Some would pick at the petal of the rose
And say he loves me, he loves me not
I suppose.
But feelings are so much more
Than uprooted flowers.
It is more than you and me
It is ours

That rose could be part of a bigger collection
A wedding bonquet
When we love into each other’s eyes
And say I love you forever and always
That rose can always be called
To be a boutonniere men pin to their suits
Standing as the best of men.

The rose can be laid down
As the flowers people give as we walk from the reception.
As husband and wife.
That rose can be put up
As decorations that celebrate everlasting to forever in a halled room.
Finally that rose can be taken off
After all of the festivities of the day
When garments are laid aside
Still smelling of perfume made from dug-up roses.

I wonder when I got to the age
When I stopped being good at everything.
When my drawings stopped being Van Gogh
And started being like oh no
That’s not my face.
That’s not anyone’s face.
It looks like a cat
Who was chased and barely survived!
I’m sorry.
I thought I was good at this
No, no.
It was not so much that I was good
That it was I was just a child
So when people saw my art portfolio
They said that those stick figures
Looked like the ones in cartoons.
But I think that’s so funny
Because I never knew a cartoon character was named Stick
And had a sidekick called Scribble.
But poetry was different
It was a reverse process
First people said there was something there
Then people noted that I was getting better
In a way I never heard them say about my art.
Maybe it was whispered
But I don’t read lips.
Next I heard murmurs of greatness
And how it was touching
Greatness?
I got to the age when I stopped being good at everything
When I got great at this one thing
Called writing poetry to move the people
And that is my art.
So go figure
I think I will stick to it.
Because if Van Gogh sat down to write poetry.
It would look just like mine.

You got television
I got to tell a vision
Of a time, when people can be free
When we don’t have to believe in others
Because we first reassured ourselves
We should not think the people on television have all of the power
Instead we should press the remote control and turn off the power
We are always in control
The power just seemed remote
Because the power is not actually in our remote.
The power is in our hearts
So let us get up
And be the ones on television people would want to watch
So that when they have the remote
They will turn the channel to hear us speak of our vision.

When you put your ear to my chest.
You can hear the sound of true love.
A heart that yearns to be with you.
A dream confirmed, a wish granted.
Happiness is the portion of us both.
My chest is like ground
Only good can grow there.
And when you smile up at me.
I feel all good inside.

I am the descendant
Of those who did not make it to the slave ship.
I always wondered.
What they felt as the ships slipped away.
They must have thought
That those people were the lower portion.
Let the men with strange tongues deal with them.
But the sons of the men with strange tongues would be back.
But instead of having sticks of fire.
They would put thunder to those sticks

These men demand our Golden Stool.
We tried to tell them.
Not even our kings are worthy to sit.
Because then they would sit in a grave
But they said they wanted
The stool, the stool.
These men had a throne
But they wanted a stool
We fought over our stool
But we lost.
Although we got to keep the stool
I wonder if we would have won that war
If we held onto the people who were taken away
By those ancestors with strange tongues.
We did not fight then
So we had to fight now


And I hope we can stop fighting always.
Because now our problems are not with men
With strange tongues
But they are with our kindred
With even stranger doctrines.
We did not even get to wake up dead
Because we were not in our beds
Those men survived being taken on ships.
Survived wars over stools
But could not get out of bed because of those countrymen
Who said they would defend against men with strange tongues.

She said I threw her under the bus.
I told her I did not drive a bus
But I put the ads on it.
She said you did not answer me
Because she saw the person driving that bus
And it wasn’t me.
I kept quiet.

I hoped that you felt better.
I even yearned more than what happened did not come to past
I did not want to lose you, because you mean the world to me.
When I was too sick to climb out of bed
You were too good to leave me alone
Sent the scent of flowers and the arm of cards to reach me.
Now you have taken to your bed.
Which is of sickness and God forbid not unto death.
So I know my duty
Because this is a temporary portion
I will set out to help bring you to the land of the healthed ones.
Because this is what friends do
And this is more than friendship
You are my kinfolk.