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 *                                            *
 *                   from                     *
 *                                            *
 *             AMERICAN SONNETS               *
 *                                            *
 *                    by                      *
 *                                            *
 *               WANDA COLEMAN                *
 *                                            *
 *                                            *
 **********************************************




                      12.

                      *-- after Robert Duncan*

 my earliest dreams linger/wronged spirits
 who will not rest/dusky crows astride
 the sweetbriar seek to fly the
 orchard's sky. is this the world i loved?
 groves of perfect oranges and streets of stars
 where the sad eyes of my youth
 wander the atomic-age paradise

 tasting

 the blood of a stark and wounded puberty?
 o what years ago? what rapture lost in white
 heat of skin/walls that patina my heart's
 despair? what fear disturbs my quiet
 night's grazing? stampedes my soul?

 o memory. i sweat the eternal weight of graves




                      13.

                                 *-- after Sergio Macias*

 today i'm with you braiding hate into a rainbow
 picking up trash off the cement banks of the Los Angeles river
 human feces litters the corporate dreams downtown
 i already feel my soul's freedom hymns
 *(i am drunk on disturbing things. hopelessness flows
 from the wounds of my negritude. when light reaches me
 i cringe and pray for darkness to return)*
 i navigate through the streets, my compass broken
 smashed by a hunk of stormy history.
 i savor the stench of auto exhaust and unwashed bodies
 sweat stinging the unhappy eyes of my region. the
 illuminati enforcers mapping my deathwalk toward night

 the eagle preens above our bleeding bear




                      16.

                              *--after Huey P. Newton*

 the clairvoyant activist ever ready to
 face the consequences of his/her perceptions must

 subsist on stubborn hope (D. Brutus) for maintenance
 aids dogged determination to construct required change.
 revolutionary homicide/suicide means awareness of
 reality in combination with potential sociocentrism.
 those ill-equiped to struggle against brutal powers risk
 extinction. [to cooperate in the imprisoning of one's own
 people-psyche is reactionary homicide/suicide which will be
 rewarded by ever-watchful scions of the oppressive belief
 system. but to pretend to do so is to trick.] specific
 group resistance of rampant narco/necromania may be
 manifest in periodic eruptions of spontaneous civil
 violence. it is imperative that visionaries see

 war as ultimate service for resolution




                      17.

 i am seized with the desire to end

 my breath in short spurts. shoulder pain
 the world lengthens then contracts
 (in deep water --  my sudden swimming. the surface
 breaks. thoughts leap. the Buick bends
 a corner. an arc of light briefly sweeps the dark walls)
 everywhere there are temples of stone
 and strange chantings -- ashes angels and dolls
 i forget my lover. i want a stranger -- 
 to shiver at the unfamiliar touch of the one
 who has not yet touched me

 a furred spider to entrap my hungers
 in his silk. with virulent toxin
 to numb my throat





* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Copyright (C) 1994 by Wanda Coleman.

These poems are from *AMERICAN SONNETS* by Wanda Coleman,
co-published by Light and Dust Books and Woodland Pattern
Book Center. #13 also appeared previously in *BOMBAY GIN* 
vol. II # 4.

These poems wont be here too long: they now have a new 
address:

http://www.thing.net/~grist/1&d/lcoleman1.htm

that is, the txt at the end will now be an htm, and the 
poem will look much better than it does now. So reset your 
bookmark, notify the webmaster if you're coming from somewhere 
other than Light and Dust, and get ready for the same great 
poems in a more attractive format.

Karl Young,
Light and Dust