jelyon (dot) com

Week 18 Apr 30 – May 6

Turned my dSLR into a pinhole camera for World Pinhole Photography Day.

Week 17 Apr 23 – Apr 29

Week 16 Apr 16 – Apr 22

(For Julius Winston Garvey.)

1. I am a little soldier, fighting hard for life,
I came upon the scene of cruel human strife,
My father taught me to be always good and true,
And in the battle ever try to be a blue.

2. I’ve met so many hard and awful blows, you know,
But friends, I heard that “we shall reap just what we sow,”
So I shall e’er a Negro man of courage be,
And work with other noble men who’ll toil with me.

3. I promise to engage in what is good and right,
And for the cause of race to make a manly fight;
The world shall be my cautious battle stage,
For I shall follow wisely footprints of old age.

4. The endless fight of men for right against the wrong,
Shall steel my youthful courage on and make me strong;
But I shall need God’s help all seasons of the year,
To safely fight for you with heart that’s void of fear.

5. The Negro’s cause is now beset with many darts,
But we can win if we have true and loyal hearts;
Young though I be, I’ll stand and march with you,
If you will serve and hold the line, like men-true blue.

There’s music in my soul today,
A joy of heart not there before:
This state of conscience I relay
To rich and proud and meek and poor.

There’s music in my happy Soul:
From Heaven’s realm doth truly flow
This music in my happy Soul,
My conscience tells me rightly so.

My song of joy I sing to you:
Let peace and love forever be
Among ye men of every hue,
Of every land and charted sea.

I crave no other fortune great,
But joy to live in peace with God;
My hopes are fixed on His Estate,
In faith so true as prophets had.

This music in my soul today
I spread in truth with love unfurled;
On waves of cheer it goes, I pray,
To reach around the belted world.

And will the flowers die?

And will the people die?

And every day do you grow old, do I
grow old, no I’m not old, do
flowers grow old?

Old things – do you throw them out?

Do you throw old people out?

And how you know a flower that’s old?

The petals fall, the petals fall from flowers,
and do the petals fall from people too,
every day more petals fall until the
floor where I would like to play I
want to play is covered with old
flowers and people all the same
together lying there with petals fallen
on the dirty floor I want to play
the floor you come and sweep
with the huge broom.

The dirt you sweep, what happens that,
what happens all the dirt you sweep
from flowers and people, what
happens all the dirt? Is all the
dirt what’s left of flowers and
people, all the dirt there in a
heap under the huge broom that
sweeps everything away?

Why you work so hard, why brush
and sweep to make a heap of dirt?
And who will bring new flowers?
And who will bring new people? Who will
bring new flowers to put in water
where no petals fall on to the
floor where I would like to
play? Who will bring new flowers
that will not hang their heads
like tired old people wanting sleep?
Who will bring new flowers that
do not split and shrivel every
day? And if we have new flowers,
will we have new people too to
keep the flowers alive and give
them water?

And will the new young flowers die?

And will the new young people die?

And why?

Calipers and micrometers, cradled by the red felt
lining the half opened drawers of the wooden toolbox that belonged to his father,
wait to measure the tolerances of parts that must work together without touching.

And his corrugated space smells of the sweet oil sliding down the bit,
smoking as metal bites into metal,
digging towards the core,
extruding the sharp helix that can tempt blood from my young fingers.

We hide behind masks, he and I,
as he draws a molten bead along the cold unparted edges,
the inscrutable panes protect our dark eyes.
We must not look directly at such couplings.

Even here, among the jagged edges and melting surfaces,
kindness lays down in the teeth.
The blade, oiled to cut softly through the angle iron
eases itself down under his sure fingers , chewing gently
through the 90º angles, 6″ at a time.

And there are no shadows here;
the cold fluorescent lights illuminate every square inch of my father’s workshop.
The only darknessess are the fears
lying beneath his clean work shirt,
beating against the pencils and rulers he carries in his breast pocket.

“Those who pray recover from illness
and injuries twice as fast as atheists.”

When I turned twelve and feared I’d go to hell,
I used to write lists of my mortal sins
on paper scraps I tucked into my wallet.
Each time I broke one of the big commandments—
not little ones, such as to honor parents
which even Jesus, like me the son of peasants,
had never really managed to obey—
I’d score a mark next to the sin’s code name.
ITA meant Impure Thoughts and Actions,
which, I was told, were what was forbidden
by Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery
and Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor’s Wife.
ITA got almost all my slash marks,
like the front runner in a landslide election.
Although I treaded ants and swatted flies
I never checked the “K” for “Shalt Not Kill.”
And though I coveted my neighbors’ goods,
such as the boy next door’s Deluxe Parchisi,
I never stole, but only begged and whined
until I got the stuff I really wanted—
everything except the model airplane,
marked “$10” in the dime-store window,
which really flew, and burned real gasoline.
All year I hoarded lunch and candy money,
then, on my birthday, my rich uncle Tony
doubled my life savings with a five.
Abe Lincoln’s kindly portrait seemed to say:
“You’re free, boy. What you want is yours.”
I waved the bill and danced a jig of joy.
And then, out of the blue, my mother said,
“That plane’s dangerous. I won’t let you buy it.”
“Goddamn you to Hell I hate you!” I spat out
and ran up to my room and slammed my door
and barricaded it with a chest of drawers.
Even now, as I write down my curse,
I shake with rage. What I remember best
of eighteen years of living with my mother
is the one thing she wouldn’t let me buy,
not even with my own hoarded money.
I dreamed, again, last night of that plane.
I laid my crisp new five and wrinkled ones
and quarters, nickels, pennies, and a dime
on McCrory’s shiny counter, and the clerk
with hooks instead of hands clawed up my cash
and punched ten dollars in the register,
and everything I’d been denied was mine,
until I woke and remembered my dead mother.
This is my confession of the sin
I never marked down on my childish list.
I doubt that it will ever be forgiven.

My son, my executioner
I take you in my arms
Quiet and small and just astir
and whom my body warms

Sweet death, small son,
our instrument of immortality,
your cries and hunger document
our bodily decay.

We twenty two and twenty five,
who seemed to live forever,
observe enduring life in you
and start to die together.