the late watch

Sometimes our hands are all we have

The clenched face
The bent limbs
Battered by a thousand hurricanes
Of bullets

A single broken blade of green

"…broken femur…transport…black male…seven years old..."

snapped by a sedan rounding a corner
a crossroads well traveled

their blackened boots and brazen stares
accessories
the hardened giants walk
silently into a tiny house on a holy night

it might as well be
made of straw and sticks

a cop lifts the boy up in his arms
holds him to blue skin
and brass
caresses the lithe arm
as the EMT's strip him bare

uniformly human

the tinsel tossed lonely limb hangs loose and limp
Wet with silverish sheets of blood


the fish have no air
they flit like faith
tendrils of red
floating falsetto
high above the greenery
in the darkened
fish tank

impressions of tiny fingers paint
the officer's forearm radioflyer red

Today, the breath of God is thick
and foggy with weight of the cross
adorned with the jingle of cuffs and change


a snowy chill capping
a mountain of a man
as he holds
small clinched fingers
like the last star waiting for Christmas
white and wanting
as sparkles and snow

The Clean Break

Break
Day:

you were in my ear
holding the whisper of my thoughts
shifting through the mountains of my mind
in quiet caverns

Break
Dance:

explosions of sizzling heat dressed in dazzling beams of yellow brick road dreams
but they look better on you than I thought


Break
Off:

tumbling through dusty dreads
that I must cut
because the words I love you are no longer a consent form
for me to carry you over this bridge of my back


Break
Pump Yours:

The adrenaline of 144,000 words in a love letter
flowing from the heart of God
poised and ready for battle
with the truth their only defense

Break
Heart:
the adrenaline of one word
pierces it.

Break
Leg:

the break is a clean one, or so they say.
little bits of it
matriculating in my mind
hard and pointy
reabsorbing mal memories

amazing analogies
break is to day
break is to dance
break is to off
break is to pump
break is to heart
break is to leg

Break
Through:

I am reforming
bone on bone
clean and positioned

maybe even on the mend.

a final test, from God with love:

break is to through
as me is to you

the calling

at night I thirst for you in
my dreams

will you step or swim

step across the gulf
between languid hopes
and stallward desparation

are you a mire of a man or a myth
that my mind has cut and chopped
and minced into a balm
a salve for a heart bruised from battle

or are you my air?
my imagination, my destiny bequeathed to me from
a time where I can no longer
look my fate in the face
and say
I dare you

the silence between our breaths
at times seems to span seas
with continental breath

it is this knowingness
between the myth and the dream

that seems to make the journey
through a weary land worth it.

and I cannot wait to dive in
soul first

Please Do Not Remain Silent (2000)

One of my published pieces.

After going through a myriad of personal difficulties and losing three black women who were mentors/sisters/guides to me, I began to doubt my faith. I thought myself to be doing everything as best as I could, and nothing seemed to be going well.

I never doubted the existence of God; perhaps even worse I doubted that my pleas would be heard. I started crying and thought to myself, "If there are no answers, and God chooses to remain silent when we beg for understanding, what a cruel and pointless thing life is." I prayed," If you hear me God, please do not remain silent."

It was raining outside. I went out in my clothes with nothing to cover me and sat on my porch as the rain soaked through my clothes. I noticed that next to me there was a plant that I had given my mother after a difficult period in her life.

The plant had been dying slowly for weeks. It was a beautiful brilliant mini-rosebush when I brought it home. The leaves and the blossoms had fallen off and it had been browning for weeks. But now after the first storm of the season, the browning plant was growing green again and tiny rosebuds were blooming.

I realized, like the rose, faith needs nourishment. If God did not forget the dying rose, surely I wouldn't be forgotten. At that moment a burst of rain came from the clouds and the streets filled with pouring rain. Then a small still voice said," I am never silent." --- Copyright © 2000 Michelle Milam

japan

****
In Japan, everything was small, except her. Descript and stingy streets leading to small posh but cramped living quarters. She wondered how anyone here could make love in a bed that barely allowed her to sprawl her legs over the edge.

