(01/20/2014) Poems: MARTIN 85

     As surely as this seems to be a season for poetry with me, it has also been one for remembering; and so today I share a new and an old poem in respect to Citizen King’s Day, 2014.  As I was considering again one of my enduring favorites from Homer to Dunbar, Langston Hughes, e. e. cummings, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Millay to Rita Dove and on to Richard Wilbur, Black Dada Nihilismus by LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka) published in the Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note (1961), I was impressed that anyone having that much to say before they can destroy themselves is forced to live in order to get it all written down.  Had he lived by the goodness and justice of our Nation, Dr. King would be eighty-five years old today.

Untitled Poem:  MLK 2001

I had a waking moment
where flesh and dreams
were heaped to sound a cry.

An army claimed a battlefield
in peace, with hymns of love to life,

and none did die that day.

Having marched across a nation,
from dark hollows, and black bottoms
colored quarters, low rent districts

hearts broke from joy, and tears of hope
streamed free.


Wisdom, spoken forth and spoken for
the light of another’s faith
burning like your own

I trusted what I saw to be

the truth
that you are not alone.


The echo in today is what you feel
I have a choice
I have a faith

the violence of injustice
the unreal hatred loosed
in times gone by

lack substance

I have a reality
I have a GOD
I choose to share
and this is not a dream

 

 

©Michael Andrew Williams, 2001.  All rights reserved.

 

MARTIN 85

Being someone who cares becomes
A thing of the past, or at least
A thing only remembered
Special days must come
Be set apart, aside from that
A future, a destiny,
an unbroken line of loves
And intimate innate recognition
That’s passed along
By instinct, feel, one just having a hunch
To think on you as you have been
I am getting too old for this
The violence I’ve suppressed
Will go down to my grave with me
Never to be resurrected made glorious
Or pure as this cold bright day of GOD
warmed by unforgotten marches miracles
dreams detention in a Birmingham eternity
Is it still in vogue to say thank you
To those who led us well
It is easy to imagine you as Caleb
Had it only been his will

 

©Michael Andrew Williams, 2014.  All rights reserved worldwide.

     As GOD permits, there are many more poems and remembrances to come.  By now, we should all agree, there is far more to be said, properly shared, and spiritually understood.  Even so, I trust this fragment will be useful.  Be it unto you according to your faith.


I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the LORD.  The LORD hath chastened me sore: but he hath not given me over unto death.  Open to me the gates of righteousness:  I will go into them, and I will praise the LORD:  (Psalms 118:  17-19, KJV)


THE BLACK PHOENIX
Washington, DC