Sonnet: Affirming Atheism

Too soon the darkness comes, the dreamless night.
Too soon the vision fades, and all emotion
Ceases. Too soon the soul, which once was light,
Goes out. We turn to meat and vegetation.
No airy and ungrounded speculation
Can contradict the evidence of shrouds:
The journey to the final destination
Is the goal. We strive for dreams, not clouds.
We strive for human justice, human truth,
For this is all there is, this life, this earth.
Irrelevant the churches' tolling bells;
Our heavens all are here, and all our hells.
There is no god, and never ever was,
For lions eat gazelles - and we fight wars.

To Make a Better World

To make a better world
Book reviews are not enough,
Though they be of many tasteful words.
Songs may be more real,
Closer kin to action.
But more real still is time.
Will you give time?
And more real still is blood.
Are you prepared to bleed?
And more real still are flesh and bone,
Which bruise and break.

They hacked off slabs of her flesh.
They broke her bones, finger by finger.
The heroine of the revolution
Died in a pitiless place.
I do not want to be like her.
I do not want to die like that.
But book reviews are not enough.

Cassandra: A Bedtime Story

(You will recall that Cassandra, daughter of Priam and Hecuba and sister of Paris and Hector, had the gift of prophecy, but was condemned by Apollo always to be disbelieved. It was she who foresaw the fall of Troy.)

Once upon a time, in the 1950's,
There was a child,
Brand new in the world, and fragile,
And scared shitless of the Bomb.

She had nightmares every night
Of that monster Bomb,
And she screamed and screamed
But it wouldn't go away.

And every night she peed in the bed.
The bedsheets were sopping,
She couldn't help it.
That monster was going to eat her up.

So her parents took her to a shrink,
To shrink the gigantic,
The earth-shaking terror,
Down to the size of an imperceptible squint.

Now she is a woman grown, a peacemaker,
Who addresses rallies
In the ringing voice of lifelong conviction,
Sowing sweet reason like seeds.

But always there, inside her dark eyes,
Soft and smouldering,
Lurks that small, bed-wetting child,
Helpless before the Bomb.

And behind her sweet reasonable words
Is the high voice of that child,
Screaming, "Listen. Please listen.
There are more of them now."

My City

I have woven a cloak around you, my city,
Its stitches a thousand moments in memory,
Warming you, shrouding you, making you mine,
My illusion, my city of smoke, my skin;
Is it safety in numbers or safety alone
That you offer the walker in neon at midnight?

Theft Insurance

Whenever I hear of someone
Shooting at a thief,
I am appalled.

Material is immaterial.
Only life matters.

I do not own
The things I own.
All things
Are but a loan.

The diamonds
That I fancied I possessed
Were merely visiting.
My grandmother's
Old-fashioned ring
Has again changed hands.
And the gold thimble
That my great-grandfather
Carried in his pocket
O'er the sea to America
Has embarked on another voyage.

What of it?
Nothing of value
Was taken
And I remain
Fabulously rich.

For I count:
All my fingers and all my toes,
My eyes, my ears--
And the storehouse of my mind
Is filled to bursting,
Not with rings and thimbles,
But with dazzling jewels of thought,
And fantasies amazingly wrought,
And memories of burnished gold.

That Boy

Thirteen years old
and couldn't read for squat,
but his momma had a TV
and he watched it
a lot,
the cop shows,
the action shows,
the jacks in the box,
who shoot to kill
but when they take slugs
jump up whole
in the next episode.

Bang bang.
Yeah.

And all those commercials,
he watched them, too,
They spoke right to him,
flaunting their wares.
over and over and over,
they said, "Sucker,
go for it."

So that boy got a gun,
had no bullets,
had no firing pin,
but he went to rob
a high top shop,
and the real cops came
and one yelled, "Stop!"

When that boy
heard that word,
in a flash
he pointed his pistol,
his unloaded pistol,
at that big cop,
who shot him dead
on the spot.

Now I'm not asking
where that boy got a pistol.

And I'm not asking
whether he was on crack.
I know he was dealing.

And I'm not asking
what that cop was thinking
when he reacted.

And I'm not asking,
I'm not asking,
how that boy's momma
took the news.

And I'm not asking
why that boy
wasn't in the library,
reading up
on how to be an engineeer.

I'm not asking
any of that.

But here's the question
I can't stop asking:
What was that kid thinking
when he aimed an empty pistol
at a cop?

Did he think
that gun was magic
like on TV?

Did he think he was magic
like McGyver
and Mr. T?

Did he think
this is what a man does?

Did he think,
"Fuck you, mother-fucker.
You, daddy, you"?

Did he want
to die?

And if he did,
what was he thinking?

The answer
to this question
is unknowable,
because no one
can ever ask
that boy what, what
was in his mind
in the instant
before he got wasted.

This question is his ghost.
This question haunts me.

And The Winners Are....

This is the Oscar belated
to the great Black actors of the Thirties
who didn't roll ltheir eyes
and sling their hips
and shuffle
and say yassuh boss
with a smile as wide as a watermelon,

who walked away from the money
(it wasn't much)
and starved,

who said no to the part
(it wasn't big)
and gave up the one chance,

the dream
(the hopeless dream)
of personal recognition,

because they knew,
give priase they knew,
that cavorting on a screen
twenty feet high and fifty across,
in full sight on that broad white screen,
was a giant betrayal,
not just of self,
but of a whole people,
and beneath contempt.

They chose instead to walk upright,
away from the bright lights
and down the long dark road
cobbled in forgotten names.

And so tonight we honor them,
the unseen,
the anonymous,
the great Black stars
who are gone with the wind.