Tag: family
member name: Umar, Abu Nurain
|
December 15, 2009 03:54 PM EST --
Graveyard shifts
offer premium wages
in lieu of pleasures and sins
hidden under the nights’ tawdry skirts,
or the lukewarm beds of tired wives
in stale, familiar . . .
more
|
|
September 04, 2007 10:20 PM EDT --
I must have been 5 or 6 years old. I was down with the measles, which meant the portable radio was placed on my nightstand. The radio was big and brown with just a few knobs. A warm light snuck out the . . .
more
|
|
January 12, 2008 09:47 PM EST --
Dad's ring:
death makes heirlooms
from everyday effects.
Possessions crammed with his aura;
a fingertip caresses gold and gems
as his dad, reveling, had done
seeing sons . . .
more
|
|
July 20, 2007 05:49 PM EDT --
We had picked up the mooring lines the night before. Now there was a bellowing wind from the south building seas and creating wave sets that smacked us abeam, stretching those mislaid mooring lines taut. . . .
more
|
|
August 01, 2007 05:33 PM EDT --
My mother loved jade. She nurtured her jade with all the gardening skills she could muster, which, to be honest weren’t that many. She was not a country girl. Southern California amazed her because . . .
more
|
|
August 23, 2007 06:25 PM EDT --
I spun the wheel until the knotted center mark was in my palm. I lifted the engine’s lever and the diesel hummed as I quickened my step along the deck, grabbed the stinger and lifted the mooring . . .
more
|
|
August 27, 2007 12:35 AM EDT --
more
|
|
September 20, 2007 01:10 PM EDT --
We arrived in San Antonio Thursday afternoon and fled directly to the River Walk in search of margaritas, chips and salsa. First, we surrounded the Alamo until we found the list of those who died for those . . .
more
|
|
July 18, 2007 03:34 PM EDT --
I read this poem at my father's funeral.
Spindly, black and ashen legs
Sprouted from brown, high-top shoes,
Rose and lost themselves in baggy blue jean shorts
These silent bell clappers . . .
more
|
|
August 06, 2007 04:32 PM EDT --
Burning away the gentle fog of youthful remembrances is the harshness of being a Black man over sixty years old in America. I lost my youth in junior high school when we began the too oft repeated internment . . .
more
|
|
December 04, 2007 09:06 PM EST --
As I walked home from work today, somewhat intoxicated by poems I've read today, this little ditty came bouncing in so I thought I'd give it to you even before it might have matured. . . .
more
|
|
December 12, 2007 05:33 PM EST --
I nearly died when I was born. My parents took me back to the hospital where I was treated for a problem that persists even now. From this auspicious beginning, my life evolved like . . .
more
|
|
September 02, 2007 03:22 PM EDT --
One of the more famous streets in the history of the Blues is Maxwell Street in Chicago, Illinois. It may not be as famous as Beale Street but the music we know today as R & B, Rock & Roll, the . . .
more
|
|
August 03, 2007 11:09 PM EDT --
Billion year old carbon, recently renovated
I dreamt I was African, Blood
I even had an original name
I mean, I was resurrected ancient black gentility
We had mastered the stars before
Abraham was . . .
more
|
|
December 22, 2007 04:05 PM EST --
We're soaking a kettle of black-eyed peas
none of them peas at all it seems
merely black hearted beans; beans, beans good
for your heart, eat too many and you will
(don't be childish) . . .
more
|
|
July 09, 2007 02:22 PM EDT --
KANO, NIGERIA
JULY 1976
Tunneling through time
Beneath the graves ofvoodoo children
Alert to the facts inevidence
Of my . . .
more
|
|
July 08, 2007 03:42 PM EDT --
The unraveling of time’s threadbare
Evidence of our being
Here continues apace with the serene
Unworlding of our father.
The frayed edges of memory, now paler than before,
Blur in the brave . . .
more
|
|
July 19, 2007 03:58 PM EDT --
I came here, invited by a woman who once thought she was in love with me. She told me that I would like it and that those who gather here would enjoy my presence.
I’ve read some . . .
more
|
|
December 20, 2007 05:39 PM EST --
washing the vibrant headstone
my bathing hands see the skull
beneath the skin, its ridges and knots
roll the cavernous holes' fleshy protuberances
the detachable jawbone, . . .
more
|
|
October 27, 2007 08:18 PM EDT --
Paul Laurence Dunbar was the first African American poet to achieve national and international recognition.
We Wear the Mask
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
We wear the mask that grins . . .
more
|
|
|
|
