From the Bottom of My Heart

Feliz Navidad played over and over on the demon turntable in my head on a sticky hot August evening – I couldn’t recall just where I’d heard it last, nor why it was stuck so unmercifully on repeat, except to suppose that perhaps it was a safety device my brain had rigged up to drown […]

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James “Jimmy” Aiken Sr (1953-2005)

The creek, it seems, swallowed him up. He and the river were well known to one another, and as it had been with his father (my great-grand-), they had a long and comfortable arrangement. He respected her, honored her, and she shared with him her gifts and peace and splendor. It’s hard to say whether […]

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just another poem

amidst tiny tiles and yellow lamps she sat with me weekends weighed her down and her sadness the sickness infected me smiles forced through swollen lymph nodes in betwixt chamomile sips our hearts brushed lightly against the other’s and while waiting quietly we quenched our thirst for the company of another who digs like we […]

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mojo workin’

We were warriors then, and our tribe was strong like the river. I’m feeling myself, as it were, feeling the power within exposing itself slowly to the desolation awaiting it in the cold and heartless world. I’m alive, for once it seems, purely and individually, alive with possibility and anticipation. Alive with arrogance. Alive with […]

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on the occasion of my sister’s wedding.

Love is passion, true, and love is dynamic, dramatic, feral and free, but love also is gentle stillness, serenity and calm in the face of misfortune. Love is sharing. Love is consideration, giving till there is nothing left to give, but also is love selfish, greedy, domineering, demanding of full attention, faith, and faithfulness. Love […]

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water no get enemy

It’s hard to find the words with which to begin. Words, I’m afraid, scarcely hold the information required to tell his story. Here we go, though, whatever my lack of eloquence. I have known few men or women in my life I can say I truly respected. There have been many I liked well enough, […]

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yellin’ crickets and crows

there is rawness and an infantile quality to love among we children of africa in america. as if it’s a love not yet matured. as if we are unable to express our affection for one another with the purity required to reach, within our feelings for one another, the absolution true love brings. as if […]

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