I have a cynical streak mitigated by a sense of humor, as exemplified in this poem by Roque Dalton:

OAS

The President of my country
is called for the moment Colonel Fidel Sanchez Hernandez
But General Somoza, President of Nicaragua,
also is President of my country.
And President Stroessner, President of Paraguay,
is also a little the President of my country, though less
than the President of Honduras, namely
General Lopez Arellano, and more than the President of Haiti,
Monsieur Duvalier.
And the President of the United States is more President of my country
than the President of my country,
that one who, as I said, is for the moment
called Colonel Fidel Sanchez Hernandez.

Ta-Nehisi Coates writes with fire, not ink or binary code. I've enjoyed/winced at his stuff for years. So it comes as no surprise that Bill Cosby gets lit up in the Village Voice after waxing ridiculous about "the lower economic people" last week at a gala event commemorating the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education.

(On background: earlier Coates articles)

Here's a nice little story about a movie I won't see for a while (no cable, friends): Something the Lord Made. It's about the first successful open heart surgery, performed by a white surgeon and a black lab technician.

Or, was it Dr. Daniel Hale Willliams who performed the first successful open heart surgery? That's what I always heard, about once a year, usually during Black History Month.

(NOTE: This post was inspired by NPR)

nudistry

clad in shadows
stitched with fear,

i hear you
coax me to the light.

threadbare, i
give my cloke

to you, with
love, nakedly

(see Matthew 5:39-40)

There's this big ol' San Diego Experience Map that I brainstormed last year. It includes about a eighty bulleted items in four categories: family, family friends, friends, and memories.

The idea is to write a poem or sketch an idea for each bulleted item. Here's an extended sketch of Mr. Sweet. I'm still undecided whether I'll go with liking or not liking him in the poem. As of this writing, I'm trying to have it both ways.

The Ice Cream Man Cometh
Mr. Sweet lied to us
(used an alias)
gave us candy
our parents said not to eat
rotted out our teeth and made
us go to the dentist
left sticky fingers, wrappers
and stained shirts in his wake

but I still felt sorry for Mr. Sweet
when Papa Joe rolled into the
neighborhood with big fresh hot
glazed chocolate filled donuts

Mr. Sweet was no gentleman, lying as he did to children through an alias of confection. Against our parents’ orders, he contrived to shove candy down our throats, rot our teeth, ruin our appetite for dinner, and to make us spend what little allowance we got on his grab bags, sour balls, and pixie sticks. Mr. Sweet was a menace.

I didn’t feel sorry for Mr. Sweet when Papa Joe rolled into the neighborhood with fresh, glazed donuts and enough candy to make Willy Wonka blanch. We all rushed across the street from Mr. Sweet’s jalopy to crown our new king. A twinge of guilt I failed to stop made me turn and look, let me see Mr. Sweet crying. But I didn’t go back, and now Mr. Sweet is dead.

I’m sorry I ditched you, Mr. Sweet, so I could stand at Papa Joe’s window and smell the fresh donuts that were only really fresh for the first few stops in the neighborhood. And his grab bags cost more for less; I never got army men with a parachutes or whistle-pops, just a lot of pixie sticks and rock hard gum. He didn't remember our names, or make us laugh like you did. I don't need to know your real name to know how nice you were to me, to all of us, before that charlatan lured us away.

"clinical poetry"

inertia exhausting as
depression, dizzying as fear.

i pass out and come to
without blinking, dust off

and start again, running
through dense fog

that seems stronger
than any sun i ever knew.

A work in progress...
“untitled”

we have all run away:
from the law in St. Louis to a new name
in the Louisiana bayou;
from the farm to metropoles and military tours
in every war of the 20th Century.

we have all run away:
great-grandpa’s steed; grandpa’s bootleg-mobile;
grandmas from their fathers’ homes,
but never from their children, who could not bear to stay;
shotgun houses turned to kindling

when they ran away:
tired of always running; generations running on empty,
in place, in circles, out of breath;
almost run-down. always running into walls they could feel,
but not touch.