Poem: December 16, 2021

Renaissance

It’s true we have created

terrible machines

that reduce us

to two-dimensional 

fun house reflections

of ourselves.

And we have lived

frivolously and out

of step with our world,

so that our world

seems to push us

in hard ways.

And clearly we fail

one another, and so, 

carry our shadows

and sadness and shame,

like Marley’s chains,

scratching heavily

behind us.

But I hear the whisper

we make, this ocean

of us. I hear the sound

that aches below.

And I imagine our waking.

I imagine our waking.

Poem: December 8, 2021

Rachetdemic

Big B brings it in my class, 

a solid mass of energy, a blast 

of humor that fills the space

in ways that make everyone

take notice. He is the home, 

the bellows of a thousand voices, 

the self-proclaimed professor

of Hoodology, a man who stands

astride his two worlds, and when

he writes, you know he’s going

to paint you a picture, and when

he speaks, he amplifies, he

grows in size, relative to his

surroundings, standing and

pacing and wandering around

the big ideas, and you’re bound

to think that this guy thinks

on his feet the way that 

everything with Big B starts

and ends with his own beats,

the punctuation of his thinking-

Exclamation, Question, Hard Stop-

the poetry in motion that passionate

young people can sometimes be, 

all speed and undirected energy.

And we, and we want him to fit in

our eight boxes a day. We tap

his breaks, and ask him to

kindly stay in his seat.