a self taught genius
(for Thornton Dial, Sr.)
“Learning is borrowed knowledge, genius is knowledge innate and quite our own.” (Edward Young, Conjectures on Original Composition)
birds got to have somewhere to roost, no wonder grandpa collected all those truck tires, full of rain water and lizards, pieces of hood from an old Chevrolet, an old green awning, far to the back near his tool shed, had not used it in years, someone said it is dead back there, or maybe it was just a yard show of lead pipes and broken down machines.
Those dry bones of an old transmission gave him admonition to get up early every day, birds got to have somewhere to roost, his legs the color of papaya juice and spider skillets, his head hangs beneath the lid of the car or his mind far into his chemistry.
he could take it all apart and put it back together, be it turbine, or carbine, combine, or main line, it was the hum that I remember, the crankshaft, the smell and whiff of oil beneath his fingernail; he likes to be dirty as much as he likes to get up early
birds got have somewhere to roost, his post was handyman, but you can say a blend
of chemist and artist, novice without education, just a ration of screws and nuts and bolts and chokes and he told me to help, so I would pump the grease, it would release energy, he wanted it done right, so he would be finicky
birds got to have somewhere to roost, he had to band aid those wounds from the war, the tune of the engine gave him peace, until he fixed it there was no release, it is all day and into the night, his station had a pilot light, his supper is cold, he is still there we already know.
.
for Walter Dean Myers
the little ones who stand in line
each morning on their way to school
without rules or warrant or bail
or record standing there waiting
Walter Dean Meyers to the rescue
the predetermined strategies
use only to control, only to remind
remember my face they say
as children with pencil boxes
with rolling libraries in the air
and you left Harlem in flight
to New Jersey and your colorful
sneakers hang over the city
one hundred books to recycle
a pile up on Lenox; with all
the pent up feelings to succeed
because of your voice
the page will read.
and there were only a few
characters of colors in children’s book
look and find, hide and seek
Juba and Maurice Sendak
Silverstein and Caldecott
Coretta Scott rewards your honor
turn to the next page students
in another voice that left us
in only trust.
.
for Josephine Baker
“most sensational woman anyone ever saw” (Ernest Hemingway)
.
Freda with your name change to Josephine
I thought to be captivated, to sensate color
but there you are coming from the hinterlands
of Missouri, the muse of Langston, from the words
of Hemingway; if there is only one god
then there is only one goddess, a mother
and a nurturer, a birther to the rainbow tribe
Freda, our lives lead us from the streets of
poverty, from the backs of tin pans and blues
drunks, monks who will find a way to create
hunk of filth and shit in our way, stay on
the floorboard of a cardboard box, where
the rotten meets the famous, the aimless
midnight, the fight to be heard; to be sane
the name change, the mask of hurt, the turn of
event will not always prevent justice, busting
the walls of the unfair, the charity, the ink
disappears on the music sheets, the feats
between the borders, to horde just because
and nod at the feeling that they did me wrong
so now I have to create the song and long
live the pain without the worldly gain,
long live the name if I can remember, if I can
fashion my own way, regardless of the writing
block, inspiration, the leftovers of the trash
can, and no matter how we say it, receptacle
or spectacle it is still trash, so the last does not
have a choice, but use the voice, use the body as
instrument, the wave of flesh, the best of what
we have, a muse to reuse over and over again
and never given credit, some merit and honor
cleaning out the pool of Dorothy Dandridge
the lost movies of JP Sands, the red dress of
Abbey Lincoln, the beacon of a trailblazer
and I can hear Shirley Bassey sing diamonds
are forever, can hear Ella and Sarah and Ma
Rainey, the music stands of our background
Billie Holiday in the back door, the chore
of living segregation, but when you come back
as muse, to fuse this voice in Tupelo pink
in noire, where language has no barrier,
just character, just longevity, each meter
each stanza in banana, Freda, the lights
are hot, the nights are not for the timid.
be it black pearl, bronze Venus, or creole
goddess, Freda, we all live in costume
with our modern sirens and vaudeville
to fill the vacancy become vagrancy
Freda, there is the final vocal, when know
one will really know, when know one
will really know.
.
BIO: Robert Anthony Gibbons has been published in over thirty literary magazines and in several notable anthologies. Recent publication credits includes; Killens Review, Tribes, Involuntary Magazine, Peregrine, Expound, Promethean, Turtle Island Quarterly, Killer Whale, Suisun Valley Review, Voices of Lefferts and the Bronx Memoir Project: Vol. 2 published by the Bronx Council of the Arts. Robert Anthony Gibbons’s first collection, Close to the Tree, published by Three Rooms Press (2012). His chapbook, Flight, published by Poets Wear Prada (2019), You Almost Home, boy, published by Harlequin Creatures (2019) with Brooklyn based artist, Amy Williams, “Some Little Words” published by 440 Gallery, Brooklyn (2021) His most recent manuscript, Whom the Higher Gods Forgot will be out early 2022.
