Chasing Utopia (9 page)

ROBERT CHAMPION

(Who Died at the Hands of His Bandmates)

The ever restless ocean

Beating against sea

And sky

Grinds, no gently rubs,

The bones of Robert Champion

Into the salt

Of his ancestors

Driven into the blue

Through Middle Passage

We know the torture

Of slavery

And apartheid

We know the terror

Of Jim Crow

Who would imagine The Band

Would kill

Are we having too many

Black men trying to sing

A praise song

Too many Black men trying

To show a better self

So many Black men

That we can spare them

I don't think so

There can be no excuse

For this murder

There can be no I didn't

Realize he was dying

How could you not know

When you act like nazis

Jesus is crucified

How could you not understand

This child should have lived

How could Black men do this

to each other?

ALLOWABLES

I killed a spider

Not a murderous brown recluse

Nor even a black widow

And if the truth were told this

Was only a small

Sort of papery spider

Who should have run

When I picked up the book

But she didn't

And she scared me

And I smashed her

I don't think

I'm allowed

To kill something

Because I am

Frightened

FLYING IN KIGALI

Or
War Is Never Right

For some reason

Or perhaps

None

The dew was just lifting

Which is not unreasonable

But something for no reason

Made me walk

In my house slippers

To the little dogwood tree

Recently planted

By the shed

As I watered the tree

And, frankly, took joy

In the grass coming up

Where I had tried

For several years to no avail

To grow this little spot of green

I spotted a furry thing

Without thinking

I turned the hose on it

Assuming it was a mushroom

Or some of the mold

That occasionally forms

On top of the mulch

I know there could not

Have been a scream because

Screams aren't possible

For little birds

But there was a protest

My heart broke

This little robin was out of the nest

Before she could fly

And I live with a Yorkie

Who was sniffing the yard

I grabbed the dog

Taking her back inside

And returned

To understand

This little bird would die

The mother was overhead now

And I put the bird in a basket

To take her beyond the reach

Of Alex though surely

Into the paw

Of one of the cats that roam

Some will say:
It's Mother Nature's

way
Some will say:
It's Natural

Some will say:
It is out of your hands

There is
Nothing
you can do about it

But it still breaks my heart

To know that little robin

Cannot be saved

TEREZIN: WHERE THIRTY-FIVE THOUSAND DIED BUT IT WAS NOT A DEATH CAMP

I don't want you

To watch me sleeping I don't want you

To look worriedly

Over me

In some hospital bed

Tied up with tubes

Laboring over my breath

Until I take that last one

And release my energy

There was a deer

In the middle of Highway 81

She had been hit

And could not run

While waiting for some uninterested trucker

She held up her head

And I

In cowardly concern

Turned away

There was

On a cold snowy night

Coming across the West Virginia Turnpike

A rabbit which tried to cross

Four lanes of traffic

The head was hit

But hadn't yet told the legs

So they kept running

And I from fatigue

And helplessness drove

On

Slavery was not fun

The holocaust happened

People are not good

And yet we go on

Until we stop

And I think

The only bravery available

To us

Is to Remember

Smell—

As we all know—

Is half the taste

TO THE LION WHO DISCOVERED A DEER IN HIS HABITAT:
GIVE HIM KETCHUP!

Because who was knocking on my door

After midnight

I know it wasn't you

'Cause you said:

This is it. I am out of here. I don't want to hear it anymore

And I said:

Well go. You think I care?

Ergo I know it wasn't you

Needing my arms

Or my kisses

Not to mention my roast beef

So who was knocking at that hour

Last night night before

24 robbers at my door

I got up let them in

Hit them in the head

With a rolling pin

All hid?

And the lion pounced

Because it was such a treat

The chance to butcher his own meat

Not that the zoo butcher didn't cut a fine roast

But hell

He could for the first time in his life

Do it himself

Remember when you were learning to walk

And your mom would hold your hand

Remember when you started dressing yourself

And your big sister laughed at your stripes and plaids

Well that lion didn't have anyone to answer to now

But himself

Imagine his pride when he carted dinner home

That night

Imagine the good good love they would make

While she crooned what a lion he is

And then the zookeeper came and said:

Deer is not good for you

Yes, dear,
she said,
I am

Pass the ketchup, Mr. Zookeeper

You or the antelope?