She marveled at the lives of people spending their lives spent staring at sparse eggshell white ceilings.

She spent the first two days deciphering how to unpack all of her things and rearrange them so they fit in her tiny flat.

But Barcelona welcomed her Barcelona, which had the benefit of a beautiful Spanish style balcony,

Even the isles in the store Missing Bootsy’s banana pudding, she left the small streets and stores in search of an open air market.

There is only one way to tell if the if it ripe, he said.

Perhaps it was the way that he cocked his head. Or that his blacked palms reminded her of the overripe banana. Maybe it was his wide grin, open despite the missing teeth. Whatever it was it moved her. The marketplace glossed over with tears.

An awkwardly comforting wrinkled hand took hers, and patted it.


Suddenly, she knew.


****

two poems to get me writing again...

i.

in the valley i found no water
except the lake of my own
unlived moments
will these dry bones
live?

ii.

she's no good for him;

he says, like lyrics with no music

she plays a song with her eyes

by sight

but never by heart

the pen

this pen is a bittersweet
thing
it loves like it writes
baking excuses
semi sweet
squares

The Beauty of Beauty

for my many sisters who have experienced abuse
and for me

This one came to me in a dream.....


Song:

You’re standing here
And you’re in so much pain
Wondering if He’s near
You’re calling out His name
The ones who were 'sposed to protect you
Used and rejected you
They didn’t believe the truth was true
But I know God was keeping you

Chorus:
Because it's alright
Don't be ashamed
Beauty ain’t ashamed to know her name
Know you’re not to blame
Because it’s alright
Don't be ashamed
He will take away/all your pain
Know you’re not to blame

soloist/choir

It’s alright
It’s alright
It’s alright
It’s alright

verse ii.
And now you’re on your knees
Wondering what to do
Your hands are outstretched to Him
Praying that He’ll hear you
The ones who were 'sposed to protect you
Used and rejected you
They didn’t believe the truth was true
But I know God was keeping you

Because Its al--right
Don't be ashamed
Beauty ain’t ashamed to know her name
Know you’re not to blame
Because it’s al--right
Don't be ashamed
He will take away/all your pain
Know you’re not to blame

soloist/choir

It’s alright
It’s alright
It’s alright
It’s alright

poem

Come gently lost passenger,
Because this is your stop
You wandered around the baggage area
Looking for a departure but struggling to find your way
With a one way ticket in hand to a epic struggle that
You didn’t ask for, and didn’t own

But there is a flight that will take you home

Time to take your name back,
Reclaim the freedom in the spring of your fall
If its peace you seek then don’t retreat
fall before his mercy seat
Kiss the soles of his holy feet

A deliverer of beauty lost
A heavy cost
Of innocence stolen
From her mother land
So many nights you were a nomad in your own soul
Know the savior heals and holds
He alone provides the aching spirit with
The comfort it seeks

Be released.

The beauty of beauty
Is that no matter what they did
You can live without shame
Standing on the savior’s name

This is your stop, lost passenger
There is a land where the wars inside your mind
Are subjected to treaties
And the battlefields of your body cease to rage
And in the desolate desert soul, He brings a spring of peace
Talitha cumi!
Come child, it’s alright
Come child, it’s alright
Hush child, it’s alright

The only way through darkness, is light.

chorus

Because Its al--right
Not to be ashamed
Beauty ain’t ashamed to know her name
Know you’re not to blame
Because it’s al--right
Not tuh be ashamed
He will take away/all your pain
Know you’re not to blame

soloist

It’s alright
It’s alright
It’s alright
It’s alright

first line of the chorus
AC FFE ADCAB EFEFE FDCC DDD EF

the power of shoes......

(part of a four part play)


(Narrator)

They were red. Candy apple red. Fire red.Cussing and fighting face beat red. Blood red. Red Sea red. Savior died and bled read. Red eyed red, red boned red. The kind of red that makes you think of a sunset you never saw, and ruby you never owned.

(picks up the shoes and admires them.)

They matched. In the window of the store there was a model, and she was wearing her red dress and her red shoes. She looked powerful, like nothing could hold her. I wanted to be like that.

