foregoes punctuation and capitalization in his writing.  Neither could not write as they have if they were not African American, yet both have managed to write across cultural barriers. This puts me, I believe, in the same literary camp.

        The following Short Take attempts several tasks: using "sampling" (borrowing words from another person and incorporating them into my work), a process typically associated with the music industry, to provide the foundation for some of the poems; using prose to add setting and cohesiveness to the poetry; and recording, what for me, are essential truisms of life.

The story...

        Sometimes I get surprised by a strange question, but I always try to keep my cool, you know, play it off like while I try to figure out what's up with that, like in "Unabashed:"

I was standing at the bar
when the sassy white girl
eased up behind me
tapped me on the shoulder
and said I didn't know
they let niggers in here?
She smiled
I paused

Does she want to dance?
 

            Wisdom in three parts:

MAN

I never understood
about "a certain man"
in the bible
who came
or did at the
right time,
coming from
no where in particular,
until I realized that
the Word
couldhavebeen
talking about me.
 

WORTHLESS

My granddaddy listened to
a certain man's excuses then
replied, "if your word's no good
then you're no good."
The man cursed him
and walked away. Granddaddy
knew he'd take the easy way out.
 

MISS OLA MAE

I was lonely
had the spirit of fear
but the old woman
with no legs sang
my blues away.
Changed my mind
with her
"Jesus steps right in
when you need Him most."
She knew.
 

        There have been moments in my life when time suspends and I am the only around to hear nature speak.  The days following an ice storm this past winter provided just such a moment, fragile and pure:

RAIN TALK

After the ice storm
the trees all had
sparkling doo's
that crinkled
when breezed.
They spoke rain-talk
but in the cold
their  words
didn't fall.
 

        The next day was different.  A death celebration:

JANUARY 20TH

When the ice started to melt
small pieces plopped to the ground
and I stood beneath the umbrella
quietly feeling the moments.
The sun's muted pink
revealed life as it could be,
when it oranged
the ice glimmered to its death
and I smelled the odor of
beauty, saw its perfect smile.
I surrendered, glad that I hadn't
missed Christmas.
 

        My grandfather's love had many sides and sometimes like a parable or riddle, it was puzzling:

WONDER

When I asked my granddad
can I have a treat, when
it was yes he'd say, "I
wouldn't wonder."
When it was no
he said, "You're old
enough for your wants
not to hurt you."

And like love, faith can show itself in parables too:

PERSEVERANCE

The aging preacher's response
to the poet's why do you still?
"I'm too close to shore
to drown in shallow water."
The poet rewrote his poem
and spelled God with a capital G.
 

       Neither my grandfather or the preacher would have said it this way, but when it concerns a brother of the same lodge, I do not wince from the truth:
 

GOOD ADVICE

If I was friends with
Bill Clinton
before he was President,
I would have told him
you don't shit
where you eat,
Brother.
 

        And furthermore, another anecdote, that is good advice for me:

BAD

I think that I saw the
baddest man I ever saw
yesterday. He was riding
in a brown chevy van
and on the back
it said:
"Gas Grass or Ass Nobody rides for free."
Amen to that brother.
 

        And I close with a tribute to my hero Muhammad Ali:

THE CHAMP

The slaves of Amistad
remind me of Ali
strong,
wronged and righted-
redeemed-
both gospel
with a role to play.