ChickenBones: A Journal

for Literary & Artistic African-American Themes

   

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Sometimes what / we want is the / taste of the kiss

and the touch of  / a hand

 

 

In Shadows There Are Men

By E. Ethelbert Miller

We were never absent

or invisible

we were always here

 

Our lives interrupted

by what others

wanted to see

 

Sometimes what

we want is the

taste of the kiss

and the touch of

a hand

 

Even our women

stare at us

disgusted with how

we live

 

Never knowing

how we struggle

to love

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Source: E. Ethelbert Miller. How We Sleep on the Nights We Don't Make Love. Curbstone Press, 2004.

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The 5th Inning by E. Ethelbert Miller

The 5th Inning is poet and literary activist E. Ethelbert Miller's second memoir. Coming after Fathering Words: The Making of An African American Writer (published in 2000), this book finds Miller returning to baseball, the game of his youth, in order to find the metaphor that will provide the measurement of his life. Almost 60, he ponders whether his life can now be entered into the official record books as a success or failure.

The 5th Inning is one man's examination of personal relationships, depression, love and loss. This is a story of the individual alone on the pitching mound or in the batters box. It's a box score filled with remembrance. It's a combination of baseball and the blues.

To see a clip of Ethelbert reading The 5th Inning click here: http://www.eethelbertmiller.com/etube

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update 2 August 2008

 

 

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