"A Piece for Jasper's Children," A Poetry Post

Let's have a discussion,

you and I.

Let's accept the fact that you are

misunderstood to be a 

grimy, murky artwork,

a tarnished bit of steel cast aside by your

Creator. 

This is why people keep spitting on you. 

With good intentions, I assume, 

they keep spewing out degradations and belittlings to

inspire change in your stature. 

With their old way of thinking, they assume that

hanging you over the line and

striking you many times with consistent strokes will 

result in a spiritual airing of your great bitterness. 

You, however, cannot be spit shined. 

You are not a piece of old rug somebody's grandmother

dug up from the back room in the country and

drug out the front door for a good beating in The 

Sun. 

You are a hidden gold. Gold. You are so long

hidden in the Earth of this great PIT of viciousness that you must now be

mined out delicately. 

You cannot even identify your own self,

covered as you are in years and years of

build up and wash over and run off and 

environmental toxins. 

Your water table is tainted with the dumping of others

trash and commercial waste. 

You are a used and abused place. 

However, 

your fundamental nature cannot be tainted. 

All elements are themselves because in their

very composition you find only one kind of

stuff. 

We must now find again the

goldenness that you are 

made of. 

It will take a team of us, 

a team of us to cover ourselves in adamance and

come out into your pollution.

We will wade into the muck because we 

know that you are out there buried beneath the

ugliness of others' raw, denatured materials. 

We will lift up and drag out the barrels and

barrels and barrels of lies about your potential worth. 

We will scrape off the top soil and underlayers of your

toxic anger. 

We will lay down the peat and granules of our

personal disappointments and frustrations to draw out your

deep vitriol. 

We will dig and dig and dig to get to your location.

All we ask is that you STAY THERE!

Though you cannot yet see the light of day,

do not believe you are the tainted ground around you. 

Trust us when we say we are the professionals. 

Trust us when we say the earth can be saved.

Trust us while we draw out mounds and mounds of

groundwork you believed you needed to be something worthy.

Underneath this mess is your goldenness. 

It exists despite the misuse of your holy place.

You are not a landfill. 

After we have removed the garbage and 

cleaned up the fallout and 

shoveled out the dirt and

gotten down into the bedrock of your purpose,

you will realize again the

true state of your existence. 

We realize that some us will not live to see you come up entirely

out of the pit, but that is alright. 

We have already gotten dressed, 

and we have already gotten started,

and we have already been soaked in the radioactivity of

your situation. 

If you will be patient and believe us when we say there is

gold in these hills, 

you will realize,

someday,

that we are talking about you.

And you will know then,

that everything that everyone else said about your landscape

was a lie. 

-T. D. James-Moss

  

"Important, Version 2" A Poetry Post

The first time
Jonas Salk
saw a thing
die,
he likely didn't
see its whole
importance.

The first time
Alan Turing
put a pencil
to a page and
solved a
math problem,
he likely didn't
think it was...

The first time
Hitler got the
attention of a
crowd,
nobody likely
thought that was
outstanding.

The first time
Anne Sullivan
pretended to
stand before a
classroom and
give instructions,
she maybe didn't
take it very
seriously.

It's likely that
the moments that we
easily forsake as
unimportant are
in fact the
turning points,
turning points,
turning points.

They are the vertices of
great planes in our
angular existence.

They are the pivot points
before our great
breakaways.

They are the "Hallo!"s
before unyielding avalanches of
change in our personal landscapes.

They are as minute as
Joan Rivers' first joke,
the one she told in preschool
during nap time that got her
timed out.

They are as "irrelevant" as the
first time Bach heard an
eighth note.

They are as fleeting as the
first time Einstein
looked up at the
sunshine for a
little bit longer than he
should have.

Our greatness is hidden in the
soft and simple elements of
God's creation, unveiled to us in
our silly trip and falls,
trip and falls,
trip and falls.

In de la Renta's first glance at a
spool of thread.

In Horace Smith and
Daniel Wesson's first hearing of
gunshots during
hunting season.

In Dr. Seuss and
Charles M. Schulz's
uncanny interest in
sketching strange figures.

In Jim Henson's first love for
doll babies, puppets and fluffy lay-about
stuff toys for boys.

