Brokenness

There are times when the brokenness of the world moves me to tears or to words on paper or to action. Here is a collection of some of those times.

My Life of Broken Wings

Resurrected in response to the Me Too movement

you may ask me on your knees

     but I don’t

I don’t have time

     to sit and dream

and feel you whispering

     of romances and desires

     and kisses that always end

and roses that still have their thorns

     thorns that bite into my arms

the way my nails dig

into your neck and your chest

as I struggle to deny love

     to deny the passion

     to wander alone forever

to not be subject

     to one such as you

until my self has been destroyed

     as my heart was

one moonless night in February

when my trust in life broke down

     before the dawn

in tears shed naked

     on another’s living room floor

atop a rug of bear’s skin

where a fire burned

     unquenched

and no, I don’t have time

     or strength

     or courage

to sit and dream

and feel you paint

     landscapes of starry nights

within my brain

________________________________________________________________________

The Whispers of a Nation
 In response to the 1994 genocide in Ruanda

Once a spirit wandering

Restlessly through time

I have entered reality

And I am a young man

A black man, an African man

Surrounded by the whispers of a nation:

Rrrrrwwaaaaaannnnddaaaa

Names from the pages of a child’s book:

Kigali, Hutu, Tutsi, Kagera

Screamed across the borders

Across the river clogged with bodies.

For here in my homeland

They are killing the intelligent ones

Bodies rot in streets

The waters ebb polluted

The earth lies scorched

And we flee by thousands

An exodus led by fear not God.

It worsens, this ethnic butchery.

The nations bend their heads to us

And offer to restore law and order

To stop the massacres

To ensure a lasting peace

By saying they reject

The senseless plague upon this country

But they are more concerned

With precious gorillas

Not knowing what to do with us humans

Claiming defeat before they start

Unsure of our remote location

Of our unfamiliar culture

And for them to enter into our ethnic rows

Would be futile and costly

Or so they say

And besides, let’s not forget

The world is heavily engaged

In other conflicts right now.

SORRY, THIS LINE IS BUSY

PLEASE HANG UP AND TRY AGAIN.

In the meantime, our ethnic battle

Is a battle for life against death

Fear against fear

Against your fear and all fear

Which throbs here and Elsewhere

Like the beating of drums

The pounding of feet

The echoes of one unified heart

That whispers its secrets

As destruction draws near.

But we go on, our world goes on

And our words are on your lips

Telling this story out of child’s play:

In a far-away land called Rue-Wanda

The people play war

And the Tootsies chase the Who-Toos

Across the river Kagg-Era

And my spirit wanders again

With now its own fear of darkness and death

To carry the truth and touch God’s heart

A testimony of violence

A prayer for redemption.

 ________________________________________________________________________

Black and White

(1994) My attempt to capture the tension and distance caused by racial differences

I want to love you

But cannot reach you

Cannot save you

The chains still bind

The lash marks bleed

Again

Two  hundred years

Contained in your dark eyes

Torture, slander, oppression

Injustice

The blame is in your touch

Fire-hot and rough

I want to melt

White into black into light

But my naked flesh

Has never felt your pain

And it is too late to change

To open your manacled heart

To one such as me