POETRY
Midnight Shift
for my Daddy, those friends Dads who worked in the J&L Steel Mills
North, juke-joints, frenzy feet tapped
tore-up floors to city finger-picked guitars
quicker than field boys’ jigs, flying dice
against back cement walls.
We’re gonna jump down turn around
pick a bale of cotton
jump down turn around pick a bale a day.
Daddy’s bandana survived drenched sweat of crop
fields, now nicked fire hurled from liquefied orange
steel, spiritual hymn of steel mills, heaven, hot,
hades. No cool creek by the field, no cool rains.
Foundation of soot and iron shaves, plasters
skin. His croaky lungs, calls bullfrogs long
ways off, Alabama ponds, hushed shadows.
Jump up Friday nights, boogie on threadbare
linoleum floors, with loose women and drink.
Me and my gal can pick a bale of cotton,
Me and my gal can pick a bale a day.
Brothers, Uncles, came, 1950s, crammed tight
oil stench squares, burst in spurts at Pittsburgh
station. Scattered folks northern towns sideroads
brown shanties built along Ohio, muddy rivers,
dirt roads of Aliquippa, Homestead, Braddock.
Mother, children abandoned wood shotgun houses,
wax paper window panes where sun crept through
one room, where lovemaking, Bible reading shared
quarters. Kettles cradled okra, collards, hominy.
Wind-carried aroma deposited on line-dried clothes,
stomped by creek rocks, whop, whop, whoop. Cotton
bred backs courted steel mills. Provider, protector,
slickers fares to shine a killer-diller coat, dips, give
way to chime swing of daddy bucks watch and chain.
Jump down turn around
Chains of men raw callus hands, flung 100-pound
cotton bags over shoulders; strong tendons pulled
thighs and shoulders tight, blistered fingers
buried under rough leather gloves, grip, lift
greet glowing ingots, tossed like cotton bales.
Lordy, pick a bale of cotton
Daddy told all those we left behind, we’s gonna be rich.
Bonita Lee 2020, Friend of SCC
Keep In Your Heart The Blood
Remember always the glory days,
the dances, the songs, the chants, the rituals, the customs,
the people.
Remember times in beautiful Africa, your people.
From green forests, golden deserts, to the deepest, darkest regions
of Congo and Virunga.
Hear, here in this land.
Hear always in your heart the beating of drums,
the ancient customs of the Kagani.
Remember always the kings and queens,
Tutankhamen, Cleopatra.
But do not sit and not remember the dark days.
Keep In Your Heart The Blood.
Blood spilled by those who fought for freedom.
The blood of the slave as the whip touches the flesh.
Do not be enslaved, be now empowered.
Feel it, taste it, drink it.
Gather it in buckets, bathe in it.
Bathe your children in it
Keep In Your Heart The Blood
Kristina Kay, Keep In Your Heart The Blood © 1996, Juneteenth.com
We Rose
From Africa’s heart, we rose
Already a people, our faces ebon, our bodies lean,
We rose
Skills of art, life, beauty and family
Crushed by forces we knew nothing of, we rose
Survive we must, we did,
We rose
We rose to be you, we rose to be me,
Above everything expected, we rose
To become the knowledge we never knew,
We rose
Dream, we did
Act we must
Kristina Kay, We Rose © 1996, Juneteenth.com
Tuesdays in 1970
Can you see/ my sister/ in the night/ and the red glaring blood clear at last/ say/ can you see/ my sister/ say can you see/ my sister/ and sing no more of war.
“Poem to my Sister” - June Jordan
1965 summer, his lofty stance, overshadows the sun’s gaze
against his family’s gray painted porch. Paint chips littered four
steps like fallen leaves, gives way to blistered stone fragments
of decayed brick sidewalk, path from yard to road. Long boxes
black, boxes excreted from military cargo airplanes, nightly
shown. To herself, she counted, not understanding why he
volunteered, hating death by bombs, not understanding war.
Tuesday’s Tour of Duty, February 3rd bullets hail as red
ants in summer, out of small dirt hills, in between sidewalk
cracks, pour out streams of lava, bullets, metal flames scald
flesh. Fatality illness spreads across Ho Chi Minh's country
dense canopy jungles, muddy rice paddies, darkened forests.
Tuesday settled in Quang Nam, February 17th, in low lands
flat lands, flooded beneath the B Ren Bridge, hostile land
1st Battalion, 7th Marines touched down land, in all their
greenery. Out cometh the cherry, rifled man, thick frames
tacked to helmet, fresh snap back elastic bands, still smelt
of home, civilization. His body engaged in its’ strangeness
hostilities reeked chaotic battles; its language coded, hurried
and abbreviated. Country that sweated death; fourteen days
in this, child of man, marine-solider green, whose smile still
gleamed, was awarded his place on Panel 13 West Line 023.
Bonita Lee 2020, Friend of SCC