In Ms. Giovanni and Ms. Angelou's
"original" observations of
life's small joys.

It is all important,
important, important to
life's tapestry of purpose.

Every thread, every color,
every hair that falls out onto the fabric,
every burn, every tear, every mistaken
footprint, every stain and every
leaf that blows in from outside in the
winter... it is all, all, all
important to where we will go when we
do go into our complete personal glories.

Such is life's story,
a big thing composed of tiny things literally as
small as letters, and periods, and commas, and
quotations marks; unexpected things as unwelcome sometimes as
pencil smudges and erasures;
as common and yet as wonderful as paper.

All of it is key.
All of it is you.
All of it is me.


-T. D. James-Moss

"An Education," A Poetry Post

Wait a minute...
sitdown-sitdown-sitdown and
be QUIet.

I say, ain't we ignoring the obvious, if
milk is five dollars and a loaf of bread is two how you
gone be able to make it on a
low. wage. job?

What you gone do if you must choose between a
bottle for your baby and a
shoelace for your work shoes?

I
believe it's time for me and you to talk about the
actual condition of a world about which you don't see
truth.

Youth is a privilege and time is oh so fleeting,
it's a gift but it will perish like a
fresh peach juice.

You think that hustling and beating down the block is some
profitable adventure but I suggest you take a
good, long pause.

Ain't nothing cool about
giving your every minute to the streets and running home so you can
hide it all.

Cause ain't a hustler alive that didn't have to run and hide to
save his neck from every soon-to-be
beat down thug.

And furthermore I never seen a man turn sixty on the corner,
flash his Rolex and ride off in his new sports car.

You best believe that life is fast and if you
choose to live it faster you will suffer,
you will suffer;
you will find it so hard.

Nobody's running baby; ain't nobody running,
we all walking; we all struggling; we trying to
get
ours.

Are you saying you prefer to spend
thirty of your life's years in some man's funk behind
the state's jail bars?

Ain't you considering that maybe if you
try a little harder you could change your life with
swift street charm?

I ain't suggesting you forget from whence you come; I'm saying
use what you have learned and make it
through life's storms.

Brevity is coming; it won't be defeated;
when you think you have all the time that you need you
run
out.

But you don't see it; you sitting up in my face looking like
"Who you think you are; what are you talking about?"

I'm saying "Baby I believe that if you start now..."
I'm saying "Baby I believe that if you start now..."
I'm saying "Baby I believe that if you start now...
You can still get a decent education...
An education to suit your every need in this life.
Cause you got time, cause you got time
if you start now.

Don't you believe me? I say, you can still fulfill your
destiny. I say, you can still fulfill your destiny if you
start now... if you start now... you still have a chance if you
start now and get an
education."

-T. D. James-Moss

"Marriage," A Poetry Post

A marriage can be

bliss purchased through selflessness,

or ripped to naught by

ignorance and selfishness.

Yes; it

could be a terrifying precipice

only made enticing by the

height and breadth and thrill of it;

or, it

could be a mist of noxious elements:

suffocating, nauseating, paralyzing, arrogating and

castrating.

It could be the end of advocating.

It could be the start of evaluating life’s significance.

Or, it

could be a wardrobe of duress or

beauty beyond the words a

normal person

could express;

yes,

it

could be the gift the guests are after.

It could the party’s old “white elephant.”

It could be

that it’s a winner in the summer and the

opposite description by the

time the winter hits;

or,

it

could be the center of attention

every holiday at momma’s when the

gossip gets spit.

I just think

that it’s

better to be honest about

sacrifices made when keeping

any commitment.

You can’t think

that

spending lots of dollars

or screaming at home and hollering

will lead to betterment

when you’re

in

it.

Marriage can be “Hallelujah;

My God I am so thankful that you

brought him in my life” on

Tuesday; and,

marriage can be “God, I wish I

never got myself into this; why’d I do this;

why?” by Friday.

I’m saying

this is how it is when you

attach yourself forever to another person’s

business.

Darkness and brilliance,

wrongs, rights,

right?

Fearlessness and foolishness

marriage is.

Hmm.

-T. D. James-Moss

"Drugs," A Poetry Post

There are drugs to help weight loss,

drugs to grow breasts,

drugs to put more hair

on a man’s chest.

