A Sideshow in Your Mind

I know something about you

when you are embracing me

I ain’t as grand as your flag

You don’t do much for me

You roll over all that moves

in the sunny summertime

You don’t want me to stay

I ain’t a monk in your mind

But my cat’s all right with me

I was born by a changing sea

I in your blue sky say I love you

You burn me in the first degree

I fell long ago in a wishing well

just wanting to hold your hand

I prayed with blood in my veins

we’d make a record with a king

My blues is swinging rhythms

Don’t you walk away from me

New Orleans chasing me down

It’s our blood on the mercy seat

—tombstones have fallen down

My tombstone has fallen down

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Responses

I am looking forward to meeting you bro. and hearing you perform your work.  Thank you for sharing your work.  – Summerhill 7

It reads almost like a LOVE LETTER. --Robyn.

That's a lovely poem, Rudy, very different in tone and texture from some of the others.  Sort of playful with wistful images.  I like it a lot. --Miriam

Yes, I thought that it was kind of whimsical. I have been reading Ishmael Reed's Chattanooga. I like that whole idea of humor and seriousness tightly bound. --Rudy

Yes, I like the combination of the humorous and serious, because that adds a touch of irony to the verse, and Black folk are masters of irony.  One filmmaker did that with the Holocaust in the film "A Beautiful Life," but some Jews didn't like it.  He drove home his point about the tragedy in a completely ironic way.  My friend, Cuban poet Nancy Morejón writes beautiful, lyrical poetry about the most tragic things:  death, war, and violence.  Somehow that underscores the ability of humankind to transcend the madness. – Miriam

Nice romantic change of pace, but still with touch of the political consciousness -- Kam

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posted 29 January 2006