By Cameron Awkward-Rich
After Lucille Clifton
O winged walker,
motley brood
& brood underneath
the underneath. You,
formidable residual,
derelict carried
to this country
by the dread Atlantic
wind. What did you see
to make but yourself
& yourself? Foul
architect, teeming Queen
of rot. Whereas you
survive. Whereas your death
is an industry. Whereas
on the television
in this century
of television
a woman wears you
as a living jewel,
rubied carapace
on a gold leash.
Whereas beauty
was never meant
to be your name—
O harbinger
of harbingers.
O little, unending night.
Whereas murder, too,
was never right—
they’re just a sound
for what we do
to the dark. O
a sound I fear
is the only sound
I know.
Source: Poetry (November 2019)
Poet Bio
More Poems about Arts & Sciences
Poem with Human Intelligence
This century is younger than me.
It dresses itself
in an overlong coat of Enlightenment thinking
despite the disappearing winter.
It twirls the light-up fidget spinner
won from the carnival of oil economies.
In this century, chatbots write poems
where starlings wander from their murmuration
into the denim-thick...
Listening in Deep Space
We've always been out looking for answers,
telling stories about ourselves,
searching for connection, choosing
to send out Stravinsky and whale song,
which, in translation, might very well be
our undoing instead of a welcome.
We launch satellites, probes, telescopes
unfolding like origami, navigating
geomagnetic storms, major disruptions.
Rovers...
More Poems about Nature
Listening in Deep Space
We've always been out looking for answers,
telling stories about ourselves,
searching for connection, choosing
to send out Stravinsky and whale song,
which, in translation, might very well be
our undoing instead of a welcome.
We launch satellites, probes, telescopes
unfolding like origami, navigating
geomagnetic storms, major disruptions.
Rovers...
At the Equinox
The tide ebbs and reveals orange and purple sea stars.
I have no theory of radiance,
but after rain evaporates
off pine needles, the needles glisten.
In the courtyard, we spot the rising shell of a moon,
and,...
More Poems about Social Commentaries
From the Sky
When I die,
bury me in the sky—
no one is fighting over it.
Children are playing soccer
with empty bomb shells
(from the sky I can see them).
A grandmother is baking
her Eid makroota and mamoul
(from the sky I can taste them).
Teens are writing love...
Poem with Human Intelligence
This century is younger than me.
It dresses itself
in an overlong coat of Enlightenment thinking
despite the disappearing winter.
It twirls the light-up fidget spinner
won from the carnival of oil economies.
In this century, chatbots write poems
where starlings wander from their murmuration
into the denim-thick...