Day 19: Swimming

I was always embarrassed that I
Can not swim. I have always
Been embarrassed that I cannot
Swim. I will always be embarrassed
That I cannot swim.  Even
Now when I admit this on
Paper here, with watery blue
Ink, I am embarrassed that I cannot
Swim

It is not, of course, that
I have not tried to swim.
It is not, of course, that
I was not forced to swim.
It is not, of course, that I
Will still keep trying to swim.
I will continue to try
Like I did while at pool's edge,
Waiting to take my lap in
Gym, diving in, feeling water
Split under me, feeling
Myself sinking, dropping,
Falling out of the Air
Drowning

I did not hear Coach
Jump in after me, but
I know it is him when
I feel his arm cricle
Around my chest pulling
Me up and then across the
Pool to the edge where
The water laps.  I grab
Tight onto the trough
Between the edge and
The deep

"Why didn't you say you
Couldn't swim?" he asks
Panting.  I, feeling chlorine
Sting my eyes, look down
At the shimmering water,
Shifting my weight, and say
Nothing

Day 18: The Goose

The bird brain works differently than
Other animals, that is for certain
I once watched a flock of geese fascinated
By shiny tin foil carelessly thrown by
The wayside. They pecked and poked,
Poked and pecked, until nothing of it
Remained

I wanted to grab them by the neck and
Ask why they would eat tinfoil; why
It so transfixed their bird immagination
To wish to obliterate its existence but
The bird brain works differently than
Ours, and if I did try to grab one by
Its sinuous neck, it would hiss and slap
Me hard with its beclawed wing, until
It could break loose and then attack
My ass with its sharp, betoothed
Beak

Day 17: The Philosopher

Aristotle said
"One cannot say
 of something that it is
 and that it is not
 in the same respect
 and at the same time."
Or he said
"It is impossible that
 the same thing belong
 and not belong
 to the same thing
 at the same time
 and in the same respect."
Or he said
 "No one can believe
 that the same thing
 can (at the same time)
 be and not be."
Or he said
 "The most certain
 of all basic principles
 is that contradictory
propositions are not
true simultaneously."
Or he said
Those birds just spring
Out of the mud, their
Vegetative soul
Intact

While these in and of
Themselves are not
Contradictory
Against the speaking
Of which you forbid &
Forfend yourself, they
Hold three truths, or
Three falsehoods, de-
Pendant on the hanging
Of the fruit from the
Tree just before it drops
to the ground and you
Will never see it float
Up

It cannot float up since
It cannot go against
The internal love the
Apple has for the ground
Which loves it more
Than a feather which
Floats slower to the
Earth, because air loves
It more

Metaphysics is physics
To the Philosopher
Every action has & does
Not have an opposite
Reaction

Day 16: Capital Crimes

Missing the bus

And asking for help

When your are lost

Are capital crimes

For young black

Boys

Playing with a toy

Gun in a park is

A capital crime

For young black 

Boys

Walking in your 

Neighborhood at 

Night is a capital

Crime for young black

Boys

Flirting with a 

White woman is

A capital crime

For young black

Boys

Brennan Walker (2004- ), fourteen

Tamir Rice (2002-2014), twelve

Trayvon Martin (1995-2012), seventeen

Emmett Till (1941-1955), fourteen

Day 15: Tanka on the Dawn

The morning fog breaks
Over crowns of budding trees.
Silence hovers near
Making your ears ring with stark
Expectation of the dawn.

Day 14: Weightless

For five hundred million years they have
Fluttered their slow dance in warm waters
Circling each other in blind pirouettes
Light catching their tendril appendages
Unseen

While the land lay sharp and barren in the
Burning ultraviolet, they performed their
Gentle cumbia, starting with the right
And then going back, then left in place
Coming together now repeat on the left
And back

For millions of years the dance spun on
And on, never changing, never growing
Always repeating on the left and back
While the world grew on and the land
Became lush and green and sweet flowers
Spread across the black sand voids, rock
Broken by fibrous roots, drawing life
From stone

And their dance carries on to the roiling
Undulant rhythm of blue green waves
One after another after another after the
Next.

Day 13: Friday the Thirteenth or Old Archie

My second great grandfather's ghost was said to haunt
Our town's old elementary school. All the first graders knew
About Old Archie. He was a tall, bleak figure who would
Appear early in the morning while the children were still
Sleepy from bed, and stand, ominously at the end of the
Hall, by the stairs, where he would be just glimpsed out
Of the corner of seven-year-old eyes.  It was only the
First graders who ever saw him, but all the other graders
Particularly the second graders always told first graders
About him.

Their tales of Old Archie were embellished with as much
Gore as they could think of and how the tall and lanky
Figure would capture children and, quite literally, scare
Them to death.   Old Archie was angry and evil, you see
A man tormented by children, it seems, a man who must
Have done something vile in his life, something horribly
Evil.

You can imagine, then, when my sister started school
That hearing her second great grandfather was a fiend
Was a bit disturbing. She, apparently, came home crying
The first day, and my mother couldn't get anything out
Of her. And being that my mother was a woman of her
Time and would hardly be one to initiate contact with
The school, my sister's turmoil over our fiendish ancestor
Lay quiet within her until she told me about it years later.
They had torn the school down by then, and I had never
Attended it, and my sister and I laughed about grusome
Old Archie, the fiendish miller who had built the town
And built the school, and had lived an enjoyable life
With his eleven wives and dozens of children. We had
Thought those unusual facts of his life would have been
Interesting enough, but no, no, no, a ghost is always more
Alluring.