Written By Kwame Carter
The Beggars
Outside the tent
on cracks of clay,
A year of life is lost
in a wooden bowl,
allowing them
to zip in,
then zip
back upon her face
grazing as if full.
Amazed,
she gives the bowl
a thorough lick,
as if to convince.
Still they come,
tiny beggars
of this spare.
2:12am
when you knock I will hold the screen
and hand only, a breath within my night
cause you lean on my voice
why still? Cannot be sure.
Cousin, this sphere's weighted issues;
it will pull from your tombs.
Why still? Below might drum
"Decades!" but voiced, is self's milieu
and by your face, we will sum.
-But here, accept this tempted glare
lifting our distance to father's eyes
(that face rising throbbing on my throat
it is shivering squeezing in my skin)
but voice buckles under immediacy
never realizing.
I will stroke on your death-face
one summed
but like before turn with
my futile hands away.
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2 comments:
Wow, I'm absolutely loving your poems, Kwame. Thank you for sharing...And I feel you...ideals and values concerning how I'd love to help shape the world that were so effortlessly vivid when I was younger take contemplation and constant self-affirmation to reach as a "grown-up"...and I'm a work in progress...
My favorite line is:
Outside the tent
on cracks of clay,
A year of life is lost
in a wooden bowl...
I love that line...
And I love 2:12am...it's such a serious, intense poem...
Kwame, I am so grateful for your words(Kwame is the person who inspired me to write after I saw, as a youngster, the power that his words had). I know you haven't been big on sharing recently - but I'm glad you're letting folks see just how brilliant your work is, how honest, and devastating with its ability to force us to look inward. I feel like I've lost a lot of my old convictions/values along the way, brother. I'm trying to regain them now and live a meaningful life. Thank you so so so much. My favorite lines:
"Outside the tent
on cracks of clay,
A year of life is lost
in a wooden bowl"
"she gives the bowl
a thorough lick,
as if to convince.
Still they come,
tiny beggars
of this spare"
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