sister haiku (for Pat)
1.
How many
secrets you carried
in your panties
2.
infections
of confections
no retractions
3.
the autumnal
rain announced a
sister’s fragrance
4.
your slanted
black eyes smiled
crystals
5.
can two little
girls holding hands walk unnoticed
in a large house?
6.
young man . . . home from war . . .
envies the subtle
pause of young beauty
7.
disguised as
uncle he picked at
your unbroken spine
8.
how to moisten
the silence of an
afternoon molestation?
9.
silk on your
skin no armor for
the amputee
10.
Birmingham
eyes ignoring
the winter’s confinement
11.
to be born
to be raped
each journey a sudden wave
12.
his touch wore
you down to a
fugitive eye.
13.
the sound of you
sucking your thumb at nite
blows in my ears
14.
all morning
our mother’s voice
beyond the hills.
15 haiku (for Toni Morrison 14)
1.
We know so little
about migrations of souls crossing
oceans. seas of longing;
2.
we have not always been
prepared for landings that held
us suspended above our bones;
3.
in the beginning
there wuz we and they and others
too mournful to be named;
4.
or brought before elders
even held in contempt. they were
so young in their slaughterings;
5.
in the beginning
when memory was sound. there was
bonesmell. bloodtear. whisperscream;
6.
and we arrived
carrying flesh and disguise
expecting nothing;
7.
always searching
for gusts of life
and sermons;
8.
in the absence
of authentic Gods
new memory;
9.
in our escape from plunder
in our nesting on agitated land
new memory;
10.
in our fatigue at living
we saw mountains cracking
skulls, purple stars, colourless nights;
11.
trees praising our innocence
new territories dressing our
limbs in starched bones;
12.
in our traveling to weselves
in the building, in the journeying
to discover our own deaths;
13.
in the beginning
there was a conspiracy of blue eyes
to iron eyes;
14.
new memory falling into death
O will we ever know
what is no more with us;
15.
O will weselves ever
convalesce as we ascend into wave after
wave of bloodmilk?
5 haiku (for Brother Damu 15)
1.
You pointed out
lewd waters mad
with toxic wounds
2.
you world traveller
mixing language
and touch
3.
we see your hands
bandaging disciples
of peace
4.
humming this
earth back
to sanity
5.
silk toned
dapper black
man smiling . . .
6 haiku (for Elizabeth Catlett 16 in Cuernavaca)
1.
La Señora
making us remember
flesh and wind
2.
O how you
help us catch
each other’s breath
3.
a woman’s
arms climbing with
colored dreams
4.
Elizabeth
slides into the pool
hands kissing the water
5.
i pick
up your breath and
remember me
6.
your hands
humming hurricanes
of beauty.
5 haiku
1.
You sniff
dog-like around
language
2.
i taste
your saliva spiked
with applause
3.
painted beads
falling from your
fingertips
4.
poems
going the wrong way
in moonlight
5.
you fast talking
manicured poet
sailing on glass.
2 haiku (for Ras Baraka 17)
1.
Your hands
shout eucalyptus
songs
2.
your poems
the smell of
morning rain.
6 haiku (for Oprah Winfrey 18)
1.
O how we
rinse each other’s
shadows
2.
summertime
roses caught in
our throats
3.
you
position women against
grave diggers
4.
in your laughter
we capture birthdays
in wild colors
5.
you have
rescued women from a
timid ground of loss
6.
in your eyes
we breathe each other’s
dreams.
5 haiku (for Sarah Vaughan 19)
1.
Me in midair
sailing underneath
your lips.
2.
we don’t stare
we don’t seem to care
are we a pair?
3.
where are the clowns
are they all stampeding
my house?
4.
without your
residential breath
i lose my timing.
5.
Send in the clowns
There is space
above the air.
2 haiku
1.
Your eyes
ignite . . . stampede
death
2.
your body turns
towards me
more than baptism.
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5 love haiku
1.
Under
a sexual sky you
coughed swords
2.
your smell
slides under my
fingernails
3.
love
walking backwards
towards assassinations
4.
locust man
eatin
g the grain
of women
5.
your tongue
jelly on my
lips.
7 haiku (for St. Augustine 30)
1.
Playboy of North
Africa, burning the streets before
you learned to genuflect
2.
mama’s boy
holding on to Saint
Monica’s tits
3.
Milan
lover of sculpted
waists
4.
can i reinvent
your pigeon-toed walk
toward God?
5.
can i resurrect
sepulchers, posturing
inside your veins?
6.
can i
spill salt from
your legs?
7.
can i reinvent you and me
to love until i become still
to worship until you become stone?
6 haiku (for Maya Angelou 31)
1.
You have
taught us how
to pray
2.
your poems
yellow tattoos on the
morning dew
3.
we dance
in the eye
of your pores
4.
in a sudden
pause of breath
secrets unlock
5.
you show us
how to arrange our
worldly selves
6.
your poems
a landscape of
seabirds.
haiku woman (La mujer de los ojos 32)
1.
