groaning into holiness 

i am a bruised vessel

empty and cracked

waiting to be patched

peering into clouds

searching for a scoop

groaning into holiness

born of the worn earth

i live in a field of cautions

setting out, stiff of heart

an uptight preacher of the Word

the irony borne on crumpled bones

asleep in hope

beneath a wreckage of doubts

what am i to say to the weary-worn

forlorn of heart with thirsting souls

but that we encircle the table and have a drink

partake of bread

affirm our common bond

*Thoughts of Sidney Poitier

-Talking with her was a pleasure, mainly because I wasn't interested as much as in getting into her pants as getting into her mind.  She seemed to know a bit about everything, and I knew she could help me fill in the blanks in my own general knowledge. Her words touched familiar chords I had often heard inside myself, her voice lodging complaints we both held against the state.

Her language, too, inspired me.  For instance, the phrases "rhetorical bullshit" and "disingenuous motherfucker." "Bullshit" and "motherfucker" I had heard before, of course, but what kind of bullshit gets to be "rhetorical,"  and what need a motherfucker do to be considered a "disingenuous motherfucker"?  "Bourgeoisie Negroes" was another.  We got locked in a conversation once, I remember, about who she was and who I was, as individuals, in America.  "How we see ourselves, how we see each other," she said, "should be determined by us and not by people who generally don't like us; people who pass laws certifying us as less than human.  Too many of us see each other as 'they' see us", she continued.  "Time for that shit to stop.  We're going to have to decide for ourselves what we are and what we're not.  Create our own image of ourselves. And nurture it and feed it till it can stand on its own.

She looked through the plate-glass window of a coffee shop at snow ffalling on the Brooklyn street near where she lived.  "I'll tell you one thing," she added, "If I have anything to say about it, by the time my grandchildren get here, this hypocrisy democracy is gonna do some changing."