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The blackness of the day
For our youthful protection
Was always kept at bay
Kept away from our front porch
and church pews
We could watch cartoons and Sesame street
But could not watch the
blackness of the day
on the news
conversations at school
where we would secretly come to know
My brother and I
Among the last to be allowed to don an afro
As long as we kept it neat
Safely tucked away at home after school
Allowed to only play safely in front of the house
On our neighborhood street
The blackness of the day
Although forbidden to know at our age
We were always quite aware
Watching them do all the latest dances
At all the family picnics
The blackness of the day
was always there
And in his room amidst secrecy
Transfixed with youthful thirst
I read such beautiful
Blackness of the day
in his poetry
Blackness of the day
prowling through each page I read
Painting such beautiful black portraits
pictures in my head
Psychedelic hues of the
Blackness of the day
Kept in notebooks on his shelf
Immersed in both danger and beauty
I had to secretly keep to myself
Sometimes staring into the mirror at home
To see if I was beginning to grow fangs
And black fur
Blackness of the day
swelling volcanoes in my fingertips
Beginning to stir
And I stopped asking for
Matchbox and Hot Wheel cars
my birthdays along the way
The blackness of the day
he read to me
Inspiring me to seek new ways to play
And so
That is the story about how I got this name
What is written in my birth certificate
I know is not the same
And the times are different this morning
But I still remember when
The blackness of the day
Found its way into my pen
The blackness of the times
Now, a thing of the past
Could not be sustained
Concerted effort for it not to last
No one sells blackness anymore
Berets, velvet posters, black light
No longer found in shelves in the store
But still the
Blackness of the day
prowls in the stillness of the night
Black ink in my pen and keyboard
Sometimes until the morning light
And this is how I came to be
Today’s times
Written in new shades of blackness
Newpanther poetry
