First Snow

December 19th, 2009



This house is a new mind; a fresh mine
for memories. The snow outside fades footsteps
of early day. The children played
before the blizzard powdered Mama Earth’s face.

“So what we ‘gon do?” Badu sings to me.
We ‘gon remain a blank sheet. Innocence
is coming back to me. These new beginnings
envelop me, a signed and sealed delivery.

Snow scatters in every direction. The flakes
are too fast to identify. Clouds come steady as a train.
Full Steam! Frenzy. The tree nods at me heavy,
Storm on its shoulders.

It holds
everything:
sun, leaves,
snow, me.

Flakes visit my window like children in a zoo.
I am tamed by lies, laws, sayings and school.
I want to feel, express and create. To grow and be,
just how Lowdown Loretta Brown told me.

Now I am so happy.
Everything is new to me:
this snow, this home, my family, these feelings.
I am a bird jumping out of its tree to take wing.

Ah!
This is how it feels to love God.
Free, with each attachment
as heavy as a feather.


Robert Gibson Jr.

Shy Days Come Away

*I was browsing through the R&B/Soul section in Walmart, and the album covers of two CDs struck me: Sade's Love Deluxe and Norah Jones' Come Away With Me. Something in me wanted to buy both of them, but only one was in my budget. I chose Norah only because the album was printed on recycled materials and because it was cheaper than Sade's. But to honor both artists, I wrote down the tracklistings of both on the inside of a envelop I found at the Photo Center. The next day, I looked at what I had and composed it into a neat little poem. I reccomend you to listen to both CDs because these musicians have amazing voices that could make anyone's heart melt.

" Shy Days Come Away"


This love


deluxe is nothing ordinary:

I feel no pain because I couldn’t love you more.

Like a tattoo, I wear your kiss of life permanent on my lips.

I cherish the day your pearls of thought penetrated my bulletproof soul.

Like a mermaid, I don’t know why I drowned under seas of sorrow

for seven years straight. You got my cold cold heart feelin’ the same way.

I appreciate you, so come away with me. Let’s lay in cerulean meadows,

shoot the moon and keep missing. Turn me on, light up this lonestar.

I’ve got to see you again wearing your skin. You are this painter’s song.

We are only one flight down from heaven. Let’s fly, my nightingale;

the long day is over. The nearness of you

frees me.


Robert Gibson Jr.

"Forecast: Unseasonably cold."

You, you are the gargoyle engraved
six feet into the Cathedral's skin;
fixed, overlooking the scenery of Monroe park.
Fools are rushin' rushin' around;
the weather weathers them down,
you sit silent and watch.

Their umbrellas dance to the sound of raindrops dying.

A midday sun escapes from its cloudy cage
and every shadow holds its breath.
Petals bow and a stalks sway;
the wind knows no death.

Ancient trees wrestle the sky
as hardened humans heave heavy souls;
too enslaved to chisel down their lives
they fight over fool's gold.

Their umbrellas die to the sight of raindrops hiding.
Still, you are not Sunnyside up:

If only they would rotate their free wills well
and dispatch into life, leading.
If only you could escape that stifling shell
and hatch into a heavenly being.

But indulgence is a discontinued sale; they never will, you never will.

You, the monstrous yet marvelous, grudgingly gaze
as their eyes, now swallowed by sunshades,
skim over the beauty of this scripted day,
ignore the position of each actor onstage
and forget that life is but a play inside the Playwright's Play.

Even so, you know the sparrow
will sing its redemption song
as bones descend at dusk.
Spirits will ascend at dawn
as humans keep building up.

Their buildings may fall
as the earth absorbs it all.
Yet your building will fall
as the earth absorbs it all.