Abundant Hope

On Martin Luther King Day, we present this work that was written in his honor.

Reverend Martin Luther King

The great soul
Flew from the Creator
Bearing manna of hope
For his country
Starving severely from an absence
of compassion.

Martin Luther King

The Great Spirit,
Came from the Creator
Proffering a sparkling fountain of fair play
To his country
Parched and deformed by hate.
The whole man came forth
With a brain of gentle wisdom
To persuade quiet
Upon the loud misery of the mob.
A whole man stood out
With a mellifluous voice
To bind the joints of cruelty.
A whole man came
In the midst of a murderous nightmare
Surrounded by demons of war
He dared to dream peace and serenity
With a heart of faith
He hoped
To resurrect his nation.
I open my mouth to the Lord,
And I won’t turn back.

Martin Luther King

Faced the racial
Mountain of segregation and
And bade it move.
The giant mound of human ignorance
Centuries old
And rigid in its determination
Did move, however slightly,
however infinitesimally,
It did move.
I will go, I shall go
I’ll see what the end will be.

Martin Luther King

Brought winds of healing
To his country
Reeling unsteady
With the illness
Of racial prejudice,
Screams of vulgarity
Could not silence him.
Fire bombs and dogs
Could not take his voice away
Ona my knees,
I told God how you treated me
Ona my knees.
He knew himself
A child of God
On a mission from God, and
Standing in the hand of God.
He spoke to the hideous hearts
And to the bitter monstrosities
And asked them to transform
Their ways and thereby
Liberate his country.
Representing the grace of heaven
He spoke to the evils of Hell
Representing gentleness
He sang to brutes.
He brought the great songs of faith
Persuading men and women
To think beyond
Their baser nature.
Lord, don’t move your mountain,
Just give me strength to climb it.
He hummed the old gospels
Encouraging the folk to act
Beyond their puny selves.
You don’t have to move
That stumbling block,
Lord, just lead me around it.
Leader to those who would be led
And hero to millions.

Martin Luther King

Was father to
Yolanda,
Martin, III,
Dexter, and,
Bernice.
He was lover
Friend, and
Husband
To
Coretta Scott King.
He spoke respectfully
Of the Torah.
He spoke respectfully
Of the Koran.
In India, walked in the footprints
Of Mohandas Mahatma Gandhi.
Christianity made him patient
With all religions
And his tremendous heart
Made him believe
That all people
Were his people
All creeds and cultures
Were comfortable in
His giant embrace
And all just causes
Were his to support and extol
Through sermons and allocutions
With praise songs and orations
He preached fair play and serenity
From hand cuffs and prison garb
From leg irons and prison bars
He taught triumph over loss
And love over despair
Hallelujah over the dirges and
Joy over moaning.
Fear not, we’ve come too far to turn back
We are not afraid, and
We shall overcome
We shall overcome
Deep in my heart
I do believe
We shall overcome
Someday.

fragments

While little of the poet’s work survives, and very little context is known, we have made an effort to piece these fragments together in a manner that may be interpreted as cohesive if the reader chooses.

Pain penetrates

Me drop
by drop

You may forget but

Let me tell you
this: someone in
some future time
will think of us

Before they were mothers

Leto and Niobe
had been the most
devoted of friends

If you are squeamish

Don’t prod the
beach rubble

Experience shows us

Wealth unchaperoned
by Virtue is never
an innocuous neighbor

We know this much

Death is an evil;
we have the gods’
word for it; they too
would die if death
were a good thing

Children

Long-summer scorched, my surfing children
Catch random waves or thump in dumpers,
Whirling, gasping, tossed disjointed.
I watching, fear they may be broken –
That all those foaming limbs will never
Re-assemble whole, together.
All under such a peaceful sky.
All under such another sky

The pictures show some village children
Caught at random, tossed, exploded,
Torn, disjointed, like sticks broken,
Whose jagged scorching limbs will never
Re-assemble whole together.

Why an Introduction Dear

In honor of Uzhavar Thirunal, we present this work by one of India’s greatest 20th century poets.

Why an introduction dear, you are within me,
reflections on starry nights, memories of a life,
creations of life in short spells, eyes notice
creations of life in short spells, eyes notice
gentle footsteps!
I don’t much to treasure anymore,
you are the treasure I have in me.

Your dazzling, radiant smile like sunrise
Is the reflection of fragrant sorrow,
it is consciousness, and dreamy slumber,
Let me tire and sleep incessantly, for
Would I understand the creation, big-bang!!

You are drawn, I am just an outline,
you are the sweet melody, I am just a string of notes,
you are limitless, I am but an illusion of limits,
In the secrecy of real image-reflection,
why enact to be lovers!!!

Why an introduction, since you are within me.

It’s True I Went to Market

In honor of Thiruvalluvar, we present this work by one of history’s greatest Hindu mystic poets.

My friend, I went to the market and bought the Dark One.
You claim by night, I claim by day.
Actually I was beating a drum all the time I was buying him.
You say I gave too much; I say too little.
Actually, I put him on a scale before I bought him.
What I paid was my social body, my town body, my family body, and all my inherited jewels.
Mirabai says: The Dark One is my husband now.
Be with me when I lie down; you promised me this in an earlier life.

On the Border

In honor of Moroccan Independence day, we present a work by one of the nation’s finest living poets.

