Seven Heavens

i. CARL
you don’t pay to breathe
or require permission to
fortunately

politicians to depend upon
even for air

were it necessary to depend
you’d drop out, drop down
drop dead

of what use are poets
in a place like this

what amount of votes
do poets gather

what you do for country
not what matters

what you contribute
to their being elected or reelected
is what counts

counting snow flakes in Canada
what I need to be doing
or better still, in Russia

plants in small pots, growing
sitting upon my window sill

need to go
from this silly situation
I call home

call home now and then
e-mail them, those I’d miss

in need of/I need a
change of perspective

not going to stay here
and beg bread

chase politicians for pittances
for scraps of that, of this

oasis in the desert
Kirk in the desert
musicians, classical music
piano, horn, flute

my pen in my fist though
always an oasis in a desert

cornucopia overturned
fruit rolling, falling

when the muses are upon me
like the Philistines upon Samson

his hair shaved off

hope I’d not have
to push apart pillars

bring the building down
around/upon me

Sonata for Horn, op 17,
early Beethoven

I another artist with a bad temper
with only an ink pen to express it

Ministry of Education,
Youth, Sports and Culture
tired of assisting me, financially

should I be tired, grow tired
of the pain, of the pen

look what these mothers
allow themselves
from the public purse

compare this with
the spit I get, I’ve gotten

ii. VANESSA
what a divine girl

moment of eye contact
enough to transport me,
transform me

connected to another world
to her world
however enigmatic

I suspect some unhappiness
some dissatisfaction
I am unable to alter

unable to fix with poetry
with inexpensive gift
from afar, from away

that she was on my mind,
with me while abroad

is what is priceless
closeness, the ultimate gift

is her son back home again

about what is she worried,
unhappy

wish I were able to get to/
get at the root of it

pull it up, transplant it
in soil and sun and rain

my wish is that she thrive
as bamboo does
when they begin to shoot,
to sprout

I want her spirit tall as giraffes

with plains as vast to roam,
to cross, to own

iii. OBAMA
there is a black family
in the White House

Obama T- shirt
in a store window

I take a step back,
take a second look

opening stanza of this poem
to meditate upon

Obama not the first
black super star
the U.S.A. has thrown up,
thrown us

Jackie Robinson, Joe Louis,
Bill Cosby, Sidney Poitier

Michael Jordan, Michael Jackson,
Oprah Winfrey, Tiger Woods

Whitney Houston, Sonny Liston,
Cassius Clay, Thurgood Marshall,
Frederick Douglas, Langston Hughes

Du Bois, Wright, Baldwin, Giovanni

all these are giants

Robeson, King, Malcolm,
Denzel Washington, Halle Berry

many belong
to this pantheon of accomplishment
best upon the planet
upon the globe

at being themselves
at what they do

Amiri Baraka
no one in the world
able to do what he does

we have been acting for ages
changing masks

president, another role to play

Obama far better able to play it
than Ronald Raegan

oh, when the actor’s mask
becomes his face

able then to taste honey

iv.
to have been put down
like they have been
like we have been

only to pop up
though late, possibly

like blackened toast
to throw away or to scrape off
like Tennyson’s:

With blackest moss the flower-pots
Were thickly crusted one and all:

black people, black women
affect me as if I were other/
from elsewhere

could it be self-love/
admiration of self
as deep rooted as this

or is it what
I’ve been uprooted from

false separation,
forced separation
to suffer, to endure

is it acknowledgement
of a lie told

what is most beautiful
is ugly

able to see truth
and to cry out, to point,
“Look!”

like that child, “Look!
the emperor’s naked!”

I see black women
and were it not for idolatry
I’d fall upon my knees

it is the divine though
that I see and acknowledge

awe almost too much to bear

who I behold with so much passion,
enthusiasm

imagining they’re ordinary,
convinced they’re ordinary

look back at me in disbelief
imagining I’ve gone crazy

v. CRYSTAL
to go from near to far apart
I recall Blind Blake:

Mama what a pain I gat

to do without her
to live without her

when I thought
we were attached

what she’s attached to though
is the stem of a glass
and to what’s in the glass

in glass after glass she empties
without at all affecting thirst

is that emptiness within us
glass or chalice or cup
of paper or china or what

or is emptiness within
a window frame to look out
upon landscape, seascape

she wants to escape
our intimacy

she used to squeal
whenever she saw me

she used to climb up on me
arms and legs about me

now it seem she’s vex with me,
with poetry

or has someone, jealous of us
set her against me, wants us apart

or is it marijuana, alcohol
or her lesbianism

getting or gotten between us

vi. CHELSA
how can one stay away
from a place like this
from a plate like this
from a date like this

delight like this, twist like this

twist there are those
who try to convince us
was over, no longer existed

cinnamon twist
or a hug and a kiss

intertwined with
the most beautiful women
imaginable

I kid you not
I exaggerate not even a little bit

any superlative I can think of
is gross understatement

see them and drool
as much a fool for love as I

vii. MICHELLE
nothing, no one on the street
can be worse than this music

loosening all my bones
and cells and ideas

I’m out of here!

invited to fear the streets,
the dark

say these are not safe
but how dark it is

among who assume
they’re in the light
delighting in life

what assault to be visited
upon one, upon us

by who assume
they entertain us, sustain us

without end running
attempting to get away

from people, from community
from society

how unpleasant people are

experimenting with torture
subjecting themselves to it

what is pleasant
no longer sought after
no longer appreciated

as if no longer able to feel
what did not cause pain


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2009
Written between 4:25 p.m.
and 10:20 p.m. Sunday,
1st March 2009