Freedom

“Maybe your bodies’ll be lost in a swamp
Or a prison grave, or the potter’s field”
— Langston Hughes

America
Where are your devices
Were they lost
When the ships came in
The ships laden with 
Slave-wage servants.

Come in, you said
Come down off the plank
(You cannot swim)
Welcome to hell’s kitchen
There’s a place for you
On this killing ground.



Lass

“She 
Who searched for lovers 
In the night
Has gone the quiet way 
Into the still, 
Dark land of death 
Beyond the rim of day.”
—	Langston Hughes

The truly desperate
Have no boundaries
They cross every ocean
They unleash their ghosts
They have to be found
They break hearts
In chance encounters.

So, be gentle with them
First love will find them
Then seek to destroy them
In a thousand silent ways.

Harlem “Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark? And who…