"What Duty" is the poem post this week. 2/26/14 - 3/2/14

What Duty

April 20, 2001

Service is in need.

My house is clean, but it's the corners and the cracks
and the unreachable that completes the story.
I fill in those to that.
Once home, from work, I whiff the interior therein
first to opening the door, and it's no surprise that pine
and other scents reach for my nostrils and details what
should befit a weekly wipe and rinse.
The act is a sharp reminder of what I did.
Before, and every time a cause for a chore, thoughts
of things being well-done make the daily reality
of it much to endure.
If there is something to do - as this is in every case -
my primary state of direction is a diligent reflection
of a home to make.

© 2001 Jarrod C. Lacy

This week's poem: 112 Apartment F to 109 Apartment A. 2/19/14 - 2/22/14

112 Apartment F to 109 Apartment A

December 18, 1998

I hurl back to that baroque cluster

of discomfort that was once the shaky

quarters, belonging to me and my

cousins.

I protest to fully recollect it.

How galactic ally malcontent they were,

my cousins, in rooms that grated the

rooms' defensive.

Stormily, psychosomatically, my body

was the ultimate fire; the urchins

with whom I shared rooms faced my

burning strife daily, that flickered

higher and higher.

They were rightfully burned by my

words, and failed to meet my one

simple desire; to maintain cleanliness.

Ornery was a ruler, but I love my - our - rooms,

those among the two-story brick duplex,

once believed a housing project.

Why did my cousins make mad the rooms?

Or piled high therein their filthy truths?

Honestly, they weren't home-trained.

Sickening to think that a chauvinist's

hand are bred to stirrup; everyone

Else’s must clean.

But I thank you rooms. I thank you

For tolerating us - through only one us

wanted to straighten you both up.

Now, I'm gone away and so are my

cousins.

There were good times had in you; thank

you goodness the housing authority

didn't report you or my cousins, or lead

you into some stinking, rancorous

abyss - thank you for having us.

© 1998 Jarrod C. Lacy
　

This week, I recite "The Gospel Of Barbecue" by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers, an incredible poet and teacher. 2/13 - 2/16.

The Gospel of Barbecue
By Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
for Alvester James

Long after it was
necessary, Uncle
Vess ate the leavings
off the hog, doused
them with vinegar sauce.
He ate chewy abominations.

Then came high pressure.
Then came the little pills.
Then came the doctor
who stole Vess’s second
sight, the predication
of pig’s blood every
fourth Sunday.

Then came the stillness
of barn earth, no more
trembling at his step.
Then came the end
of the rib, but before
his eyes clouded,
Uncle Vess wrote
down the gospel
of barbecue.

Chapter one:

Somebody got to die
with something at some
time or another.

Chapter two:

Don’t ever trust
white folk to cook
your meat until
it’s done to the bone.

Chapter three:

December is the best
time for hog killing.
The meat won’t
spoil as quick.
Screams and blood
freeze over before
they hit the air.

Chapter four, Verse one:

Great Grandma Mandy
used to say food
you was whipped
for tasted the best.

Chapter four, Verse two:

Old Master knew to lock
the ham bacon chops
away quick or the slaves
would rob him blind.
He knew a padlock
to the smokehouse
was best to prevent
stealing, but even the
sorriest of slaves would
risk a beating for a full
belly. So Christmas time
he give his nasty
leftovers to the well
behaved. The head ears
snout tail fatback
chitlins feet ribs balls.
He thought gratitude
made a good seasoning.

Chapter five:

Unclean means dirty
means filthy means
underwear worn too
long in summertime heat.
Perfectly good food
can’t be no sin.
Maybe the little
bit of meat on ribs
makes for lean eating.
Maybe the pink flesh
is tasteless until you add
onions garlic black
pepper tomatoes
soured apple cider
but survival ain’t never been
no crime against nature
or Maker. See, stay alive
in the meantime, laugh
a little harder. Go on
and gnaw that bone clean.

Source of copy: ThePoetryFoundation.org

Links: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/honoree-fanonne-jeffers

http://www.ou.edu/cas/english/people/faculty/facultypages/jeffers.htm

https://www.facebook.com/honoreej

http://phillisremastered.wordpress.com/

　

　

"Fugue State" is this week's feature poem. 2/5-8/14

Fugue State

November 1, 12, 14, 17, & 20, 2004

Nil was formulaic of any suggestion jaunted for treatment

by counselor or any featured psychiatrist.

Of course, there were never arranged visits or set appointments

for any attempt to narrate a life or dispel a problem.

Stagnant, frigid, and unstoppable, all personal capacity remained

blank, brief of a sort, but certainly self-contained.

There was no faultfinder present, though all liberties seemed

ornery, as the search to convalesce rushed to mother diffusion.

How this rain made the eye all about everything internal was

a motion flushed into a tentative lake that laved certainty.

Reality wasn't frumpily relieved as cerebral matters desired to be

pleased; however the strain of whatever furthered importance.

The mind welcomes strange interlopers to wend through the basic

power points of unwanted knowledge, weltering whys and whatnots,

revolving purposely to facilitate conscience.

It's ordinary to rack reason by running from the conciliation of

a sensible revelation.

That mental registrar that calls to be pulled and recanted regulates

as an ambiguous pain, forcing to pierce the shield not so impeccable.

There is the stare, the limp stare prompt and tardy of being aware.

Square. If circled, continue to curve without cessation.

To deal with forgetfulness that wants to be revealed, righteously

stoned, a callous cruelly creepy, a dying fish in a creel, is to

deal with a cremation of regards that a bit of sanity would seek to

seal, and there it all goes, goes into the act to grate intention.

Regularly, business will hold its stance on the melting mound;

if to stay, dead will be sound; if shaken, cease to drown.

© 2004 Jarrod C. Lacy