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