Archive for the 'Poetry I have written' Category

Yesterday I was listening to NPR here in Chicago and heard about a Haiku competition that would be held here. I considered entering the competition briefly. It would require me to compose 27 new Haiku poems by Sunday.

This was very inspirational to me and so I began writing. As I discussed the results of my inspiration with my good friend and colleague at work (surely a finer writer than I) we enjoyed the experience together of taking the restrictions given to us by a particular artistic form and creating art that is unique and beautiful. I saw this as an analogy for life itself. We are born as humans with certain restrictions and our upbringing presents us with even more. We are born with a particular destiny provided by our ancestors. Within these restrictions our becoming is realized as a kind of living poem. To the extent that we live in harmony with the dialog of energies, we create beauty, even in the most terrible and trying times of our lives.

The first Haiku came to me as I was driving on the Ike. The day had started with a great sense of sadness and loneliness. I found this experience interesting considering the happiness that I have been feeling at being able to spend more time with my youngest daughter. The sadness was there still. So I used it. As I wrote one Haiku after another during the day, I came to realize that, for me, this was an expression of my sadness at the senseless destruction going on in Darfur. Even though I realize that destruction is a part of life, it is still sad to see the continued march of the Oil Wars rampaging across the Earth like a sickness ravaging a child. The Gourmanche healers will remind us that even a sickness has a purpose in the becoming of each individual.

So, I found myself with five Haiku. All of these Haiku have grown out of my sorrow. In writing them I found my sorrow lessened and the joy that I have felt over the past few weeks returning to me.

One of the poems refers to “Makheru”. Makheru is a Medu word that means “Truth Teller”. Makheru is the appellation that we offer to Master Naba. This is the traditional title that we use to refer to the master in the M’TAM School. He has many other titles. Some of which I am sure to learn in the coming months and years of my initiation. I do know that I owe him more than my life. He will always remain in my mind and heart as the one who was able to save me from the slavery that I have wallowed in for all of my life. I only hope that I will prove the worth of his teachings by my actions in the time to come.

I present here the five Haiku, which I call,

The Darfur Haiku Cycle

A kitten pounces
On a monarch butterfly
Black blood flows on sand

Silver leaves twisting
Alone in barren forests
Children play in mud-strewn streets

Flames burst forth from mouths
Of a screaming war machine
A river breaks a glacier’s heart

Makheru walks the strand
Of a violent beach of sand
A flock of crows rise

The last heartbeat dies
As a stillborn child returns
Mushrooms burst forth gladly

It’s a cool fall evening in mid October.

I am alone on the campus of a small midwestern college.

Why am I here? This is the central question.

There are some students on the green.

One is playing a guitar, acoustic, slightly amplified.

It’s just loud enough to urge the students to release their youthful energy.

They talk and laugh over the volume of this half song or that.

I am a Black Man. Here in the lily-white suburban sprawl of the silicon prairie.

Far from the pain of my people,
I am so removed from my ancestors in space and time,
that I can barely feel myself a part of the world at all.

Why am I here? A good and hearty question that is,
full of tasty tidbits that linger in the mind
long after the urgency of life demands my attention on the morrow.

There is so much that I want to share.
Somehow, the opportunity just never seems to present itself,
or perhaps I’m never in the “right place” at the “right time”.

Sun in Pieces, Moon in Leo, maybe I’m just not ready.
I read somewhere that this is a most difficult aspect to choose for a lifetime.

Ah, now I see, the gathering is a bunch of so-called Christians.
Where’s a good Lion’s Den when you need one?

They are singing songs of praise to a God,
but what God are they singing to?
Are they singing to the God that commanded them to rape and pillage my forefathers?

Are they singing to the God that rips the souls from indigenous cultures?

Or are they singing to the God that I have been searching for,
the God that I have called out to in pain and sadness in the darkest moments of my life?

Are they calling out to the Deity that I found standing by my bedside one night?

Have they felt the presence of spirit flowing through all things?
Have they had the tantalizing glimpse into the garden… from the outside?

Have they felt the sting of the angelic sword, the flames of which bar us forever?

I want to go home! I want home to be here now!

I feel paradise just beyond the reach of my psyche
like a forgotten thought on the tip of my tong,
like a word I write over and over, but never seem to be able to spell.