Four Poems

Promise of Death
after Jericho Brown

I promise you
When I go, it will be not by anyone’s
Hands but my own.
I will not let the world change me
Into a person I am not.
I will go slowly,
With a cigarette between my fingers.
Or I will go fast,
Seeing my whole life in a flash.
It will not be by an officer’s hand,
Not by their words,
Nor their violence.
I won’t let them be the last ones
To see me alive and breathing.
I will choose the moment,
The way I go,
And the world will not have a say.

Silent Voices
after e. e. cummings

All the voices cry for the
Life, Liberty, and pursuit of Happiness
They were promised, yet beneath the flag
Lies the silence of the people.
The voices of the fallen fade away,
Their dreams are now buried beneath the surface.
The land they fought for still stands high,
But their cries are silenced by people in power.
We live on, but the cost not acknowledged
For the voices of the lost are not yet freed.
The truth of their pain is never told,
Their hope now fades with the years.
The promise that was made was not kept,
And they stay in silence, left all alone.

The Circle of Desire
after Tony Hoagland

Whether you’re young or old
Desire circles back
Like a 360° moment,
Never really leaving.
Doris fades, but stays at the same time,
Her name still on your mind,
Like the remembrance of first love.
This is how history catches up.
You try to run faster
To outrun the past,
But it always catches up,
The same song plays again.
Desire does not end with Doris,
It just keeps lingering,
Reminding you love never really fades.

When Time Settles
after Ted Kooser

There’s never an end to life 
We move on, just like dust in the air,  
Always shifting, always drifting in between, 
But never gone. Hands that wipe leave a trace— 
A memory of the things one held. 

The dust settles, but we carry  
The weight of moments that slip away, 
Like time sinking into the earth, 
But we remain, still caught in the dust.