Exploring the Intriguing
Author: whodeanny
January 1 is always the same
A bacchanal of sound and fury
Signifying something ineffable
Precisely timed though
Imprecisely valued
We pause to notice the flow
Of time’s endless river
Hoping to gain some measure
Of how far we’ve sailed
Or at least gratitude
To be journeying for
One new day
One new month
One new year
One last chance
© Gayle Force Press 2015
the history lessons i received in school
have very little connection to the stories
my grandfather waited until i was 25 to begin telling me
but they do sound like the tv shows and movies
produced as saturday morning serials in his day
and cartoons in mine
which should have made me nervous as a kid
since Neil Armstrong, MLK, WWII, Vietnam,
FDR, Sputnik, food stamps, AIDS,
computers, the Cold War, crack, Coltrane and the Greatest
all changed history between my generation and his
but since there were bright colors and the good guys always won
I tried hard to believe the myths
since what else could be true
© Gayle Force Press 2015
Twenty years ago
I went with my dad
To an old stadium
Gone and dearly departed
If not regretfully
To see my Indiana Pacers who
I loved stridently
At home
In the new Curtis Mathes set that
How were we to know
Lasted far too long
But there in person
For the first time
Was a different kind of feeling
Since they were bad
And most of my focus
Started and stopped on a man named
World B. Free
Although I’m not sure how much of
This poem
Is true
I have no doubt
About World B. Free
It started with his hair
Though it was not exceptional
Except in its lack of exception
Stuck in a time
I may never understand
But all the rest fit too
How much he loved the game
Even when it was an awful game
And tried without ever looking
As if he were trying
Mostly though
The shooting
Like little orange only rainbows
Up and down
With no gold at the end
Only more orange
And then at its beginning
The look that might have been a smile
If he’d known no one could watch
At the end of the game
It seems that no one did
Because watching him play
Might have kept someone from skipping school
Or me from stealing gum
Off the too short racks
Meant to taunt me
At the store
But lots of kids did that
And their parents drank too much
Cheated with a stewardess
Then left
Not because of the children
Even though they’d seen World B. Free
On the court downtown
When I asked later on
My dad said he used to be called Lloyd
That may well be
But he was always World B. to me
© Gayle Force Press 2002
West Onan is a river town
on a narrow bend where two states meet
and quickly brush apart
West Onan is a bastard
with an ancestor near enough to warrant the name
but distant enough to ignore its offspring
West Onan is my hometown
where my initials are raggedly carved
in the trunk of a long dead tree
West Onan is a river town
whose small docks miss the bounty
the other state's highways capture
West Onan is an orphan
since a revival movement came through
turning Onan into New Corinth
West Onan is my hometown
and the only thing bearing my name
are cracked stones in the tall cemetary grass
© Gayle Force Press 2004
It’s Christmas Eve and my wife is napping
At the other end of the couch
Dreaming in a Santa hat
Tonight when she wakes
And after tomorrow’s presents
I’ll try my best to remind her
That my life is more complete
Better and more real
Than I could have imagined for myself
Her presence animates my life
Not in a slavish sense of duty
But through the constant commitment of love
Densely defined and elaborate
Telling as the Rubicon,
broad as the Nile
I have fully crossed over
© Gayle Force Press 2006
This summer I told a friend that I couldn't write any more poems about police brutality. So here's an old one. Again. I initially wrote this poem in 2002 and when performing it in public through the years have changed/updated the names. Mike Brown Eric Garner is only the most recent addition to the litany of blood.
Justified Use of Force
Every month there’s a new one
A Diallo, Bell, Brown
Ford, Garner, Rice or me
Clamoring loudly
Broken faces on TV
We ask so many questions
But no one’s forced to answer
With sympathy’s short half-life
Soon most are hoping for the noise to stop
And the questions to disappear once again
Just like us
In our lives
And our deaths
© Gayle Force Press 2014
Thanks to Michele Norris for mentioning this post in conjunction with her ongoing program The Race Card Project. There are so many powerful testimonies there, it's worth a close look.
FDO
Today, I'm glad my son is White.
That’s a phrase I never thought I’d write. In part, that’s because I identify so much with Black culture and Black history. It’s also in part because, as a Black man, raising a White boy is extremely complicated.
Please understand, life at home is as simple as can be expected with a teenager. I’m incredibly fortunate that Jake is a wonderful young man. But life out in the world is filled with constant reminders that our family is jarring to others.
We’re jarring to servers who felt they needed to ask ‘everything on one check?’ even when Jake was in elementary school. We’re jarring at the bank when the teller needs ‘help from a manager’ to authorize Jake cashing a birthday check from a grandparent. We’ve been jarring at the mall, convenience store, park or any of the other dozen times I wondered if someone were ready to put out an Amber alert, fearing for Jake’s safety because he was with me. We were jarring the time I got pulled over and very aggressively harassed because a cop saw Jake sitting in my backseat while we drove through a White neighborhood. Jake’s Whiteness has been a consistent hassle.
In one important respect though, Jake’s Whiteness has been a real blessing: I've never given him THE TALK. Of course we've had the sex talk because I’m the responsible dad of a teen. But we've never had the cop talk. Some of you know about the cop talk. That’s the one when young people of color learn the dos and don’ts of interacting with the police. They learn what kinds of behaviors to change, which places should be avoided and what poses to assume. My son doesn’t need to know any of that. If anything, I would say that Jake is wary of the police because of how they've treated me but he doesn't live in any real fear of the cops. And I'm so glad he doesn't have to.
Jake will get the automatic benefit of the doubt when it comes to cops. That reality makes a huge difference in my life and the last few days in Ferguson has made that more clear than ever. His inherent (wait for it…) White privilege means that when I'm worried for my son’s safety it's about driving or alcohol or sex. At root, I worry about Jake having a problem based on something of his own doing, having trouble because of a choice he makes. I worry just because he’s my kid.
But I don’t have to worry about Jake being in the wrong place at the wrong time in the wrong skin. I don’t have to worry that he’ll be Mike Brown or Tamir Rice or Ezell Ford or Eric Garner or Sean Bell or any of the murdered others. I don’t have to worry that someone with a badge might decide to kill my son.
Today, I'm glad my son is White.
© Gayle Force Press 2014
I’ve been listening to Carole King
Singing about love and loss
But mostly life
Although I know she’s not singing to me
She must be singing about me
Since so many of my fears
find breath through her sighs
And all my hopes take wing
with her hoarse cries of possibility
© Gayle Force Press 2004
Twin red lights
Throb in the far distance
Beacons saying who knows what
To who can say and where
Such a great expanse
Between this “here” and all those “there”s
Even when all there is
Is the space between me
And two red lights
© Gayle Force Press 2000
I counted the hours today
Though I usually allow them to slide glide
Elide from now to then
Free floating nebulous not my business
Measures made by men
Why is it then that I counted
Slowly waiting for them to pass and hoping
That they would before my watchful eye
Could notice enough to miss them
As I did you
During each day long hour
Filled with many more than the sixty
Minutes I expected to torture me
Remind me once more
Since I always forget to remember
That the time between us
Passes just the same
If I’m holding or missing you
Or you’re scolding or kissing me
Regardless of what I claim to know
The time still passes
Even when I miss you enough
That in one absent moment
I feel the fear of forever
© Gayle Force Press 2006
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