A healthy distrust for Wings. Left wing. Right wing. Same old dusty things with colonial voices, circling their decaying bodies. This is most of the time, like brewing coffee on Monday mornings– Kenyan blend– placing specific tools in a black duffle bag to dismantle Massa’s house. We all know that you can’t use the sameContinue reading “A Healthy Distrust”
Tag Archives: free verse
Today’s Thoughts on Empire
No open palms in this crooked land. Only clenched fists and iron-like ideas can survive in this social wilderness. I dig into this militant bag. Fela Kuti runs down anticolonial chants to awaken morning.A fresh brew wafts into spacious rooms–Kenyan blend. Huey P’s voice crawls into earbuds, like a follower of a congregation. D.C. experiences empowered mediocrity. The Oval Office got plans to take overContinue reading “Today’s Thoughts on Empire”
Live with the Risks
Sparrows chirp; traffic gentlyroars; a cul-de-sac sleeps, breathes, slowly prepares for the day. Geese block the street, forcing a black pickup truck to stop for superior creatures with jazz-like steps, natural connections to the land, man-made water sources. They grind, hustle. Loud machines do not bother. Towering trees stand, like neighborhood pillars. I-64 chants aContinue reading “Live with the Risks”
Jazz Hangs on a Saturday
Avoiding noise,like vibes consumeskin. Constantly. Fixing flats onpolluted earth,patching up holes onliberated wings.Snatch up purpose andmemorize thecracks in culture. Jazz hangson flesh. JohnColtrane. Dexter Gordon. Mr. TheloniousMonk taps keys, altering moods. Rick laughs at an episode of Malcolm and Eddie, while Ryan unfolds a box of Kane’s fried chicken, hoping to uproot mystique, justify the snake-like backups onContinue reading “Jazz Hangs on a Saturday”
More Human Each Day
Cocoa scented skin wafts for moments–an epic simile–like my man Reggie, twirling a piece of raw chocolate from a Haitian cocoa tree. The years fly by. We grind. Buildto act, to protect,to love, to resist, to live, to leap overburdens, like we have surfed these metallic waves before. Liberated. Cageless. Roses forcing their ways throughContinue reading “More Human Each Day”
Poem Written After Watching an Episode of Goliath
California license plate on a yellow bug. “Baby, I got your money,” she says, misremembering the codename. “The name is Fernando Vasquez,” he says. A lawyer with a bloody nose and a poor disposition slides out of the trunk of a red 2018 Jeep Compass. Nothing to see here. Dead metaphors and dysfunction. More bullshitContinue reading “Poem Written After Watching an Episode of Goliath”
In June, A Little Boy Simmers
Tradition for What?
Too fast to wear a crown.Uneasy. Heavy is the head. STILL. Raised on a different frequency,moving skillfully with sharks, like Miles Davis swimming in sound. SOUND is a temple. The gamble crawls on skin, and I change lanes. Stuck in this blues, living with designed purpose. God’swill on flesh. Them levels be dangerous. Bones tellContinue reading “Tradition for What?”
Long Way Home
City streets snake and swerve toward ordinary oblivion. Not worried about the hate and the hostile stares. Or the pissed off old man in a dark pickup truck, trying to make a quick exit on Butts Station Road. Red faced and angry. I laugh. This is an ode to balancing life on an eyelash. ToContinue reading “Long Way Home”
A Hustle Beyond the Stars and Stripes
Beyond traffic. Beyond cracked lives. Beyondbluesy attitudes, polluted countries, and silly white genocides. Bones don’t move for plastic ideals, shifty rhetoric, and piggish ways to prove American vomit is a gold-plated crutch. Sunlight breathes new days. Moonlight counts dollar bills while the masses stumble for food, shelter, living wages. Tap-dancefor a machine? Why? Stick outContinue reading “A Hustle Beyond the Stars and Stripes”
The Official Website of Synnika A. Lofton 