This belt is worn out.
Which diner today?
She almost slipped and fell.
The museum doesn’t open for another eighteen minutes.
She almost slipped and fell.
Which diner today?
At this hour the market is not crowded.
My stomach is growling.
They lost power.
I don’t like this wind.
March 10, 2018
By Hazen Piper
Link to an electronic open-source edition of David McKay’s Harlem Shadows (1922).
http://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/walker/walker.html
Appeal … to the Colored Citizens of the World (Third Edition, 1830)
Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t.
“We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” – Martin Luther King, Jr., 1968
“I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.” – Theodore Parker, 1853
Perhaps the shape is not an arc but a helix. Theodore Parker said in his sermon, “Of Justice and the Conscience”, that he can divine “the curve and complete the figure” of the moral universe by conscience. The verb to divine means “to discover by intuition or insight”. I do appreciate Theodore Parker’s and Martin Luther King’s intuition and insight but each of us must do our own divining of the moral universe and not simply rely on the divinations of others. My conscience desires justice but does not always intuit the moral universe bending towards it. Perhaps the moral universe bends along the spiraling path of a helix with justice as its axis. Or maybe a double-helix ?
Note: 1853, Ten Sermons of Religion by Theodore Parker, Of Justice and the Conscience, Start Page 66, Quote Page 84-85, Crosby, Nichols and Company, Boston. (Google Books full view) Link
Why poetry?
time or
breath the same
as time or
life the same
as time and breath
combined
Why life?
poetry or
unity the same
as poetry or
text the same
as poetry and unity
combined
setting of the sun
flowing of the water
reflecting of the light
on the river
architecture of
time remaining
elusive
faintly shimmering
in constantly
varying wavelengths
iridescent riddle
the breath
the passage
of the music
breezes blowing
across my skin
rustling the hairs
on my arms
June 2, 2015
counter
factual
volunteers making
out America
one day play
in the gutter
made of concrete running water
it all takes time
divisions sub-divisions rooted in
the sandy soils
the air
support our eyes
so tired so tired
then
single self
beheld inhuman shadows
mimic
maskings at
vanishing poles and
rose
wholly clear
beyond ordering horizons
16 April 2011
Miami Beach
not satisified with response
and call form caught
off guard and evasive
forgetting the sanctuaries
of the reflections in the
puddles left by the day’s
rains the quivering of
the imaginations seemingly
caught on the surfaces all
the people crisscross and
keep coming back and
coming back to forgetfulness
25 April 2010