Smoke Still Rises...Poetry

On the corner where they place flowers for the dead

A ghetto garden
of innocence no to be forgotten
below the painted memories of eternity



The street lights punctuate the venom of snakes
in concrete grass
sneaking silence onto the tongues of onlookers



A shirt prances to a tune

“STOP SNITCHING”

And the smell seeps into the cracked life lines of the city



The smoke still rises…



Their eyes watch G-d
in astonishing disbelief



Perhaps lil’ Tyrell is holding winged horsemen at bay
for tomorrow in the ICU

Mama is repeating
somber concertos

A soundtrack to dreadful imaginatory fouter



“What If?”

Batted breath leaks slow from hollowed lungs
in and out

Of traumatic displays for funeral brochures



The smoke still rises…



The killers are always near

Where stuffed animals gather
to the sound of wailing sirens frequently daily

Those missed opportunities to tell LaShonda
…childhood is not a sentence to evade,
but they put and end to you

Period…
That precedes a muffled phrase
“STOP SNITCHING”



As the smoke still rises…



Distraught wrecks the haunted halls of an old Baptist Church



As the smoke still rises…

Daddy can’t be father
to baby gone too soon

… As the smoke still rises

A bullet whispered a bloody lullaby to an infant in slumber

Straight through the window/

Next to the Bodega/ on the corner
where the smoke is still rising



There are candle light visuals
for the incumbent souls

Reversed entrapment
made involuntary



Handed a nail for the coffin

… And the smoke still rising



The mournful bellows can’t bring them back

Can’t pull the images from the bricked walls
of the Bodegas on the corners…

Can’t pull blood from stone



As the smoke still rises



There’s a shirt humming

“STOP SNITCHING”

Outside the procession of tears?

Momma will miss you



The promises of love
beyond six feet of Earthy separation

And the kiss that kills you in parting

…the smoke is still rising…

And you can smell it walking

Down the hospital halls/ past the Church pews

It rocks the cradle

….and the smoke is still rising

To the street lights that burn tragedy in effigy



Near the corner

While it walks down the hospital halls

…and the smoke still rising

Past the Church pews

…and the smoke still rising

It’s rocking the cradle

…and the smoke still rising

Daddy can’t be father
to babies gone too soon

…and the smoke still rising



STOP SNITCHING?!



Momma will miss you

And the smoke
is still rising