Neowise Comet Crosses Bridge

Honoring the Memory of John Lewis - Neowise Comet Crosses Bridge

(painting by Catherine A. Moore) We chased the comet, Descending like a teardrop It’s journey slashing polluted Onyx sky. And then the news John Lewis gone now John Lewis gone now. His Trail blaze righteously cutting Redemption way, dim, descending To rest with heroes under The earth, where they nurture Us in the night. The comet speaks And i see […]

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Beautiful Bird

Beautiful Bird by Greg Powell for Jonathan

(for my son, Jonathan, on his 15th birthday) pretty bird pecks orange beak on window. he’s made home in habitat, freedom of outside bushes. but he pecks against glass, collides with window over and over trying to break in. you open the window, invite bird to peck through screen/ break into little room. fear drives little bird away only to […]

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Kemet

Kemet of Ancient Egypt by Greg Powell

clouds float in flames as sun drops. rays beam through west window holding my face. caress skin blackened by healing Ra heat of home. i have made pilgrimage to holy lands, where spirits whispered and whispers in sun rays and smooth breeze slipping in open space. goddess speaks wisdom of earth and sky. commandments sung in tongues of communal drums. […]

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Strangely Beautiful This Day

Strangely Beautiful This Day poem by Greg Powell

Strangely beautiful this day As smoker smoke marinades me And roast fragrances blanket yards Of neighbors hunkered down, invisible, Hiding from microbe angel of distress. Spring snow fell through the night, White cottony residue receding into Brown speckled lawn. Melting Away. Reminds me nature works Just like this. Microbial regimes, Nations, dinosaurs and mammoths , Melting away. Leaving only pottery […]

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Viral Saboteur

Viral Saboteur a poem by Greg Powell

Can’t go in parlor they bring pizza to the car Can’t go to the gym can’t drink at the bar cancelled Sun Ra show and the health seminar The new prophylactic is the screen webinar We all the victims of the viral saboteur No space for hater racists And lost folk in hater stasis Now we in pandemic scenario Death […]

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Prelude to a Revolutionary Kiss

Greg Powell hosts the Culture Cafe and reads a poem

(Read for the Culture Cafe of New Faith Baptist Church, Int’l) Closing the distance bridging humanity Break through vanity that seeds insanity I bring the inner me blessed of the trinity Word beat love sparks creativity Closing the distance to root soul civility Trying to be hueman and evolve the new man Lyricist of common sense the essence no pretense […]

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Psalm of Uplift

Greg Powell's Psalm of Uplift a poem dedicated to women

Lift handbag of regretful weight From sturdy shoulders Beloved, Shuddering in dance of tears Beneath strength profile. You got Enough weight to negotiate, Enough faith in your feet to press Against headwinds and jagged road, Migration through daily wilderness To your dreams. Ease into now Where peace and power reside. Within you is the fruit bearing seed Of your regrets. […]

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Fists, Bullets and Blood

Fists Bullets and Blood, a poem of uplift to my brothers by Greg Powell

Brother, I know rage like lava In dormant volcano pressed down By four centuries of stone stresses To explosions only we can feel, and Women we love and children we seed And community we embody, scarred by misdirected fists and bullets and blood. I say to you dying is a waste of life Rage inchoate is a waste of love […]

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Meditation on Being Hueman (for Kobe)

A Meditation on Being Hueman for Kobe by Greg Powell

(for Kobe) The truth is we all walk through the valley of the shadow of death. And we all have opportunities to experience mountaintops. We have more in common than what we allow to separate us. The hoarders of wealth and power make great effort to distract and scare us away from this simple reality. We want to live in […]

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Fragments of a Dream

Banner for Poem by Greg Powell - Fragments of a Dream

For Martin Luther King, Jr. Jagged edges. Broken echoes. dream shards of holy war assault senses in fitful sleep. Chaotic visions run arpeggios down passage streams of days. I remember Martin, strident prophesying song weathered dim and distant in nebulous rust of years. Dream fragments resuscitate voices/ broken echoes from mausoleums of long time gone. they rise, singing songs of […]

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