Artists are always in the forefront of social and political innovation. In a world gone mad with commodification and greed, they are generous and unafraid—inspiring and goading us to have agency in the world. One such artist is Darryl Lorenzo Wellington. SSB is proud to highlight a poem from Darryl’s new book of poetry, Life’s Prisoners, published by Flowstone Press.
Life’s Prisoners won the 2017 Turtle Island Poetry award. According to Turtle Island editor Jared Smith, in an introduction to the collection:
“Life’s Prisoners is a heroic book, a tightly crafted volume of poetry that grabs you by the collar, shouts in your face, disrespects what should be disrespected, and after waking you up, lets you know that all of us are prisoners in cages we have allowed to be constructed around us. The poems move from staccato fragments of the pictures of a young man’s struggles, fear, and rage toward an indifferent world named and shaped by an unknowable elite, to impassioned pieces on what it is to be a man in such a world, to longer lined discussions of past and current history.”
One Man cries I Am I Am
in ecstasy and terror I Am
as the Lord cried
to Moses. Three men
decline to listen
ignoring a sensibility
behind prophesy. A nearby
parking meter winks
metallically on a lightless
street corner. Witnessing
nothing. Glittering
after dark. Stands
like a watch
-tower going senile
totteringly decadent
on duty to collect
poised to pinch
the nickels and dimes
the irrevocable fines
the regular tariffs
blind to the charges of citizenship.
for Eric Garner
I can’t see.
My body like a broken
cigarettecrushed fallow
busted loose
cops pick at me
for a chew
Cops finger me like an idle
Parliament. An off-duty
throwaway smoke
spent then discarded.
Tobacco still smooth –
soothing, breathable,
all smokes considered.
A life still Camel Unfiltered
still usable. Boots
steel-toed and prescriptive
snipe at the edges
of a Marlboro Man –
Light me up.
Throw me down
like a flat-tired
Lucky Strike. Like a sparkle
soon forgotten.
Long time now.
Long time gone. No
news on the horizon –
since ‘fore I was born,
‘fore I struck light
men have been falling
the preachers the politicians
falling man falling
like past-due checks
the preachers the prideful
the banksters the big
pockets the bigger they are
the harder they. Noses
bloodied bones brittle
crackling clattering
like castanets.
Pull me loose
like the least of the
cards in the house –
falling any red card flashes
in royal pinstripes or
scarlet pantaloons, baby,
baby, least don’t say
however frankly I’ve come a long way.
Pall Malls consumed. Tossed.
I can’t breathe. I maybe still burn.
A short life a passable smoke
embering. Less than a matchstick
less, less than a Lucky Strike.
About Darryl Lorenzo Wellington
Darryl Lorenzo Wellington has spent 20 years as a journalist, syndicated columnist, playwright, poet, surrealist, and performance artist. His essays on poverty, economic justice, race relations, African American history, civil rights history, and post-Katrina New Orleans have appeared in The Nation, The Progressive, The Christian Science Monitor, The Atlantic, Dissent, The Crisis (the official magazine of the NAACP), The Guardian, and many more. He has appeared as a guest on the Tavis Smiley Show radio program and is presently a Writing Fellow at the Center for Community Change in Washington, D.C. In the arts–and sometimes in life—he loves playing with fire. He’s an SSB Comrade Truebridge alum and lives in Santa Fe.