Hi Harlem #19, 20, and 21

#19 American Sentence

Today I saw a cotton gin and learned how a machine expanded slave labor.


#20 Elegy

Black light, black light,
as still as the black train
is frantic, rushing the
black night. As narrow
as the black boulevard
is wide. Old as Cheops
and as the black olive
is young, blasted time.
Frequent as injustice
and as rare as equal
understanding. Sexy
as hell and as heaven
is detumescent. Tiny
as he, snorting, was big
inside after his white
boy had first opened
me up. As strong as
the curtains are weak.
As quiet as the siren
is alarming, arresting
never the black river.


# 21 Friday Nights

The movies have gone all weird on me.
The murderer, the victim, and the lawyer
are all white. The spy and his spymaster
white. The gay teen and his crush white.
The surgeon and his patient white, with
a black nurse or hospital administrator
thrown in for color. The poets, you guess
it, white. Nothing like the world outside.
My screen is not a window, it’s a filter.

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