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.