Black in America like Anfernee Hardaway

This month CNN is airing a special called "Black in America." As much as I admire their intrepid journalism I wonder why the lens selectively devotes a month to "Black in America" to the exclusion of "Jewish in America" or "Gay in America" or "Latino in America" or "Native American in America"?? Are not the colors of our illustrious tapestry supposedly blurring?

One of the things that I personally have always found most interesting and paradoxical about the perception of blacks in America is the way some of the most racially bigoted whites I've ever known will turn a blind eye to color when it is time to idolize blacks as heroes of sport. THAT alone is their virtue; THAT is their saving grace.

I wrote a poem awhile back that sort of sums this up:

Anfernee Hardaway
Ole, ole; ole, ole
It’s getting late; I’m done for today
Anfernee Hardaway

No time left to myself today
Anfernee Hardaway
There’s a way that’s right today
Anfernee Hardaway

Anfernee Hardaway
Love the way that Negro play
Up and down and fast then slow
Anfernee Hardaway


Clarification of lyric:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLuRKDmNem0

As Katrina Fades

At home in New Orleans
The sound of the river
As it rushed through the levees
Was a tonic at the end
Of the workday

After the disaster
This river like all rivers
Is a nightmare that rushes
Unwanted through the brain
In the dead of night

And the dawn like all dawns
Since the day of awakening
Is a call to avenge
The ennui we feel
Across Lake Pontchartrain

Still Life Map

The map has not changed
Since Man stomped his way
Through the garden

Governments vie
Soldiers die
For these fine lines

But the map has not changed
Since Man stomped his way
Through the garden

Oceans of blue
Mountains and fields
All around you

Colombia

They were surrounded by guns
And sleeping in chains
In a land full of savages
Where violence reigns
With welts on their necks
And ticks in their feet
Nightmares and terrors,
Cauldron of heat
Concealing their faith
Where faith is destroyed
Thinking only of home
And not of the void
In the light of the dawn
They saw a rainbow appear
In the blackest of wilderness
Love conquers fear

The Wind

The wind has a secret
It carries within
All the cities and towns
Where it watches

The wind takes my dreams
To the palatine hills
And like pollen they spread
Through the flowers

The wind moves the waters
At dawn in the ocean
And wakes all the waves
With its rhythm

The wind is still willing
To whisper to strangers
The secret that waits
High in heaven