I know you, Black-Boy,
corn-rolled, 'froed or skinhead.
I know you when I spot you,
some thing to distract you,
draw you from your insides
where ghosts stir pinwheels of questions.
You wonder if we notice,
catch the girl eking from you,
see you as cotton candy.

I know you, Black-Boy,
when Fear, 'neath dungeon stairwells,
chains and strangles your spirit,
binding you to turmoil.
You'd cry a storm with thunder
if Empathy would hug you.
Then, Springtime would be words, affirming,
and sunshine, a beam from your mouth.

I know you, Black-Boy,
in your cautious steps toward homeland,
to the door of Truth cracked open,
setting your questions free.

*(Humankind) had determined to know good as evil; there could be but one perfect remedy for that-to know the evil of the past itself as good, and to be free from the necessity of the knowledge of evil in the future; to find right knowledge and perfect freedom together; to know all things as occasions of love.
                                                                                                                                         
                                                                                                     -Charles Williams

black flight

i should take you away

away

away

but to where should we go:

to Frederick Place replaced

gentrified

sealed;

follow the crowd

escape with them to the suburban-haven

old but safer than the graves we left behind?

i should take you away

but we'd return from whence we fled

cause the cycles of displacement

will bring us here again

*Good Gospel is good psychology.