A Poem at 39 (Discourse on a Summer Moon)
A personal reversal
The artistic episteme
Philosophy through verse
The pedagogy of the city
And the African roots
To the rhythm of the pulsing drums
The intoxication of a summer moon
The sweaty stench of collective human flesh in collective heat
As stadium rocks on African soil.
Know that my thoughts are with you
Wherever words can travel
And know that we are beautiful
We are power beyond measure
May we live to see a century
May we live to change the world
One stanza, one voice, one people
And dance in laboratories
Spray epithets in the chambers
Infuriate the numbers
The civil disobedience of poets
The call to metaphysical arms
The invitation to ecstasy
The discourse of friends
And their happy dysfunction
40 looms
The world on baited breath
A half-filled champagne glass
The Malibu sun
The absence of race
The end of constraint
The smell of forgiveness
The middle phase begins
