My New Black Magazine - NYU Black Renaissance Noire BRN-FALL-206 ISSUE RELEASE | Page 113

By
EKERE
TALLIE

Paper Bag Poems

“These poets use being black to write about
larger subjects.” Charles Rowell
Fulla field hollers,
rifles, unrefined
liquor,
my poems can’t pass
paper bag tests.
Blueprints for surviving
architecture of grief.
There is nothing larger
than the night sky
of our blood.
Broken bones of teardrops,
three generations of raw
throated women.

112

Fists rising from these pages.

Sovereign
(for Gil Scott Heron)
1.
Fraying silk of voice
a flag flying over broken
hoping territory of us.
2.
Why couldn’t he
greet tomorrow? Rest
in the home of our eyes?
3.
What pain settled,
occupied the land
of his vast heart?
Who colonized
his joy?
How did he
battle to keep
his t ongue?