Fresher Meat, Better Tasting

Papa John

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF POETRY

Poetry is as necessary

To life

As salt is to stew

As garlic is to pasta

As perfume is to summer nights

As shaving lotion is to mornings

As your smile is to

My happiness

Poetry is as significant

To life

As yeast is to bread

As butter is to toast

As grapes are to wine

As sugar is to lemons

How else will we get

Lemonade

Poetry is to me

Your voice

Your touch

Your laughter

That feeling at the end of day

That I am

Not alone

NOTE TO THE SOUTH: YOU LOST

The buzz of the flies

Almost was a lullaby

Rocking the dead

To a restful place

You couldn't hear the ants

Though they were

Clearly there

In the eyes the mouths

Any wound or soft

Tissue

The worms had come

Understanding those

Which were not

Trampled

Would have a great

Feast

The grasses had no

Choice but to drink

Down the blood

And bits of flesh

That were ground

Into them

In the future

It would be girls

Not field rats

Who would follow

The soldiers

Into the trenches

In the future there

Would be single

Engine airplanes

Dropping bombs

And then

In the scientific imagination

Of the 21st century

There would be men

And women

Pushing buttons

Making war clean

And distant

But today

On This battlefield

The deadliest of This war

The Songbirds had been

Frightened off

The Turkey Buzzards retreated to watch

Deer Skunk Raccoons

Possum Groundhogs gathered

To let the smoke clear

And only the moans

Of the almost dead

And the quiet march of Lice

Gave cadence to this concert of sacrifice

For

Freedom

THE GOLDEN SHOVEL POEM

they eat beans mostly, this old yellow pair
—From “The Bean Eaters” by Gwendolyn Brooks

At the Evening of Life

I wonder if
they

See the evening of life as a treat to
eat

Or as a staple like
beans

With corn bread
mostly

A good warming meal
this

Daily day
old

Bread pudding love capped sunshine
yellow

By an honest upstanding
pair

MORGANTOWN, WVA

(Haiku for Ethel and Lucy)

Pinto Beans Fried Corn Bread

Clean Spring Water Rocking Chair

Your Smile Home Peace

FOR SONIA SANCHEZ

In the name of those incredibly Brave men and women

who made the Trek from Freedom in Africa to Enslavement in America

and maintained their humanity

through unspeakable acts

In the precious name of Phillis Wheatley

who was put on Academic Trial

forcing her to prove she wrote her own Poems

to the confident Paul Laurence Dunbar

who kept the plantation tongue alive

In the Brave name of W. E. B. DuBois

who studied The Atlantic Slave Trade

to Jessie Fauset

who wrote children's stories

In the name of the incomparable Langston Hughes

who taught us

The tom-tom cries and

the tom-tom laughs

to the anger of Richard Wright

In the name of the Honesty of James Baldwin

In the fearlessness of Margaret Walker

to the beautiful poems of Gwendolyn Brooks

In the name of the awesome Toni Morrison

And the truly wonderful spirit of Rita Dove

In the names of those whom we silently call

and in the names of those whose names will call us

in the future

This is for

Sonia Sanchez

FOR HAKI MADHUBUTI

Words are the lifeblood of writers. Though I must admit I don't know if we dream in words or if we word our dreams.

Words are like quilts. You have to put a bunch together to make something warm and comforting or patch together something that will prick and scratch the spirit. No matter how we weave this experience, we sculpt an idea and shape a phrase.

A phrase. Usually we find phrases to describe whatever it is. No word is sufficient to stand alone. Not even strong words like FREEDOM or soft words like LOVE. They all are better when added to . . . for example FOR ALL . . . or
Je t'aime
. Love phrases work in all languages.

The human experiment has turned on many important phrases WE THE PEOPLE,
taxation without representation
and even things like REMEMBER THE MAINE. There are other political phrases like LIBERTÉ, ÉGALITÉ, FRATERNITÉ. I especially like WE SHALL OVERCOME. There are personal phrases like
Yes
. Which may be the only one-word phrase we ever use.
No
requires a bit more. There are personal phrases such as
You Look Beautiful
and
I am so proud of you
but maybe that's a sentence not a phrase.

