(no subject)

[katconfessional.livejournal.com]

Love in a Time of Revolution is Hard Work (Part 2)
by Roger Bonair-Agard

… and I cannot dance fast enough away from her
she is loving me hard
against my will
tears crystallizing to persuasion in my palms
I cannot dance fast enough to escape
this warm comfort – the easy settling
of her thumbs strobing the inside of my arms
lips running themselves moist across my back

she is running away with me
and I am trying to map the line of our flight
the one which says there is work to be done
the one grooved by a tear
from the sad fold of a mother’s eyelid
to the beautiful cruel corner of her mouth
looking for an option to stop us there
all I find is fluid and soft a beckoning
calling at the tangled knot in my stomach
and war paint on and ready
I cannot dance from her

I have decided long ago
that one day we will need to leave
each other that some fight or the other
will pull one of us too hard to stay
and this is why I love her loud enough
to counterpoint the violent love songs of Nina Simone

why she weaves war a thick crochet of passion and anger
into the days we grip in this frenzy
why her bed calls me to rest and love
only long enough to make sustenance
of our memory

If she bathes me in the hymns and dust
that will make me bulletproof
I will war for her battles too
love her enough to leave
when a Coltrane-Marley drumsong
bleeds war across my torso
enough to welcome her back
when her own hymns fasten her to a cross
and we love others with each other
on our breaths and feed revolution
down the throats of lovers who need more
than conviction to join their brothers

… today on the front – I gutted an enemy
just for you. kissed him in his dying breath
my hands exiting his jagged bloody wounds
I opened your mail pungent
with the raw musk of a poem
sound of a Fela song
leaving the envelope with a leap
song and your words cradling me
the way I cradle you
song hard inside me and tender
against my throat
song
I smeared the enemy’s blood
along the margins
watched the ink-fed alchemy
swirl into pictures of your mocking smile
calling me back to you

Love in these times is hard shit
a series of options that always rip
the heart from something
love in celebration of our hips and thighs
or confine some longings to spirit
curtail passion to protect those
who believe themselves innocent

meantime – beloved
believe in magic – find yourself enough religion
to expect me back
cradle the implausibility of us
tight to your bosom
in the songs that raised us
the sermons we preach
the hot smell of our sweats mingling
if we so much as touch

… and know
that there was magic
that we happened at all
a revolution waiting in our kisses
and bloodstains on a battlefield
that are calling me back to you

Comments

[girliebacchanal.livejournal.com]

i have never before heard of this poet and he's amazing.

"meantime - beloved / believe in magic - find yourself enough religion / to expect me back"

thank you.

[katconfessional.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked it - he's a performance poet who came to read at my college. I was floored by this poem; it's even more magical when it's performed.

[silverflurry.livejournal.com]

No need to use lj-cut.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_______nuncora/]

this poem is glorious!