LANGSTON HUGHES

I, too, Sing, America. L.H.

When Hughes appears for the portrait in suit

Mustache, hat, and a gaze reveal something

He Becomes a mystery to himself

He watches wild turkeys in the grass

From the passenger carriage of the train

He could measures the distance to heaven

and compose a song for every scene

but not before long something ascertained

as the sound the road sings to the journey

and what most resembles a song within

and clinging to its self presented essence

speaks in memory of a courtier

Sir Langston Hughes of Joplin Missouri

later moved to Harlem New York CIty

BEAUTY OF LOVE

--beauty is by authority of love

No is but One in reverse and excised.

A numeral for up or down counting.

That is prior to itself in order

It merely appears at the exact time.

A sequence that starts without origin.

--just like a word game played in the abstract

that connects the loose boards of toe tack’s tick

Sticks and square tiles will not move again

If not by coercion or destruction

when it is shattered to pieces so lost

to pick them back up seems impossible

the spirit has seen and heard enough, knows

Life is a precedent of Love’s own will.

When it is not possible, it still will.

FORTIETH AND FOUR, PEACE IS BEST

Standards must be broken when they restrict freedom.
Stupidity cannot be mandated only conspired.
Superhumans won't win they doesn't exist
Every age of poetry has proven

More capable of force than Violence.
What causes Death but demoralization.
That moment when your Nation spit upon
Refuses to salute you once again.

THese eyes roll from the mind return aghast.
Dreams are not SHadows for nothing what's more
Shadows are Venom to Beauty Queen hopes
THey are recurring horrors that reprise

THey were taken Alive Alive  Return.
The 44th will not be Innocence Spurned.

SUN FLAME

The torch flame of the sun strikes at the earth.

Consuming its fire extracts the air

a vacuum appears the clouds hold their breath

and a day made for beauty is filtered

The filament source becomes animate

discerns what it would destroy without thought

and departs from its nature to create

a world for the living a world forethought

While its destruction is delayed a time,

wind and water muting heated extremes

undergoes its temperate hastening

then disarms its potent awakening

For just one touch of the solar exhaust

would incinerate everything at once.

Everything Depends Upon So Much

THE SONNET IS A 14 LINE POEM

WITH TEN EQUAL SOUNDS PER LINE AND ONE RULE

THEY BE ACCENTED OR UNACCENTED

AS WITH MOST THINGS THAT EVERYTHING DEPENDS

UPON

FOR WHY ELSE WOULD THERE BE DIVISIONS IF

NOT TO DISTINGUISH WHAT COMES AND GOES: TIME?

AS IT NEVER DEPARTS YET SAYS GOODBYE

SO MUCH IT SAYS HELLO TO EACH SECOND

AND LIKE A RED WHEELBARROW or WHITE

CHICKEN, IT IS DRAINED OF COLOR THEN TURNS

INTO CRYSTALS OF ITS OWN HOURGLASS
HALTING FOR NOTHING TO BEGIN ANEW

AS THOUGH RHYMING OR NOT RHYMING HAS DEW

IT MEANS NOTHING TO A SONNET AT ALL

NOTHING CROW

I study Crow who already knows me.

I come with my  trade marks of a human

No wings.  No shining black feathers.  No beak.

While he in his majesty’s soft feathers

Muscular shoulders, mechanic talons,

Brought together in his miniature form

everything to its breaking point, giant

if not by proportion without a flaw,

My size I can’t measure with his though large

For though I am large I’m a Know Nothing

Crow see I am a threat of perception

and won’t let me get closer than closer.

AVERAGED OUT

You don’t watch that end it will fall back in.

Got some reason to be talking to me?

I say  leave it loose and it will fly free.

Like I already asked -- who you kidding?

If it were up to me

-- it isn’t, sh!

Now there you go, dragging me in the mud

I never mentioned you to anyone.

Because I have my senses, Destroyer,

You who loves to Correct for averages.

And you, Enemy, your heart ravaged glare

That’s good. Turn Away. And, Never Look back

I wouldn’t bother to Care about Nothing.

When you who took everything that mattered

and turned it all toward your advantage

BEAUTY FRUIT

 The watch of wakeful hours counts again

the loss and removal of essential things

measured by distance to disappearance

then as truth purchased its survival

shred over centuries another fount

from mantra of ongoing turmoil

and lasting are pains to be endured still

Paramount as peacemakers to be blessed

Beauty is fecund, beauty is artful

But beauty is not a variable

Beauty is a Fulcrum Exponential.

Beauty is Faith Faith is a Principle

But as darkness falls it grows amorphous

Its branches bear its fruits for the purpose

WALES BIRD AND ARTHUR

Wales Wales, Land of my GrandMothers.

My soul must be partly an Island Shore

Where time over epochs anoint Feathers

My heart  which has been spent in a Tower

Yearns for an Ancient Home where there are Droves

Endless and Elegant Moss of Ages

Triumphal Origin, GLory to all Kin.

Answer me, Answer me, ANswer me, Bird?

Why do you Pity me if not for Love?

Yet, what good can you do with your Feathers?

Do you write Verses as I do you Now?

Or are you enslaved by Beauty tol Art?

Birdsong is what to Legends of Arthur?

The Noble, the Epic, the Courteous.

CROW LOVE

Crow caws and to distract and confuse me

Crow plays games with my head and my feelings.

Each time that he does I grow from within

Though he is wiser, kinder, and free

he doesn’t diminish my experience

I am only a destitute human

Yet for Crow I show potential he sings

to demonstrate his knowledge and nature

nothing he does is unnecessary!

Crow only counts what makes sense for saying

his ingredients on voice and wing

beak, talon, feathers, thinking and vision!

Oh crow are you to break me so gentle

and perch closer to me than you would’ve

BROTHER CROW

Crow strikes a pose on the telephone pole.

He straightens his wings sleek as a shadow

exchanges notes with a Crow out of view

Acting as Watch for his brothers below.

when I approach Crow descends on a fence

from where he watches his brothers at work

Three are in formation next to the curb.

Two stand at guard as one raises a fern

From it falls the seed of a palm flower

Rolled from its husk sack of fan-like foliage

Crow beats its beak on it, small, hard, yellow

With all of his brothers watching over

Each bird a Talon and a Talon a bird

One step inside of each Other bird.