By: Robert Lowell
CERTIFICATE NO. 8041.10
Robert Lowell's great poem for the union dead
didn't figure on the reverse of bubblegum cards
we collected and exchanged in the playground
between our school and the graveyard. The history
of the American Civil War, depicted gleefully
with an excess of bayoneting and gore
The women of Atlanta screaming. Their terror
suggesting, this is what freeing the Negro means
The playground still exists
It was where I passed (easily) my cycling proficiency
For riding between cones
and knowing the Highway Code
I was presented with a certificate
Number 8041.10
Meanwhile
in Los Angeles, a black cyclist has just been shot
between fifteen and twenty times by police after
being stopped. If they ever manufacture
the bubblegum cards again, maybe they could start with him
"As in our Bibles, white-faced, predatory,"
Powerful to my gut and elusive to my mind
Oak Grove 1864
there's a gray boy in the oak grove
a blue boy by his side
a cold wind blows thru the shattered trees
where the gray and the blue boy died.
there's a blue boy on a mantle
a father wipes his eyes
a gray boy in a locket
a girl in black just cries.
some things that are buried
never do stay that way
they can live for years and years and years
before they fade away.
there's a gray boy up in heaven
prayers ascend thru bitter rains
and clouds obscure the sky.
blue and gray might be brothers
might be you and me
but the prisoners of those bygone ways
need to be set free.
hearts were stilled, lives unfulfilled
when the gray and the blue boy died.
Malcolm McKinney 2016
Trump dividing, No matter the colors
It's History
We glorify WAR
As Trump will have it
This TIME.
The ultimate insider poet, far from outlawing it.
CERTIFICATE NO. 8041.10
Robert Lowell's great poem for the union dead
didn't figure on the reverse of bubblegum cards
we collected and exchanged in the playground
between our school and the graveyard. The history
of the American Civil War, depicted gleefully
with an excess of bayoneting and gore
The women of Atlanta screaming. Their terror
suggesting, this is what freeing the Negro means
The playground still exists
It was where I passed (easily) my cycling proficiency
For riding between cones
and knowing the Highway Code
I was presented with a certificate
Number 8041.10
Meanwhile
in Los Angeles, a black cyclist has just been shot
between fifteen and twenty times by police after
being stopped. If they ever manufacture
the bubblegum cards again, maybe they could start with him
"As in our Bibles, white-faced, predatory,"
Powerful to my gut and elusive to my mind
Oak Grove 1864
there's a gray boy in the oak grove
a blue boy by his side
a cold wind blows thru the shattered trees
where the gray and the blue boy died.
there's a blue boy on a mantle
a father wipes his eyes
a gray boy in a locket
a girl in black just cries.
some things that are buried
never do stay that way
they can live for years and years and years
before they fade away.
there's a gray boy up in heaven
a blue boy by his side
prayers ascend thru bitter rains
and clouds obscure the sky.
blue and gray might be brothers
might be you and me
but the prisoners of those bygone ways
need to be set free.
there's a gray boy in the oak grove
a blue boy by his side
hearts were stilled, lives unfulfilled
when the gray and the blue boy died.
Malcolm McKinney 2016
Trump dividing, No matter the colors
It's History
We glorify WAR
As Trump will have it
This TIME.
The ultimate insider poet, far from outlawing it.