Play Poem

Playing with words is so clean -
they don't get under your finger 

nails,
they don't stain your close,
and you don't even have to
wash your hands afterwords!

1939

Yesterday my darling babe
disappeared beneath the waves.
Shards of saltwater
like bears attacking,
shred sputtering lungs,
young limbs
thrashing.

For Heart

Pulsing
against
wall
of chest
muffled
through layers
of
meaty
flesh
rhythm
buried
below
small breast
little
alive
refusing
rest.

Thank you.

During Class

Black hands
Flicker in
Front of
Projected
Blue lights.
Blue lights!
Flash!
A man
Lies flat
on the corner of
North and Eutaw
Bleeding from
His left temple.

The Artist

I send my little ship off to sea.

Where will it end up?

I don't know...

but

I have made sure that it is

a thing of beauty.

Beautiful enough to 

change someone's life.

Or maybe even

history.

after the shower

pathetic little creature,
hair grown long
skin turned gold
aged a whole
nineteen years old,
quivering at the faintest touch
of the northern
winter's cold!

This Morning I Rose From My Blue-Grey Rest

This morning I rose from my blue-grey rest

and said,"Sun,

I am thirsty and cold!"

And Sun,

with motherly tenderness,

filled my outstretched bowl.



She made her sweetest honey tea,

that licked curved walls as she poured

golden waves into
clay bowl of blue
until it overflowed!

 -

onto my face
spilling down my cheeks,
and across the bridge of my nose. Seeping
under my skin,

she warmed me for weeks,
flowing through my
porcelain bones.

For Jon

I want to paint
I grab a pen.
I want control
I binge.
My blood's so hot.
My feet are cold.
Alarm screams,
I sleep in.

I want morning.
I want night.
I must run.
I need rest.
I could be wrong.
I think I'm right.
I'm joyful and
depressed.

I need to travel.
I long for home.
I'm quiet and
I speak.
I need to hug
and be alone.
I question.
I believe.

I make, I touch
I rush, I hum,
I chew, I sing,
I dress.
I write, I laugh,
I play, I strum,
I talk, I think,
I rest.

I say I will,
but then I won't.
I'm honest
but that's not true.
There's just one thing
that I'm sure of -
I am in love with you.

Johns Hopkins University (Revised)

If it were Spring
I would sit outside
on a park bench in the quad,
but this place is icy -

fiercely intellectual,

no misplaced left mittens,
no hair salons,
no barber shops
for miles and miles.

I search for warmth
in the security guard's smile
and the lower level of the library.

Here, grids of wooden cubicles stretch
far as the Sahara.
Layers upon layers of information
are filed into limitless halls
and infinity pages.
People file themselves away,
quiet,
like books.

I watch
words rise
from the seams of open pages,
streaming into
nodded foreheads,
becoming
caged songbirds
that wait anxiously
for Spring.

Coree

young girl of tan
white and brown
the warm flat wall
a stark background
sun with yellow tint
bursts light through the space
wide mouth of a smile
bursts light through the face.

For Baltimore

An Adaption of Pablo Neruda's "The Mountain and the River," for Baltimore
By Stephanie McKee

In my city there is a schoolhouse.
In my city there is a sidewalk.

Come with me.

Failure wanders through the schoolhouse.
Violence goes down the sidewalk.

Come with me.

Who are those who suffer?
I do not know, but they are my brothers.

Come with me.

I do not know, but they call to me
and they say to me: "We suffer."

Come with me.

And they say to me: "Your brothers,
your luckless brothers
between the schoolhouse and the sidewalk
with failure and violence,
they do not want to struggle alone.
They are waiting for you, friend."

Oh you, the people I love,
family of warm concrete
and red brick,
the struggle will be hard,
life will be hard,
but many will come with me
and we will all
walk together.

Machinery of Leisure

A shrill buzz grinds

its way through

deep green waves

and into my ears,

stealing white sands,

to dump on shore,

delighting the tourist

who's never swam before.