Monday, December 15, 2014

Mourning and a Sense of Martyrdom


copyright 2014 -- Ed Schelb






This evening I'd like to post some poems that Ed Schelb sent me for this contest in memory of Michael Brown and now Eric Garner.  He noted that "I did think that the poems I have been working on might work for your new contest, if obliquely. Certainly the poems are full of mourning and a sense of martyrdom…"






v

a promise
to convert
images
into a form
that can be
shared
such arrogance
among the dying

v

I never wanted
to talk,
murmur, perhaps,
or growl,
and now it is
too hot
to breathe

v

vacancy
of flesh
in the fossil
record—
tissue to be
reconstructed
in its absence
even feathers
leave their misshapen
halos

v
the eye outward
the eye inward
and then
the cataclysm
of where
they touch
or fold
into the other

v
words create
obstacles
intricate traps
to capture pollinators

a wasp who guesses  wrong
ends up
as seed

---------------


Ed Schelb just sent me this image from the aftermath of the 1921 race riots in Tulsa, OK.  I am also pairing this image with a Wikimedia image from the aftermath of Katrina.




I'll close with a little music for you.  I've been on a Temptations kick for the past few days, so I am going to post two of their sadder songs.   

The first is "Just My Imagination":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFaVnQXUq6g

The second is "I Wish It Would Rain": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrjJeP1GGxY

I am adding Randy Newman's song about the 1927 flood in New Orleans:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGs2iLoDUYE

I've been meaning to post Gene Clark's "Some Misunderstanding," and tonight is probably a good time to do so:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2ViQXg_0bw



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