Baltimore

This city

This rain

This view 

Filled with irony

Regret and Hope

This time

This place

This pain

Of uncertainty

Of confusion

Of why

I look out this Saturday morning window

At the outside walls of a castle with no moat

And wonder what the citizens on the other side are doing

Are thinking

Are planning

Are dreaming

This city

This view of mine

Those words that play tricks on my brain

"Drop the gun or pick a room"

Really?

Is that the answer to this uneven riddle?

To this clumsy cadence?

To this city whose sidewalk cracks still speak in tongues

Understood only by those whose feet can read a broken braille of labored breaths.

Whose eyes can read the before and after

Whose tears go "splash" on the cement

At 5 in the morning?

My son
I run the risk of derision and maybe your embarrassment
As I write a "love Letter" to you
My son

But I don't care

Cuz sometimes when time and circumstance
Keep them apart
A father will do
What he must
To stay connected
To his son
Even if means
Sideway glances
From others who preach
That  men folk are not supposed to write
Love letters
To other men folk
Even if the recipient is their son

But I don't care what they think
At all

Love Letter To My Daughter

You used to be daddy's girl
I used to be your everything
You doctored me when I was ill
I followed you to distant lands
You made me laugh until I cried
I found my smile in your approval

My darling daughter
I fight every day to stay connected to your eyes
To keep my name and title alive
In your mind
On your tongue
In the air
To bring you ease and safety on a flying carpet made of rocks and feathers

My amazing Grace
I fight every day to see you through gilded eyes
As I run a race against time
Anchored to a past that slows me down
With chains of ash and smoke that dull my senses
Leaving me at the crossroads of truth and make believe
Of tears and smiles
Of duty and need
Of you and me on a warm Pasadena afternoon and the valley where you captured my heart forever

I look at you today, my Radiant one
And hope that you know without condition
That my love for you is constant
Is forever
Like God
And Light
And Air
And Life

It never ceases
It Never leaves
Is always here
Is Always yours
Always
Always
Always

Yours
Papa

Friday Rain

Is it me?

Or are my children drifting farther away

While the woman I love has gone far away

And it's raining a rain that even I can't enjoy

On this blank day in December

Is it me?

Is it me?

Or am I back to this rusty familiar

That hides just behind my right shoulder

In whispered cotton thoughts steeped in mud

Ever since I can remember

Is it me?

Is it me?

Or am I nowhere

Everywhere

Here and there

Still unsure of which direction I should send my next breath

Solid in the abstraction of the unknown moment

When I can pretend to be as the others are

When I can sit without the isolation of my singular thoughts that search for knowing ears

When I can be in the mirror of it all and still know that I matter

When the joy and swooping voices of strangers remind me of love

And not fear

Is it me?

I had hoped that one day the day would come

When the birds would join me and affirm my flight

When the sky would wink at me before growing dark

When the ones I loved would come home for dinner

When the ball and chain that stayed on my left heel would roll pass me by

Without looking back but leaving the words "see ya" lingering in the air in its wake

Leaving me to breathe in this free air which until now had danced around me like quicksilver 

Like marshy fog

Like jesus and santa claus hidden in one gift-wrapped present

Only to find an empty box at the end of Christmas Day

I had hoped for this kind of romance and magic and rain and reflection

I had hoped for solid

For clear

For you

But more questions than answers invade this barren afternoon

And the rain feels old and dusty

And I wish I had better news for my ancestors 

My father

My grandmother

And all the rest

Yet all I have to offer up is the question

Shrouded in guilt

Lonely in its final strides to some kind of sunset 

Behind some kind of clouds

Bringing some kind of rain

The question

Again

Is

Is it me?

Is it me?

Is it...

Love Letter To My Children

Know, my children, that this never gets easier
Never gets easy
Never gets comfortable
Never for me - your father
Never

I remember those days of old
When you knew few words
When everyday was filled with discovery made brighter by your smiles
When it was beyond my wildest dreams
When it was profoundly unfathomable
That this reality would become our life
On a regular
Would become our norm
When even a few days away would leave my heart so empty
So sad
So Alone
To be away from you
That it would skip to an irregular cadence

Those were the days when you would comfort my sad eyes
With airport  hugs that left me longing for the smell of your perfect necks
And those eyes that gently looked at me in wonder
That said, 'Why are you sad, daddy?'

It never got easy.
Never
And I was always disappointed that I wasn't stronger
That it would be you who would have to comfort me
And each time I would promise myself that this time would be different

But

Broken promises

And Years later

Broken promises

And Years later

This heart still skips to an irregular cadence whenever I have to say 'goodbye' to you

My children
My breath
My light

 .... Papa @MSP Airport

Ballad For The Sisters (From a Brother in Solitary Refinement) November 2008

My sisters, my sisters, I've been here you know
But it's damned if I stay, damned if I go
So I stand still and wait and hope
That you might hear this solitary drone
Or notice me on the side of the road
With my thumbs pointed neither east nor west
But out to you as you fly by
On your golden throne which, believe it or not,
I willingly shine as you sleep at night

My sisters, my sisters, I've been here you know
But it's damned if I stay, damned if I go

Though I confess that I did once look to foreign shores
My nostrils found the air devoid of salt and spice and soul and You
So I turned away with hull intact
Sails puffed out on a holy mission
Determined to to prove my love to you
Confident that you would notice

But the winds blew my heart to and fro
And I lost my way in a fog of whispery voices
"Where have all the good ones gone/
You can't find one/
Unless he's married/
Or locked up/
Or lying/
Or cheating/
Or beating/
Or with a white girl...

The whispers say

So I ask the question, since I've not been had
If the good ones are gone
Does that make me, in my blackness, bad
And what do I do with your looks of surprise
When I step through the door with arms to myself?
And you turn away as if to say
"What's wrong with him?"
"Something must be wrong with him."
While I'm left standing with that "save face" smile
With a dampened forehead
And hands looking for a place to hide

Yet I'm willing to stand and hope for you
'Cause you look like the queens who raised me, you do!
And as you sleep I'll continue to shine
That Golden Throne - yours and mine

So my sisters, my sister, I'm still here you know
Let them damn me for staying
'Cause I'll be damned if I go!

written at the Givens Black Writers Retreat - November 8, 2008

My 15 year old Son

As a friend said recently
I'm not trying to be smug
And it's not that I don't care
It's just that it's all been said
Time And Time Again
The question remains
What do we do

My 15 year old son
My African American son
My African American Teenage son
Called me last night
And we talked
About stuff
And it was good
And my love for HIM
Grew Deeper
Surprising me
For it had already been the deepest thing I'd ever known

We talked about
Police
We talked about
Being aware
We talked about
The white neighborhood where he lives

We talked

We talked about
His girlfriend
And football camp
We talked about his job

We talked

"Police"
"Be aware"
"Live"

And we hung up
And I was left
Grateful
And Fearful
And sad

For my son
My African American Teenage Son
Lives in a world
Where he will never be allowed
To just be.