The eternal song is making noise
like Homer with a humming jones
in Harlem.
It is a low sound
not everyone can hear it
an internal rhythm
lyrical beat
Jewish cantor song
listened to in the morning
reveals as it opens
a flower
that has known destruction
a music
that has vision
stacked bodies
piled as high as the sun
holocaust
middle passage
they are the same.
arguing over the
number of millions
is asinine
we were all in the water
we were all treated like
property
in the cantor’s voice
everything is recorded
rise and the fall
of the singer’s words.
we find pain there
memory of
tarnished bodies
there is the funeral dirge
showing our
ability to exist beyond
the European’s threat
to tear us apart
limb by anxious limb
holocaust and the middle passage
blood soaked brothers
in the vat of historical time
singed
by the shotgun of history
scorched and changed
witnessing and smelling genocide
centuries deep
‘’they died standing up,’’
my guide from the ivory coast said
he looked at me as if I should know
I could hear waves
making noises
smashing skulls
I moved in and out
of historical time
like a man losing consciousness
at the wheel,
I did not know where I was going
my feet found
uneven stones
slave castle to slave castle
each time my shoulders
pointed downward
where my people
are buried
beneath pages and
pages of historical lies
I had no insides
when we went
to the fifth slave castle
I had given myself up
to the smell of death
it covered me,
Elminia, the Cape Coast
Castle.
My brain was mush
with confusion
my intelligence gone
rationales in pieces--
people behaving
like animals.
It is hard to explain this
to children or even adults
I now know the
meaning of crestfallen
I trudge the paths
more small rooms,
I wanted to see each one
I felt emotions coming
torrents shaking and breaking
at the same time.
My anger had blown off my head
there was no brain
only feeling as raw as
the intestines of killed deer
displayed for all to see
in the middle of the road
I felt like I was dying too,
hearing the incessant beat
of crest top white punishing,
blessing the shore
no religious saying
verse could prepare me
the next castle
of personal doom
historical knives
to throw myself on and learn from
But I was a black speck
on the face
of a never changing universe
dropped into the bowels
of a story I wanted to
turn away from,
a story I had to know.
My bent over body
compelled to see more,
recording with my eyes
and soul what I would
one day write about.
how do you write horror?
my stomach was giving way
my legs felt
like columns torn from
foundations
chest opens
there are
remnants of bodies
full of torn up flowers
humans like clumps of dirt
I was determined
to make it through the
last slave castle
my feelings
were miniscule compared
to the rocks near the ocean
rooms with
paint peeling like skin, flowers
of asphyxiation, no light
our shoulders
wilting like dark petals,
their dirty fingers
treating us
like livestock
in a land where
our faces
come from
the
earth.
Author Bio:
Dennis Reed is a native New Yorker and former member of the infamous poetry group BUD JONES. He was a member of the John Oliver Killens Writing workshop in the nineteen sixties and his early influences include the poet Mervyn Taylor and the artist and poet Fatisha. His work has appeared in Essence, Style, CLA, Black Scholar, Linden Ave. Lit Magazine and many other newspapers and journals. Mr. Reed has taught writing courses at VCU, William and Mary and Morehouse College.
like Homer with a humming jones
in Harlem.
It is a low sound
not everyone can hear it
an internal rhythm
lyrical beat
Jewish cantor song
listened to in the morning
reveals as it opens
a flower
that has known destruction
a music
that has vision
stacked bodies
piled as high as the sun
holocaust
middle passage
they are the same.
arguing over the
number of millions
is asinine
we were all in the water
we were all treated like
property
in the cantor’s voice
everything is recorded
rise and the fall
of the singer’s words.
we find pain there
memory of
tarnished bodies
there is the funeral dirge
showing our
ability to exist beyond
the European’s threat
to tear us apart
limb by anxious limb
holocaust and the middle passage
blood soaked brothers
in the vat of historical time
singed
by the shotgun of history
scorched and changed
witnessing and smelling genocide
centuries deep
‘’they died standing up,’’
my guide from the ivory coast said
he looked at me as if I should know
I could hear waves
making noises
smashing skulls
I moved in and out
of historical time
like a man losing consciousness
at the wheel,
I did not know where I was going
my feet found
uneven stones
slave castle to slave castle
each time my shoulders
pointed downward
where my people
are buried
beneath pages and
pages of historical lies
I had no insides
when we went
to the fifth slave castle
I had given myself up
to the smell of death
it covered me,
Elminia, the Cape Coast
Castle.
My brain was mush
with confusion
my intelligence gone
rationales in pieces--
people behaving
like animals.
It is hard to explain this
to children or even adults
I now know the
meaning of crestfallen
I trudge the paths
more small rooms,
I wanted to see each one
I felt emotions coming
torrents shaking and breaking
at the same time.
My anger had blown off my head
there was no brain
only feeling as raw as
the intestines of killed deer
displayed for all to see
in the middle of the road
I felt like I was dying too,
hearing the incessant beat
of crest top white punishing,
blessing the shore
no religious saying
verse could prepare me
the next castle
of personal doom
historical knives
to throw myself on and learn from
But I was a black speck
on the face
of a never changing universe
dropped into the bowels
of a story I wanted to
turn away from,
a story I had to know.
My bent over body
compelled to see more,
recording with my eyes
and soul what I would
one day write about.
how do you write horror?
my stomach was giving way
my legs felt
like columns torn from
foundations
chest opens
there are
remnants of bodies
full of torn up flowers
humans like clumps of dirt
I was determined
to make it through the
last slave castle
my feelings
were miniscule compared
to the rocks near the ocean
rooms with
paint peeling like skin, flowers
of asphyxiation, no light
our shoulders
wilting like dark petals,
their dirty fingers
treating us
like livestock
in a land where
our faces
come from
the
earth.
Author Bio:
Dennis Reed is a native New Yorker and former member of the infamous poetry group BUD JONES. He was a member of the John Oliver Killens Writing workshop in the nineteen sixties and his early influences include the poet Mervyn Taylor and the artist and poet Fatisha. His work has appeared in Essence, Style, CLA, Black Scholar, Linden Ave. Lit Magazine and many other newspapers and journals. Mr. Reed has taught writing courses at VCU, William and Mary and Morehouse College.
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