You . . . woman
surrendering your arms
to silk
2.
coming among
us luxurious with
flesh
3.
you allow no
frailty to accent
your blood
4.
you . . . swallowing
the morning as you lean
back on your eyes.
memory haiku
1.
i was born
a three-legged
black child.
2.
carrying an
extra leg for quick
departures.
3.
beneath the sun
i moved in short
Birmingham breaths.
4.
silence of the
house . . . in the kitchen
someone washes the floor.
5.
silence. no words.
just the sound
of earthquakes.
6.
precocious morning
releasing an avalanche
of blood.
7.
in the hospital
mother, you chanted complex
half-moons.
8.
what is it about
childbirth that women
ask for seconds?
9.
how long the nite
to break your body into
a diabetic coma.
10.
how wild the
gust of blood running
down hospital corridors.
11.
do women
make a living singing
death prints?
12.
in my dreams
i rubbed your limbs
until they sparkled.
13.
wherever i am
i patrol
your seasonal death.
14.
i bring you
pine trees and laughter
for your journey.
15.
do you hear me
singing in the mountains
under a constant sky?
16.
i, a passerby
to your death,
cradle your breath.
17.
i, a sleepwalker
to dreams, imagine you a
crane flying south.
18.
every day
i hear your voice
beyond the hills.
haiku poem: 1 year after 9/11
Sweet September morning
how did you change skirts so fast?
What is the population of death
at 8:45 on a Tuesday morning?
How does a country become
an orphan to its own blood?
Will these public deaths
result in private bloodletting?
Amongst the Muslim, the Jew, and the Christian
whom does God love more?
How did you disappear, peace, without
my shawl to accompany you?
What cante jondo 33 comes
from a hijacked plane?
Did you hear the galvanized steel
thundering like hunted buffalo?
Glass towers collapsing in prayer
are you a permanent guest of God?
Why do some days wear the
clothing of a beggar?
Where did these pornographic flames
come from, blaspheming sealed births?
Did they search for pieces of life
by fingerprinting the ash?
Death speaking in a loud voice,
are your words only for the deaf?
What is the language for bones
scratching the air?
What is the accent of life
when windows reflect only death?
Hey death! You furious frequent flier,
can you hear us tasting this earth?
Did the currents recognize her sound
as she sailed into the clouds?
Does death fly south
at the end of the day?
Did you see the burnt bones
sleepwalking a city?
Is that Moses. Muhammad. Buddha. Jesus.
gathering up the morning dead?
Why did you catch them, death,
holding their wings out to dry?
How did this man become
a free-falling soliloquy?
Why did September come whistling
through the air in a red coat?
How hard must the wind
blow to open our hearts?
How to reconnoiter our lives
away from epileptic dreams?
How to live—How to live
without contraband blood?
Is this only an eastern wind
registering signatures of ash?
Do the stars genuflect
with pity toward everyone?
explanatory notes
Max Roach, a founder of modern jazz, was a world-renowned African American percussionist, drummer, and composer.[back]
Emmett Louis Till was a fourteen-year-old African American Chicagoan murdered in 1955 in Money, Mississippi, for allegedly flirting with a white woman.[back]
The Philadelphia Murals are a public art project created by local artists and communities that reflect the culture of Philadelphia’s neighborhoods. There are over a hundred murals throughout the city, including one of Sonia Sanchez.[back]
Nubia was a dear friend of the poet who died quite unexpectedly. This poem was written for her funeral.[back]
Odetta was a famed African American folk singer whose songs became anthems for the U.S. civil rights movement.[back]
Richard Long is a celebrated African American scholar of literature, culture, and the arts. This poem was written on the occasion of a ceremony in his honor.[back]
“Tanabata” is a poem written about stars and hung on trees.[back]
Luisa Moreno was the first woman and first Latina member of the California Congress of Industrial Organizations Council and a leader in the United States labor movement.[back]
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Eugene Redmond is an African American poet from St. Louis.[back]
Ray Brown was an African American jazz double bassist, considered by many to be a leading bassist in the bop style. This poem was written after listening to his music on the radio after his death.[back]
Beauford Delaney was a renowned African American modernist painter. These haiku were written after viewing his work at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.[back]
John Dowell is an African American artist. Tranescape is his painting of the famous jazz musician John Coltrane.[back]
“4 haiku (for Max Roach)” were written after a visit to a residential home in Brooklyn.[back]
Toni Morrison is a Nobel Prize–winning African American author. These haiku were written after reading Morrison’s novel Paradise.[back]
Brother Damu was one of the first African American environmental activists and peace workers. He was the founder of Black Voices for Peace and the National Black Environmental Justice Network.[back]
Elizabeth Catlett is a major African American sculptor and printmaker in America and Mexico whose career spans the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. She lives in Cuernevaca, Mexico, and New York City.[back]
A young African American poet, Ras Baraka is the son of poets Amiri and Amina Baraka.[back]
Oprah Winfrey is an African American television host, a producer, and a philanthropist.[back]
Morning Haiku Page 2