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