rather than go on, go out,
put out the light
you have a knife


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2006
10:40 p.m. 29/nov/06


she wants my doggie on a leash,
on a chain, tame

my doggy wants to leap walls,
wants to bite people passing, going by

whoever does not look right,
smell right or act right

my doggie wants to bark at,
wants to bite


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2006
3:42 p.m. 30/nov/06


what art washes up, makes surface
from deep inside us, deep within us
hurts and joys

memories sunk to the bottom of time
resting upon the sands of time,
art brings up


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2006
8:39 p.m. 30/nov/06


I don’t keep me, I’ve not kept me

you must not blame me therefore
nor credit me for the state I’m in

whether I’m well or ill, bad or good


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2006
10:41 p.m. 1/dec/06


if there was order
within Bahamian borders
instead of mayhem, instead of chaos,
illegal immigrants could not come here as easily
and disappear so freely

lost in the disorder of what is so far
from civil society


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2006
10:11 a.m. 2/dec/06


suggests the blind man
go home and go to bed

but it’s early after-noon,
he’s just boarded the bus
with places to go,
with things on his mind

was she suggesting that,
because he’s always in the dark
he should always be in bed

but even a blind man knows
when the sun is out, when it’s up

when it’s time to get up
to put on his dark shades

when to get on the bus


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2006
10;59 p.m. 2/dec/06


I could be a gentleman or I could not
with no where open to pee
but in a parking lot


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2006
6:45 p.m. 5/dec/06


as close as she and I are
as close as she and I have been
she always envisioned me, said she,
married to a white woman

a white woman though, need not be white
not necessary to be white to be refined,
to be educated

not at all difficult to find
white crude people, white rude people
extremely lower class white people,
crass as could be

someone to fit me like a glove I seek


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2006
1:40 p.m. 8/dec/06


No Shoes & Trumpet
of Ronald Simms

he invites us to join him,
to journey with him
to take our shoes off, soles on earth
instead we hawk and spit on it
on what is holy ground


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2006
3:28 p.m. 10/dec/06


in pussy hairs alone you used to lie
alone with me


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2006
1:42 p.m. 11/dec/06


is mouse mess rice grains
black instead of uncooked and off-white
instead of cooked and white

is mouse mess rice grains
passed out black and undigested, left
left and right about, across
my kitchen cabinet to piss me off


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2006
4:00 p.m. 11/dec/06


Dancing Dress

so flower-fresh, so petal-pink
her lips wet with health, with happiness

her fruit-mouth, sea grapes fill,
dilly-filled

lemons, limes, time to leave
to study hard, to go abroad

must take home with her, its sunsets,
rain on the roof of her grandfather’s house
of her grandmother’s home

to have somewhere, something
to come back to

some songs to hum as well
in her wallet when she leaves

purse to snap shut, bursting with secrets


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2006
11:22 p.m. 13/dec/06



I Like Peas & Rice
for Kara Dorsett

there was peas to shell
not enough to sell
enough for a meal
for mom to cook, to put in rice

with it we’d have had steamed mutton
sheep from Long Island,
slaughtered in Nassau
in our backyard

peas in pods to shell
woman to shell, to get out,
to get at what’s inside
what’s assembled as neatly


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2006
12:40 a.m. 14/dec/06