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GHOSTS<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\ni have the smile of my great-grandmother seeing the end of slavery<\/span><\/p>\n& you have the hairline of an uncle\/an aunt<\/span><\/p>\nwho never pressed nor otherwise chemically altered their hair<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nonly fools don’t intimately know ghosts,<\/span><\/p>\nthe dna of humanity, leaping like porpoises slick out of the sea<\/span><\/p>\nand back into our walks, our mannerisms, the way we giggle<\/span><\/p>\nwhen nervous, blush when aroused, or spit fire words<\/span><\/p>\nin sputtering ocher anger facing back the cannibalism of capitalism<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nghosts are<\/span><\/p>\njust spirits fluttering angel breaths thru our corpuscles<\/span><\/p>\nthe wing hum of hummingbirds motivating us to sound<\/span><\/p>\nsnatches of remembered songs, lyrics formerly unheard<\/span><\/p>\nin this lifetime, psychicly transmuted across eras,<\/span><\/p>\nmali melodies maintained, aural treasures from our undying befores<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nface east young people, face east<\/span><\/p>\nimagine each line in your hand an ancestor<\/span><\/p>\nhow well do you know the thoroughness of yesterday,<\/span><\/p>\nthe arching influence of the previous century, the retrograde<\/span><\/p>\nof rationality, so slow compared to the velocity<\/span><\/p>\nof history smashing into the protons of personality<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nimagine, your voice is the texture of sun yat sen singing<\/span><\/p>\na freedom song, your social erectness the reincarnate posture<\/span><\/p>\nof sitting bull standing barefoot his clear eyes kissing dark earth,<\/span><\/p>\nimagine, your breath the aroma of emiliano zapata biting the bullet<\/span><\/p>\nof revolution and spitting fire on the butts of robber barons<\/span><\/p>\nand dark-faced overseers who are the psychological sons<\/span><\/p>\nof simon legree in their twisted brutality towards their own people,<\/span><\/p>\nthe defiance of your unsurrendering war stance could be ghana\u2019s<\/span><\/p>\nyaa asantewa hurling up the west coast facing down british bullets<\/span><\/p>\nconfident that the religion of resistance will always outlive<\/span><\/p>\nthe technology of repression, you could be the heroics of history,<\/span><\/p>\na phantasmagoria of sacred strugglers vivifying the surge<\/span><\/p>\nof timeless protoplasm that careens through your veins<\/span><\/p>\nand gives substance to the willfulness of your animated engagement<\/span><\/p>\nand confrontation of the omnivorous enemies of the planet earth<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nghosts are<\/span><\/p>\nsacred illuminations coloring our stratagems and meditations,<\/span><\/p>\nthey are the realization of sanity, the moment we truly understand<\/span><\/p>\njust how wicked the west actually is, the translucent<\/span><\/p>\nlights on the front porches of our spirits beckoning, guiding our<\/span><\/p>\nsoft footsteps on the path, heading back homeward bound<\/span><\/p>\ndancing into the social circle of our collective selves<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nghosts remind us<\/span><\/p>\neach individual is more than one, a communal hope chest<\/span><\/p>\nof ancient dreams actualized in the present<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\ni believe in ghosts, i do<\/span><\/p>\nbecause i would be soulless matter otherwise<\/span><\/p>\ni would be some french rationalist trying to intellectually manufacture<\/span><\/p>\n& market the focus of life as the ego of thought, would be<\/span><\/p>\nsome compassionless corporate ceo with spiritual arthritis<\/span><\/p>\nuninformed by the blessings of sharing, while pretending<\/span><\/p>\nthat material possessions elevate morality as if you are what you own<\/span><\/p>\nrather than are what you do\/be in relation to others and the world<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nghosts<\/span><\/p>\ndo not like vaults and crypts, nor fences and forts<\/span><\/p>\nreal ghosts prefer sensitive personalities and wild open spaces,<\/span><\/p>\nevery time we inhale a leaf shakes,<\/span><\/p>\na tree or a weed offers us breath<\/span><\/p>\ngive thanks to the flowers for our daily inhalations<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\ni am not a mystic<\/span><\/p>\nbut i know there are ghosts<\/span><\/p>\nin the fecund topsoil which progress<\/span><\/p>\ncallously covers with concrete,<\/span><\/p>\ni understand the reality that dust and dirt are airborne bones<\/span><\/p>\npulverized by time into tiny particles<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\na rose by any other name is still the collected essence<\/span><\/p>\nof our forebearers grown through the life cycle into a fragrant state<\/span><\/p>\nof petal soft beauty on a bud whose shape is nature’s re-creation<\/span><\/p>\nof the vaginal portal, whose redness is an honoring<\/span><\/p>\nof feminine life force and the blood value of matriarchy<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nif you do not believe in ghosts<\/span><\/p>\nwhere do you think your spirit will be<\/span><\/p>\nwhen the corporeal temple of your familiar<\/span><\/p>\ncrumbles into seemingly insignificant pebbles of peat, or<\/span><\/p>\nwhen your temporal sanctuary dehydrates<\/span><\/p>\nonce disconnected from the moisturizing of life’s cosmic juice,<\/span><\/p>\nwhen the way station of your flesh altar no longer receives offerings<\/span><\/p>\n& when you revert to what you were before your human being<\/span><\/p>\nwas conceived and made flesh via the union of your parents,<\/span><\/p>\nwon’t you be a ghost then?<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nthere are literally millions of lives in your little finger<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nthe karma of colonialism will not be undone<\/span><\/p>\nnot unless and until the ghosts that reside<\/span><\/p>\nin the hosts of color worldwide can find a culture<\/span><\/p>\nwhich resonates daily contentment,<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nthere will be no end to the wandering search for the promised land<\/span><\/p>\nunless and until ghosts can live<\/span><\/p>\ninside the wholeness of beating hearts synchronized<\/span><\/p>\nin embracement, respecting the healing touch<\/span><\/p>\nof every manifestation of life no matter how small, obscure,<\/span><\/p>\nor ostensibly insignificant,<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nno calming the tempest,<\/span><\/p>\nno mediation of the disruption of our heritage<\/span><\/p>\nnot unless and until ghosts can emigrate<\/span><\/p>\ninto a peace filled community of souls such as we<\/span><\/p>\nought to be, vessels of awareness, responsible in our openness<\/span><\/p>\nto offer wholesome residences for the motion flow<\/span><\/p>\nof history seeking future,<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nthere will always be a wailing issuing out our mouths<\/span><\/p>\nunless and until ghosts can live and<\/span><\/p>\ncomfortably reside, live, and rest inside, rest<\/span><\/p>\nin peace, rest in us<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nghosts<\/span><\/p>\n
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