Reuben in Palestine 3/24/2024
We sit in the Sunday sun of the Arts Walk,
It is laughter & smiles that bloom between
Sami’s multi-tongued art & Brandon’s emcee prep
Today you tell me that you were supposed to go to Palestine
A writer’s retreat to share your Carolina/DC aesthetics
To discover that the breeze from the Mediterranean
Carry the verses of Baraka and Darwish, Jordan and Tuquan
You say “suppose” like that Black folk supposed to be equal,
Like that disappointment that wakes you up
for several hundred years in a racist nation,
You Reuben, of the economic use of cusswords, say
“it’s a motherfucking shame,” shorthand for amputated babies
rubble as tomb for entire generations of imprisoned poets
their poems tortured and ripped from the land like ancient olive trees,
call it US funded exile if you like, Palestinian refugee blues in your own land
My mother was afraid you say, begged me not to go, knew that if
They'd kill Rachel then they’d kill Reuben, her baby boy.
And so, your cup filled with another regret
We imagined the overflowing journals, nightly talks of poetics
Freedom, Shorter and Bley with writers from the River to the Sea
They would have loved you as I love you as you loved us.
Go now Reuben as spirit, go now to Rafah and Khan Younis, Jabalia,
go to the Westbank, unfettered go now as windblown ashes
to tell the living and the dead, the starving, the tortured and the resistance,
let them hear your words, assure them that freedom will come like
pages of scattered clouds. ___ reuben in palestine 2
long solo, for the children of gaza
alexandria jazzfest “you know, i want to be a force for real good. in other words, i know that there are bad forces, forces put here that bring suffering to others and misery to the world, but i want to be the force which is truly for good.”
- john coltrane
you have been gone old poet, long enough for a quarter year
of moon rises and the beckoning of the summer equinox
but it is still with us, the unyielding solo of horror,
it's daily clarion, off the key of humanity
it lures the hungry children of rafah, khan younis
to come to dine only to reduce to them to blood & screams
you were going to gaza, before the latest slaughter
to talk about trane and his solos infused with faith & swing
to tell the children of ellington and weather reports of beauty
but the children are treated to this long solo of dismembered memories
a solo old as the nakba, of zionist cacophony orchestrated by US weapons
you wanted to share our nation’s greatest gifts,
poets and musicians old as armstrong & bolden in congo square.
you wanted to introduce the opening strains of Trane’s Naimi
as a soft bridge over language barriers
why does evil get such a long solo,
the audience begs the band leader stop it,
can they do more than look away from the children
ears torn, heads torn “herod took their little heads”
what kind of nation are we, you asked, days before your death
you who spent a lifetime curating the music for lovers of life
making us understand the great possibilities of craft, word, and song
children of gaza, my friend was coming to share this nation’s classical music,
he was interrupted.
who will interrupt this horrible morbid song from the curators of
hate?
___
6/27/2024
Kenneth Carroll is a native Washingtonian. His writings have appeared in numerous literary journals, national magazines and newspapers. He was a 2021 nominee for the Pushcart Poetry Prize and the 2021 Blood Orange Review winner in fiction. He received a US Humanities Award for his youth literacy work while director of DC WritersCorps. He is former director of the African American Writers Guild and has performed at the Kennedy Center, Nuyorican Café, Library of Congress, universities and cultural institutions around the country. His book of poetry is entitled So What: For The White Dude Who Said This Ain’t Poetry (The Bunny and the Crocodile Press, 1997). His plays have appeared in print and on stage, including in Ishmael Reed’s Konch Magazine and the University of the District of Columbia Playwright Festival. He is the proud father of a daughter and two sons.
(Photo by Derek Baker)