The human imagination is the engine that has carried us from caves in Europe, from the rain forests of South America, from the lush and mineral-rich lands of Africa, from the beautiful amber waves of North America, from the roaring seas and the frozen tundra to this meeting with these artists here at Virginia Tech and, in fact, to wherever humans gather.

There are philosophical phrases, theological phrases, scientific phrases, economic phrases, political phrases, phrases to explain and express. BUT

there is one phrase that, if a phrase could be said to jump-start the human heart, we all know and love. Writers took up this phrase from the griots and soothsayers of old. As we began this journey with words, which is yet ever expanding our emotional and physical universe, we still find in our darkest hours and our most joyful moments the need to gather 'round the fire, or circle the wagons, or tuck into bed the young and the old with the enchantment of that magical phrase “Once Upon A Time . . . ” We know the storyteller has arrived. We comfort our spirits to think and dream. We know those other magical words will follow: In A Land Far Away . . . and our imaginations can soar safe within the hopes and sometimes the prayers.

OUR JOB SAFETY IS YOUR PRIORITY WITH COFFEE

I have written the essay below to help explain how I edit my poetry. I am more inclined to say I create a path through which I hope to take the reader rather than finding a perfect word to make the reader follow my thought. I have chosen a new poem:
COFFEE
because I actually did make a new pathway once I gave it a second or third look. I think the second version is an easier walk. I wrote to share my feelings about the edit.

Job   (Y)                                                                             

(Y)our Job Safety Is Our Priority: A Path for Poetry

(should read “our job safety is your priority”

but I cannot make my computer cross things out)

A poem is not so much read as navigated. We go from point to point discovering a new horizon, a shift of light or laughter, an exhilaration of newness that we had missed before. Even familiar, or perhaps especially familiar, poems bring the excitement of first nighters, first encounters, first love . . . when viewed and reviewed.

I'm not a big fan of adjust this line, change this word, add a
this
subtract a
that.
The poem like the kitten, like the tadpole, like the moth
is
and with time will mature to
become
. Sometimes it gets consumed to make another poem better—sometimes it simply is out in the world too long and dries up—sometimes a friendly scout seeing the struggle of the butterfly to break free from the cocoon decides to make the struggle easier and cuts her loose . . . call it an MFA program workshopping a poem too much. She falls to the ground, unable to soar because a doer of good deeds didn't want to see the pain. Though now all that is left is a tenure-track position and the bitterness of tears shed for dreams not unwon but unchased.

I like to think poems are maps—they don't Google but rather guide us along the way. There is no destination on a country road. You see an old woman slightly bent moving through the field. A frisky calf frolicking. Sometimes a deer standing still. Why would there be a destination when life itself is a journey? You go not to get there but to be there.

On my good days I like to think a glass of
blanc de blanc
(as real champagne is for movie stars and presidents), a bit of sun through the clouds, my backyard birds singing, the koi contentedly lazing through the pool, and Alex, my little Yorkie friend, and I are a country road. We meander, we laugh, we would like to love. We are a journey—a poem. Open us. Explore. Inhale. Wonder.

COFFEE (original)

Vitamin C prevents

Colds

A and D do sunshine

Things

We need calcium

For strong bones

There must be something

For the eyes

Carrots, Cabbage, Lettuce

You never saw

A blind rabbit

And I have a friend

Who thinks Salmon

Will prevent

A loss of your mind

But I believe

In Coffee

Drip

Percolated

Pressed

Coffee

Black not sweet

No cream

Coffee

Which smells like morning

And feels like friendship

Coffee

While we laugh

And preview

Our day

COFFEE (edited)

Vitamin C prevents

Colds

A and D do sunshine

Things

We need Calcium

For strong bones

And

There must be something

For the eyes

Carrots, Cabbage, Lettuce

You never saw

A blind rabbit

And I have a friend

Who thinks Salmon

Will prevent

A loss of your mind

But I believe

In Coffee

Drip

Percolated

Pressed

Coffee

Black not sweet

No cream

Coffee

Which smells like morning

And feels like friendship

Coffee

While we laugh

And preview

Our day