Well Versed 2021: A Collection of Poetry and Prose accepted three of my poems. One earned Third Place in Poetry and another, Honorary Mention. The anthology can be purchased on Amazon. Thank you Columbia Writers Guild, judges, and editors!
Honorary Mention
From Your Son
In Memory of George Floyd (May 25, 2020)
I am through, Mama.
Across shackled seas
These chains & ropes
knuckled tight to hanging trees.
Hate, a masquerade
under white, hooded robes,
disguised constraints,
a force of captivity
in black and white terms
from fields to farms
to racial divide.
Our souls, handcuffed
to plows, to prisons,
as crosses burned,
sisters raped,
brothers gunned down
for opening their own gates.
But no one can cut our stride,
nor can the blue shield
take another knee
to choke our certitude
to force us to salute servitude.
Mama, see how
our crest of unity rises.
The world resounds
our gospel songs
of grief released
from collapsed lungs
just so that
we can
breathe!
Third-Place in Poetry
Picasso Dreams Broken Glass
In response to the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol (2021)
Thrust down with a fumbling hand
in the light of the slumberous moon
crashing into the crater in my chest
all that pain of after death, the broken glass,
the splintering cries of those who gather by the gate
& wonder where to go & who to see
& ask if there’s a place for their guns
or something organic to eat,
but why cast onto me
this surreal art of disharmony:
jumbling discordant shards,
the jagged insurrections of clouds
& murders by crowds,
& those who rage, their fire snuffed out
by wet whimpers
& so they drown in grief,
but why pursue me, as though I
could decode this absurd collage,
take on the lake-effect breeze
of a dense fog that steeps
in a mind that cannot sleep,
much less dream of rainbowed gardens.
Why seek me to recast their shattered sorrow,
scattered chaotic clutter,
their Felliniesque costumes?
I don’t know the half of it.
