MsJacquiiC

Well GUYS - hmmmm. - I tried a bit of revising for this piece I'm not quite sure what you'll think about it - but please: ALL CRITIQUES welcome. The piece has a bit of a different "shape" to it - I'm not quite sure what to think of it myself LOL - but anyway - here 'tis:


Where Is The Joy?

Seven fields of golden-hewn wheat
graces the shoulder of this one dirt street
in Jackson, Tennessee. Seven sewn fields
laden heavily with buckwheat,
sitting just Heavenly above the rocky turmoil
of Hell's unredeemed cotton: Those fields...

They yield
a various cacophony straight from the
daybed splendor of earth (a soil
so very soul-rich)

And the labor and the toil
of harvests' birth is blood of the dust:
Unkempt and raggedy cells
holding the bones that were first
laid down to rest splendidly; Like old
Negro slaves
and their chil'ren of plantation daze,
and their Ma'Maw, Great PaPaw and Cousin Sadie...
All of 'em simply longed hard, working
for the zest of joy, of retribution, of restitution
and of life. Attentively they served those foul folks;
The whole while their old Negro smiles
ironically frowned foully with strife.

(They looked upon that ole o’ seer’s beaming face
and his beating-stick of ill-fated hate
with that same-old tired Negro smile, the one
full of knowing spiritual faith.)

Did that ole "mista-massa sir"
give a damn about those two million Nigras
overcoming the slaving-fields till their dying day.
And far beyond that... Those same nigras
(with bleeding hands that still cultivate the U.S. of A)
on death beds splintered of broken down hay.
Could "mista-massa sir" have cared?

Would he have known where is the joy?
Where is the retribution?,
the restitution?,
the life?

Would he now tell?

Copyright © 2006 Jacquii Cooke

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