REMEMBRANCE OF HOME

Before it was idealized as 'the 'hood' or given ignominious glory as 'the ghetto' we were born and lived there ... without the hope of ever leaving it behind ...

I heard a bottle shatter, erupting

Against an urban peace as fragile as its glass,
and now, as broken.

 

A voice,

'You dirty black bastid,' was heard to say,
being now tested against the loud,

profane, lye-covered, pissiness
of HOME.

A bird, a gull, hopping on one foot,
and sporting frayed and sooty feathers,
snatched a crab from a crack
in the slum concrete,

and carried it HOME,

 

Somewhere in Harlem, 1954
orange Popsicle juice trickled down

my BROOKLYN DODGERS T-shirt,
onto my sun-scorched dungarees.

I was three and at HOME.

 

Reviews

[Dutch Jr.]

Your great imagery puts me in the moment of this piece, and I always love reading your writing, because it's more my speed. Things I can relate to. You're exactly right, before the ghetto became a place to shoot music videos, or a place for the industry of materialism to exploit and glorify for the sake of the dollar, it was a place were ACTUAL people lived their lives.

[Jake Kokoris]

You expressed nostalgia without glamorization. It's cool and leisurely pace added aspects to the poem that you didn't have to write. Well done

[Everett DeValle]

Raw and vivid...it kind of reminded me of time growing up in a similar place, and had me in thoughts of those times...nicely done.

[Kasey Jones]

I love the images that this poem brings to mind. Nice rhythm, too. The first stanza is great.