Drugs that over time bring us

skin tone perfection;

drugs that create for some

4-hour erections.

Drugs that make our

quick kids slow; and,

drugs that make our

high boys low; and

Oh! The places that

we can go because

drugs hold us steady when our

wits say no.

You would think that

such a world would

use it’s talents to

save young girls from

leukemia.

But, oh!

That can’t be so when

there’s a market for

“Whoops, I think I

might be pregnant”

coitophilia.

Drugs for feeling good all over;

drugs for helping us forget;

drugs to keep ourselves in check but

not to cure grandma’s cancer.

Drugs to clear our fingernails;

drugs to clear our old age spots;

drugs to let us eat more dairy but

nothing for Ebola.

Drugs to help us sleep at night;

drugs to keep our babies quiet;

drugs to bulk up our scrawny muscles but

nothing for sickle cell.

Drugs to help us fall in love;

drugs to get us off our drugs;

drugs to control our mensies but

God; oh God; nothing for

AIDS-infected infants or

the prematurely demented or

autistic ten year olds or

Parkinson’s.

You must admit we put our trust

into the hands of scientists that

abandoned us.

Instead of making for us

what we needed,

they’ve arrived at the war for life

and outright conceded.

To you in your lab coats working late

to make all of our sex lives great,

I say you are smarter and

you probably work harder than

me.

"Who are you," you are asking yourselves.

"Being so illiterate,

how can you judge?

You don't understand at all!"

But when I think of your chance to make

all that’s ill mended;

and all that you’ve done besides

address disease and end it;

and all the people who’ve died without

hope to be well,

I can’t help but understand

the greatness of your fall.

-T. D. James-Moss

"Commodities," A Poetry Post

Everything from the ground can be sold.

Green beans and cacao leaves,

pecans from the pecan trees,

coffee, cane, corn and peas,

and rice

Sweet potatoes, peppers and thyme,

melons, pears and summer wine,

pineapples and muscodines

and cinnamon

Most on which we like to feed,

most for which our bodies bleed,

brown and yellow skins splayed open,

lain in fields to dry out white

Diamonds, oil, raw crude dollars,

like the whole grains, fruits and collards,

harvested by a struggling man and

handed over to psychopaths’ hands

Out of foods and jewels to hobby,

some madmen reach out for bodies,

sweet young Asians, Africans, Indians,

kids running down to corner stores

After consuming all the greens and

selling off all the flashy things the

evil cannot restrain themselves they

just keep reaching out for more

Not satisfied with a life of greed but

wanting to achieve immortality a

man will go to black markets with the

mind to buy a poor man’s liver

Not realizing in his haste that

a black market organ is a

spiritual rape,

the bold, black buyer

jumps in that life boat

forgetting that Satan is a

renegade giver

Everything from the ground can be sold.

Seems like there should be a rule that

peoples can’t be bartered off like

jewelry, soft drinks, clothes and food.

Sure,

there’s some law in some great book

written to decry its legality,

but in practice and talks where the

wicked men walk,

a man and his woman,

his first born and his children,

his mother and father are

commodities.

T. D. James-Moss

"Housecleaning," A Poetry Post

When we lived in government housing
my mother used to
mop the
tiled
concrete floor with
hot water, bleach and
octagon soap.

Sometimes she
used
Palmolive.

If we were out of all she would use
hot water and
lemon ammonia.

I remember watching her
fill and set out the
huge steaming bucket.

It was a big floor so she
used a big mop but she
had these small
hands.

I remember marveling that
such small hands could
reach down in such
hot water and
ring
such a big mop and
clean
such a large floor
with so
little effort.

She made housecleaning a
minute thing for us.

Anybody can
put a little bleach and
some Palmolive in a
bucket of hot water and
clean up most messes.

That was the message,
the willingness to
address
most mess.

It was the heart, however,
the heart, the soul, the mind
that proved most
complicated.

-T. D. James-Moss

"Youths," A Poetry Post

Youths go all the way to the edge of the cliff to
peer over for the rush of almost falling.

Youths dip their toes into ten-foot water knowing
they can't swim or wade in three feet.

Youths swear aloud in delicate situations.

Youths puts their hands over the flame to prove
they're old enough to
handle the heat.