Powerful. Unheld. Ready.

Ready for what? Sometimes I think that it is better not to tell your story to people, because you end up missing them. You end up floating around with little pieces of you that travel the world with your story in hand after you have given up the secret of who you are. Scrambling like a little bird trying to make a nest you flit around trying to find all the pieces of yourself you gave away to people who were careless with it.

And then sometimes I believe that we are not meant to hold onto our story, because it really isn't ours to begin with in the first place. It is His. My bondage, my hope. My fear, at its full height. My faith at its full depth.

Tangled twins, one skin, like Jacob and Esau. Who can win?

(throws the shoes on the table.)

I bought the shoes even though I could not afford them. You know how that is, when they beckon. I wasn't even thinking about the cost, I only saw the beauty of those red stems caressing my feet, petal soft.

Why?

Why do people ask why? If someone has a limp, people ask them why they are limping? If someone asks for change, people ask them why are you out here hungry and begging? If someone asks for hope, people ask why do you need it? And if they actually feel generous enough to actually give it to you, well, then, you owe them for their borrowed hope, because after all hope isn't free, now is it?

Uhuhh. Everything has a price. Even you.

I've come to the conclusion that people really don't want to know the answer to why. That's they they sit around angry at God, mad and waiting.

Why do children die in pointless wars, falling into the great gap-- landmines of generational sins? Why do fathers leave their children, countries neglect their poor?: Why did it take so long to recognize me as more than 3/5ths of a human being? Why did he rape me? Why were we poor? Why did you take the pearls that grandma strung for me and hide them? ? Why do we care more about being right than believing right? Why is Africa bleeding? Why was I homeless? Lord why can't I walk? Why is it that I can ask you for your body easier than I can ask you for yourself? Why are most people unhappy except for the people who have the least to be happy about? Why? Why didn't you save me? Why didn't they protect me? Why wasn't I loved? Why me Lord, Why me?

There comes a point when you have to say to yourself, Why not you? Who are you to live in the glass bubble of snowy spinning world and not get wet? Who are you to never know fear, or peril, or nakedness or the sword? Who are you not to be somebody's mentor, somebody's mama, somebody's reason to keep hoping when the world is charging at a premium? Who are you not to walk the walk that your grandmother, your great grandmother, and your great great grandmother all walked so that you could walk? Who are you that you are just so good in your life that you would never feel pain so that someone else may be able to look at you in all your brilliance and beauty and say if she can smile, so can I? Who are you to take away God's crowning glory, a woman after his own heart who survived to defiantly live? Who are you not to know the love of God, the peace of God that passes all understanding. Who are you this creature created in the image of the Almighty god not to be powerful, and unheld and ready for whatever comes your way?!

Who are you?

Sometimes I think to myself, If only you walked a mile in these bad boys, you would know. But you know what? If you could walk my road then you couldn't walk yours. For so long I walked. I walked over, under around and through all the things that tired to keep me mired in my own muck. But today is different. You see God gave me this word: In me, You have the power to walk away. Walk away from all the things that tried to break you. You can walk away because even when you could not afford you, somebody paid the bill. And when you walk away in He that holds your soul, you're different.

Because you don't just walk away, and through, you're walking to, because now you know the truth of who you are! The cost of why you breathe. You are worthy.


Everyone has a color. Everything has a price. Even you.

(she picks up the shoes, exits the stage...)

For me, it was red.

fire. works.

slick sweet
bubble yum kisses
cooled by sweet lemonade
concessions
with a twist of awe

calico cat
shoes clicking down streets that know them well
full with fuchsia mea culpas
we hardly mention anymore

the endless spinning
of abandoned records
the wide hipped full lung
speech of July
hot, humid, and heavy with
words we shouldn't say
but always do
during this season
when breath become brilliant sparkling
displays of will

i will remember those julys
when the love sizzled
when it
it was poppin' and crackin'

now it is cracking and popping
as I give to
the weight of the same old argument
we keep having
with new furies
until the arthritis
sets in