I’m happy to announce that my first poetry collection, The Blackened Blues, is available wherever you buy books (yes, *wherever*, so you don’t have to put more money in Rocket Man’s pocket; you can go directly to my publisher, Finishing Line Press, or support my pals (and 1455 partners) at D.C.’s The Potter’s House).
THE BLACKENED BLUES is part of a large and ongoing project that discusses (and celebrates) some of the author’s personal heroes who remain far less celebrated than they deserve to be. As it happens, many of them are musicians, hampered in various ways by discrimination, ranging from old fashioned racism to institutional and cultural indifference. Though there’s an elegiac sadness suffusing these poems, there’s also acknowledgment of defiant genius: they fought their battles bravely, in their art and in their lives. This collection seeks to capture something (or, hopefully, more than a few things) essential about their lives, bearing witness while also paying homage.
I’d like to introduce the collection, one poem at a time (in the order they appear in the book), and tell a little bit about the inspiration for each, by way of explanation and in tribute.
Next up is “Trayvon’s Last Meal,” which also needs neither introduction nor elaboration.
Trayvon’s Last Meal
Once upon a time, a teen, I stole
silver pieces from my mom’s purse,
because I had a habit to feed—and
mostly it didn’t matter because I could.
Every day, after school, candy of
every color; pimple bait only boys
who jerk off into dirty socks find
enticing, free to be ugly and dumb.
What I’m saying is I was unexceptional.
What is this? This guilt? Do memories carry
contriteness for every transgression, real or
especially imagined? Immunity’s having dough
and the answers to questions never even asked.
If you were innocent what would you choose
for your last meal? The entitled—amendable—
might say bread which is life which is God…and
before dying see what is white and what is wrong.
