ModPo

Strangely, I am getting a lot of hits on this poem, first posted on April 24, 2013.  Here, by popular demand: To my brothers and sisters at-arms (veterans) “I will write the evangel poem of comrades and of love, For who but I should understand love with all its sorrow and joy? And who but I should be the poet of comrades?” --Whitman That bitter, acrid taste that war and combat leaves in your mouth - cleaves your tongue - and gives you a sixth sense about things… For example, the guy out front: the leader. Will he die for you? If so, then you will die for him, or live, make his mission yours, and accomplish it. But if he won’t, and your sixth sense will tell you so, then neither will you for him. And his goal is his alone and can go to hell. And if you are out in front, will you die for the men and women in your care? If so, then they will die for you, or live, and make your mission theirs, and accomplish it. But if not, you should quit faking and just go home. Because those behind ...

A poem about my great great grandfather, from things my father told me. Of course, my father was only six when his great grandfather died.  And my father passed away over 30 years ago. It all leaves much to the imagination to recreate (i.e., he probably made shit up, and I am probably making some shit up too!). Grandpap Rankin First of all, thank you for visiting the cemetery every now and then, and cleaning the graves of the old folks.  New generations have forgotten, but they wouldn’t be, now, if we had not been then – When I was barely a boy, I run off with rebel soldiers, did odd jobs, cooked for them, tended to the horses. None of us farmers knew that much about war. Legend is true, I returned to Browns Summit with a box full of Confederate money.  Warn’t no count, no way. Rebel soldiers give it to me. I swear.  It was my pay. Buried that box in a tobacco field in Jackson after the war, same field where I buried mason jars of moonshine I made, to keep it cool an...

Locust Grove “Will all visitors please stand and state your name?” “Again, will all visitors please stand, and state your name?” “You, in the middle, you may start us off!” My name is Raymond Maxwell. “Raymond Maxwell, are you Raymond’s boy?” Yes sir, I am.  They went to Jackson Methodist, down the road a piece.  But my grandmother was a member here, and my Aunt Roxie, and my Aunt Liza. “So, brother Raymond, what is your testimony today?” Well, I didn’t exactly come prepared… “What you mean, prepared?  Your grandmother would have testified. “Yeah, brother Raymond, she and her sisters, they all would testify!” “Yeah, brother Raymond, you gotta testify!” ok.  OK!  If Grandma Lena were here today, She would call this is a beautiful day, And she’d say our God is a Gracious Master. But she would warn us “judgment is turned backwards, and justice standeth afar off …” She would tell us “truth is fallen in the streets, and equity cannot enter…” Then she would pause, and...

Power, an oft-grievous foe, can scorch the path of the mightiest man-- even when righteousness  steels his soul and strength is his only sin. Fear not the altered road or the uncertain horizon. We know true power lies in the man's mirror-- framed by freedom and faith, family and friendship. Unfettered, he can move forward, unburned, with love as his salve.

I did a close read of Rachel Jeantel's remarks last night and I found her words to be, actually, quite profound. "The Jury, they old. That's old school people. (not a jury of Zimmerman's peers, and especially not a jury of Martin's peers and he is the one who is actually on trial here. The jury members have an old, antiquated way of thinking that defies logic or reason, an old, defective school of ignorance and division and false attribution) We in a new school. Our generation." (there is a marked generational divide that has nothing to do with old divisions like race, gender, national origin, or even educational level. The new school is the one that will solve the problems of the old because the old school has run out of ideas. The new generation has solutions, and if we allow them, they will save us as well.)

From Stevie Wonder's Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants  "Each life has its own beat, moving through space at its own pace, standing still for no one, and yet you, as if not caring, though knowing how precious it was to you, gave to me selflessly, life's most priceless possession, your time.  It is only my wish that you feel your time not to have been given  in vain.  For waiting is not what I meant for you - but to share with me the images of life that God has sent me through - and if this life affords me  again the chance to share with you the new  and hidden knowledge, through song, I will move as swiftly as life demands - but never so fast as not to give you my very best."                                  --Stevland Morris 

walking up the hill from the Brookland Metro Station, crossing the street and entering the engineering building, these words wafted past me like a southern breeze: “Pray for Egypt.   Umm al Dunya, we pray for thee. God Almighty, hear our prayer.”

In the middle of the concrete heat boys manning our sneakered positions tarred in the block’s summer field We hustled out fates into shape on the city’s sweating face in the lean, bouncing grace of our broomstick, rubber ball game bound by the sewers and parked cars of our Outlaw Little League While on the sidelines dreaming in our cheers the old men watched bleachered on brownstone stoops and iron fire escapes making small book on the shadowy skills of stickball stars lost in the late-inning sun of the stadiumed street’s priceless, makeshift diamond

ُExamples of Pashto landay. پاس په كمر ولاړه ګله!  نصيب دچايي اوبه زه درخيژومه O Flower that you grow on the mountain side; The duty to water you belongs to me, but to whom would you belong? زړه مي هلك دي راته ژاړي چه رانه غواړي دپردي باغچوګلونه My heart is like a child; it cries, and demands flowers from a stranger’s garden. ستا به د ګلو دوران تير شۍ زما به پاته شۍ دزړه سوۍ داغونه The blooming season of your beauty will pass; But the scorched patches on my heart will always remain fresh. په ګل ګلاب دي و ويشتمه تر لاس دي جارشم دښمنانو وليدمه You have thrown a rose at me; blessed be thy hands, but malevolent eyes have noticed. مخ دي ګلاب سترګي دي شمعي نه پري پوهيږم چه بورا كه بتنګه شمه Your face is a rose and your eyes are candles; Faith! I am lost, should i become a butterfly or a moth? زه دپسرلۍ تر ګل تازه وم ستا په بيلتون كښي لكه پاڼه زيړه شوم I used to be more fresh than spring blossoms, O Beloved! But your separation has turned me yellow like an autumn leaf. ستا په يوه تومت رنګ...

The words of Frederick Douglass' speech of July 4, 1852 resonate with us today, and with today's American slaves and trafficked human beings: "What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sound of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants brass fronted impudence; your shout of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanks-givings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy -- a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this v...

Dinner and the Revolution Filomena is on the phone with Teresinha in Lisboa I always know because they speak a Portuguese I can’t follow um crioulo duplo uma lingua de cozinha it’s tudo bem for me, ‘cause the revolution will not be circumcised so they can have their kitchen secrets, just as long as they remember to call me -- ‘cause I want to be around for dinner and for the revolution...