Youths drive fast around the curves.

Youths believe they can
use the cover of darkness to
hide and exercise their
secret motives and passions.

Youths think that endings can be forced.

Youths do not consider the
entirety of the consequences
surrounding their actions.

Youths make excuses.

Youths,
as a result of their youth,
wedge themselves stuck tight
into situations they
cannot escape.

Youths dig pits to fall into.

They drown in,
pummel through,
burn up buried under
the tinder of
so many temporary
bits of foolishness.

We,
the adults,
are so wanting to be young.

They,
so wanting to grown,
will never live
to be old.

-T. D. James-Moss

"A Poet's Life," A Poetry Post

For Ms. Angelou

Ms. Missy,
I wanna thank you for
inviting the whole world to the
front porch of your life

For letting us sit down in the
shade of your sufferings and
drink from the bittersweet lemonade of
your life lessons

For peeling off the bandages and
letting your fresh and putrid wounds
bleed in the public where
we could learn
healing

For talking to women like WOMEN about
women's things where
men could see but not
touch us directly

For drawing that line between
touchable and untouchable for
many young girls

For opening your mouth and
saying hard things when
hard things must be said

For seasoning your words with
honey for the sake of
demonstration

For being so
unapologetically
Black, Black, Black
feminine, an engine of
crown-wearing pride among the
dark-dark, brown and light

For respecting and providing
circumspection for
all creeds, colors and nations

Thanks, Ms., for your
lyrical immortality.

Now, shine and rise on the
other side.

Don't worry for us down here.

We have our rocking chairs.
We have our porches.
We have our lemonades and
have trashed our soiled band-aids.

We have filled ourselves up with your
poetic life.

That you have gone on to rest
is fair. It is just. It is right.

That you have finally rested
is right.

-T. D. James-Moss

"Funerals," A Poetry Post

You can pay up a
life insurance policy.

You can get yourself a
good family relationship
with an excellent
funeral service.

You can have a
reference list of
great repast chefs,
a printout of the
remaining immediate
family members and a
bank of great writers
for your obituary.

Your cover pictures and
burial clothes can be
prepped and put away for the
big day.

But you cannot anticipate the
noisemakers.

There is no pre-pared,
roped off area for
people who start screaming
the moment your body leaves
its place of demise.

They say if you follow the
loudest voice you will find the
heart that most closed itself to you
while you lived.

But guess what?
Nobody's trying to find the
heart that most closed itself off at
their own funeral.

Dead people tend to be
less into their distant enemies and
more into their
close, dead kin.

So what is all the yelling about people?
What is all the yelling about at funerals?

-T. D. James-Moss

"What You Do," a Poetry Post

When somebody's dying you
don't break down.

You don't cry as much as you
think you might.

You keep up laundry;
dust some;
sweep and mop or
do dishes.

You learn a lot about
incontinence supplies and
bed-ridden comforts and
medication.

You go to work wondering.

You keep looking over,
amazed at the time,
amazed at the awkwardness,
amazed at your involvement.

You puzzle about purpose
and mortality.

You fight the urge to follow others into
their darkrooms of depression.

You try to keep peace
despite the instability.

You remember everything and
nothing.

You keep fighting and you
give up.

You understand and you
don't.

You'd think you would but you
don't keep much track of
what you do with the
huge mash-up of emotions.

You just keep pressing.

You press on with the sense that if
one can keep on living
while dying,
then another can do just fine
with trying to make the dying right,
and comfortable.

And if you can't do that,
make it comfortable,
you probably just sit quiet and surprised,
wondering.

Wondering.

-T. D. James-Moss

"A Changing State," A Poetry Post

I am in a changing state.

I am even now coalescing into

some form I cannot yet

identify.

I am high up above myself

looking down into a

confused mess of

recommendations and

expectations and

requirements.

I do not see myself as an

independent entity; I

feel so

dependent upon my

parents and my

siblings and my

friends and the

lyrics on my IPod and the

images on my TV and the

things I overhear in private conversations that I

cannot comprehend how I might

ever be something

that is just me.

I cannot understand the

qualities that I possess. I say that

I am burning in the flames of my own change.

You say that I am supposed to use this fire to

clear down the congested and outdated trees in my

social forest and to make room for a

beautiful new crop but I can hardly

walk out my purpose without

singeing every person and

every thing I touch.

