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.

This Piece Of Road

Oh Lord, Lord, Lord...
This piece of road is cobbled like my heart today
Is empty like my stomach
Is steep like the cliffs in my eyes
Falling
Rolling
Down.

Oh Lord, Lord, Lord...
This piece of road seems  not walkable today
It pushes up
Heavy against the bottoms of my feet
Hidden shards of broken bottles
Cut me
Again and again
And Again

(written back in March (i think) while in Milwaukee)

This Gipsy

(This entry won't be poetic)

Sitting here in my dressing room
Act III of A Raisin In The Sun
Playing George Murchison so I have a lot of time to myself
Sitting here
Worried
Trying to hold on to a feeling of gratitude for the blessing of this job
Knowing that there are a lot of actors who are unemployed
Trying to stay positive
But worried
Again
About the next moment
About the great unknown
This thing that I do
This thing that compels me
For I know that I would not
Could not survive this life
If I were not able to do what God put me here to do
What my ancestors fought for
My right to follow my calling
So for that, I am grateful
Because I want to live

This is my calling
I really had no choice
I HAD to do this
The few times when I've looked to other shores
I've not been able to breathe
I've found myself drowning
Dying
Slowly
And that is why I know that if I want to live I have to follow this elusive thing
It pulls me like the tide married to a thousand ancient moons

But Lord, why is it still so difficult?
Why, after 29 years, am I still wondering how it is that I'll be able to make this month's bills?
Why, after all this time; all this work; all this life lived
Why am I back at this perpetual ledge of self-reflection?
Self-criticism
Uncertainty
Humbled to admit that I am what I am/where I am/all that I am
A black man in the american Theatre
A black man who looks Asian/Spanish/Mixed/Filipino/Indian (Not Blackfoot but BlackIndia)
Guyanese/African American/African Caribbean
A man in the theatre

"Where are you from?"
"What should we do?"
"We need to create our own stuff."
"Why don't we support our own stuff?"
"There's Tyler..."
"Don't hate the brother. He's doing his thing."
"Why don't we create our own stuff?"
"We have enough money in our communities."
"We have issues."
"Whose money should we take?"
"We talk about this all the time."
"I've had this conversation before."

I don't know what the answer is.
Does somebody
Anybody
Have an answer?
Have a new perspective?

We are a beautiful people
With a light that survived the middle-passage
The sugar cane
The rice
The tobacco
Plantations

The journey north
The rope
Hoses
Fires
Fear

Does anyone have an answer
A new perspective
Because I'm at that ledge again
And it's almost time for curtain call
And this gipsy is worried
More than ever
If there will be another one
In his future

I love my children
And so...