Being on the border
on the edge,
on the verge
on the brink
on the brim
on the rim
on the fringe
on the coast
on the bank
of Scotland and
finding an open door

No boundaries
no barriers
no pillar of Hercules to crush
no Rubicon to cross
only a few stoned dwarf Wall
in a dreamlike nature
now veiled in mist
now blooming in the sun

And

People !
All the Grahams and Bells
the Ogles and the Pringles,
the Armstrongs and the Robsons
the Nixons and the Dixons
the Scotts , and the Elliotts
The Ridleys, and the Beatties

All these and other Reivers,
Once dreaded warriors
Now peaceful farmers or
Haafnetters
Joined for ales or else
In Kingsarms Pub
with no arms but
darts to play and jokes to share

I felt tempted
In this land
Teeming with ghosts
To ask Hadrian’s soul
Perhaps present and invisible
In some corner of this pub
Where his fort once stood,
Ask his two thousand year old soul
About people and barriers.

And I could almost sense
A smile on his face
As he would tell me:
“Poets and poetry taught me
History’s ephemeral vanity and
The strength of life over stones
At the self moment I was building
Walls”

And Hadrian’s soul
Suddenly vanished
As Lawrence in his Scottish kilt
Gave vent to a cry of joy :
He had won the darts game !

Black Woman

I still smell the foam of the sea they made me cross.
The night, I can’t remember it.
The ocean itself could not remember it.
But I don’t forget the first gull I made out in the distance.
High, the clouds, like innocent eye-witnesses.
Perhaps I have not forgotten my lost coast,
nor my ancestral language.
The left me here and here I have lived.
And because I worked like an animal,
here I came to be born.
How many Mandinga epics did I look to for strength.

I rebelled.

His Worship bought me in a public square.
I embroidered His Worship’s coat and bore him a male child.
My son had no name.
And His Worship died at the hands of an impeccable English lord.

I walked.

This is the land where I suffered
mouth-in-the-dust and the lash.
I rode the length of all its rivers.
Under its sun I sowed seeds, gathered crops,
but did not eat the harvests.
A slave barracks was my house.
I myself brought stones to raise it up,
but I sang to the natural rhythm of native birds.

I rose up.

In this same land I touched the wet blood
and decayed bones of many others,
brought to this land, or not, the same as I.
I no longer imagined the road to Guinea.
Was it to Guinea? To Benin?
To Madagascar? Or Cape Verde?

Landscapes

In honor of Coptic Christmas, we present this work by one of the 20th century’s premier Egyptian poets.

Behind faces and gestures
We remain mute
And spoken words heavy
With what we ignore or keep silent
Betray us

I dare not speak for mankind
I know so little of myself

But the Landscape

I see as a reflection
Is also a lie stealing into
My words I speak without remorse
Of this image of myself
And mankind my unequaled torment

I speak of Desert without repose
Carved by relentless winds
Torn up from its bowels

Blinded by sands
Unsheltered solitary
Yellow as death
Wrinkled like parchment
Face turned to the sun.

I speak
Of men’s passing
So rare in this arid land
That it is cherished like a refrain
Until the return
Of the jealous wind

And of the bird, so rare,
Whose fleeting shadow
Soothes the wounds made by the sun

And of the tree and the water
Named Oasis
For a woman’s love

I speak of the voracious Sea
Reclaiming shells from beaches
Waves from children

The faceless Sea
Its hundreds of drowned faces
Wrapped in seaweed
Slippery and green
Like creatures of the deep

The reckless Sea, unfinished story,
Removed from anquish
Full of death tales

I speak of open valleys
Fertile at men’s feet
Overgrown with flowers

Of captive summits

Of mountains, of clear skies
Devoured by untamed evergreens

And of trees that know
The welcome of lakes
Black earth
Errant pathways

Echoes of the faces
Haunting our days.

Nocturne

Out of the turmoil mustered up by day
We may not free our hands, nor turn our heads to pray—
So tight the knot our sunlight ties.

So firm the hold of voices, thoughts are drowned
The river’s chant is lost, in the splintering gunshot sound:
Or from its song the essence dies.

Brightness was all, when earth lay primitive
Fair to the hands’ fresh touch, ready to burst and live:
Now in her womb corrosion lies.

Therefore we search alone the shuttered dark
Where faces of the dead shine luminous, a spark
Of lightning from encircled skies.

Therefore we seek the peace of broken ground
After the wars have buried all the young, and found
Dark remedy for shining eyes…

Therefore we hide our faces; make no sound.

Letter to NY

In your next letter I wish you’d say
where you are going and what you are doing;
how are the plays and after the plays
what other pleasures you’re pursuing:

taking cabs in the middle of the night,
driving as if to save your soul
where the road gose round and round the park
and the meter glares like a moral owl,

and the trees look so queer and green
standing alone in big black caves
and suddenly you’re in a different place
where everything seems to happen in waves,

and most of the jokes you just can’t catch,
like dirty words rubbed off a slate,
and the songs are loud but somehow dim
and it gets so teribly late,

and coming out of the brownstone house
to the gray sidewalk, the watered street,
one side of the buildings rises with the sun
like a glistening field of wheat.

—Wheat, not oats, dear. I’m afraid
if it’s wheat it’s none of your sowing,
nevertheless I’d like to know
what you are doing and where you are going.

Poets Corner

Celebrating a world of written and spoken verse

Female Poets

Abundant Hope

fragments

Children

Why an Introduction Dear

It’s True I Went to Market

On the Border

Black Woman

Landscapes

Nocturne

Letter to NY