"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