About God & Things • National Poetry Month

About God & Things

              1

i want to have your child

cuz upon losing you

i’ll have more than memory

            more than ache

            more than greatness

i’ll have laughter

i do not mean to be fatalistic

know the limits put on you black man

me, black woman

when you are killed or imprisoned

desert or separate from me

i’ll continue

fill the void of your absence with

love between me and ours

gods

              2

you love me

in your eyes. don’t say it loud

pain

america will never let you

              3

you’re home. it’s a surprise

you’ve made it thru another day

one more night in your arms

to fuck

merge our bodies merge

give

wealth/freedom

congress cannot legislate away

              4

eyes wide as suns inquire

where’s daddy?

he’s gone away

i love my daddy

i smile

he’s a good maan

eyes wide as suns

burn my hand with a kiss

go outside to play in the streets

god

what god is about

by Wanda Coleman

from Imagoes (Black Sparrow Press)

courtesy Poetry Foundation

Poetry Wednesday: cats and you and me

cats and you and me

the Egyptians loved the cat

were often entombed with it
instead of with the child
and never with the dog.

and now
here
good people with
the souls of cats
are very few

yet here and now many
fine cats
with great style
lounge about
in the alleys of
the universe.

about
our argument tonight
whatever it was
about
and
no matter
how unhappy
it made us
feel

remember that
there is a
cat
somewhere
adjusting to the
space of itself
with a calm
and delightful
ease.

in other words
magic persists with
or without us
no matter how
we may try to
destroy it

and I would
destroy the last chance for
myself
that this might always
continue.

by Charles Bukowski

from The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps. © Black Sparrow Press, 2001. 

Courtesy of The Writer's Almanac