Don’t be surprised that I am

screaming at you when I am

screaming within me;

teach me how to be a

transformational firestorm

without consuming everything

in my path!

I cannot help that I am

tarnished with the traditional opinions of

people I have known my

whole life.

I need you to be the

turpentine of my time.

I need a good scrub and buff.

You cannot be afraid of my tough stuff because

I am made to be a beautiful jewel but

I have been dropped into a

deep sea of mediocrity.

Barnacles of bitterness and discouragement have

attached themselves to me and

I don’t know anything about

how to shake off these ugly creatures.

I need you to

dive down into my

cognitive darkness and

scrape away these parasites.

I might seem to be wondering off into

dark places, and I may be because

my compass is not finding its

magnetic north;

I still think that

north is something I

have to see first.

I don’t understand the

hidden spirituality of purpose,

how forces in my now and

in my future work together to

magnetize my next step.

I am turning and

turning and

turning.

I understand that at some point

I will bump up against a

point of friction that will

slow me down and allow me to see myself but

all I can see now is a

reference point that seems to be moving

farther away every time I get close to it.

I am not at my expected end!

Please do not treat me as if I can

reason out your whys and hows!

I have not seen the horrifying states of limbo that

you have lived out.

I believe in 25-minute processes and

2-minute endings.

Haven’t you seen any reality television?

I believe in commercial breaks.

It is hard for me to perceive that

life may go on without me if I don’t

get up and move right away.

I’m not so sure that “good enough”

IS the opposite of okay.

What you say is just as unreliable as

all my circumstances.

People tell me that good minds die here and

great minds fly here and

dreams are denied here.

Why should I trust you when you say that

I’ve got options?

Aren’t you here too?

What have you been through?

I am in a state of change; I am

misnamed; I am enraged; I am

caged. I am too hard; I am too soft; I am

lost. I am worn down; I am caked up; I am

rough.

What are you gonna do to help me?

What are you gonna do to help me?

What are you willing to do

to help me?

-T. D. James-Moss

"Conversation," A Poetry Post

Hey ma.
You know me?

Yeah.

What's my name?

Martha.

Yes, ma'am.
I reckon I'll be Martha.

Come here chile.

Yes ma'am.

What you doin?

Nuthin.

Where you goin?

I'm not going no where.
I just got home, see?

Mmm.

You had a good day today?

---

You had a good day?

What?

You had a good day?

---

DID YOU HAVE A GOOD DAY TODAY?

Well...
Yeah I guess. 

Okay.

Okay.
Let's go then.

Where we goin ma?

Chile... I got to go home!

We home! We at YO house!

Unh-Unh... Chile.
It's time for me to go home.
Come on, take me cross there.

No ma'am. You must stay here.

No, no, no.
I goin cross there.

No, no, no.
You is home.

"Mama, sit down baby it's
dark outside. You can't
go outside cross the field
in the dark."

See that ma? You got to stay here.

Chile... don't tell me. 
I know where my home is.

I know where my home is.

-T. D. James-Moss

"Awareness," A Poetry Post

The world is a lonely place

when you are one of few using the

holes in your face to

sense and impact dark realities.

Perhaps in the midst of your

daily “Fight” trance you’ll

encounter a like-mind

in a “Brace Yourself” dance,

but your time for encouragement

is a fleeting romance when

you are awake.

All about you are bodies

untouched by their ills,

unchanged by their circumstances,

dispossessed of their wills and

devoid of life’s strength.

You reach and you teach and you

preach and beseech and you

cry and you pray and you shout

and hooray their every little improvement.

But still they are sleeping and

inwardly seeping out all of your preaching;

for all of your reaching they’re

easily leeched by their

own perverse aims.

What does become of us

if only one of us out of a

ton of us

chooses to take up strong arms against

darkness?

We’ll be found fossiled,

lined up in sediment like

assembly-line drones,

strangely made crystal,

encapsulated by the evils we

allowed in our homes.

It’s a lonely place, truly.

Great fun for the ones who are

wild and unruly but

humdrum for the ones who

see clearly.

Humdrum for the ones who hear

everything.

Humdrum for the ones

aware

of what a

good life

is.