Voices and Soul



27 April 2010

by Justice Putnam, Black Kos Tuesday's Chile, Poetry Contributor


Of all the poems since the late 70's by Nikki Giovanni, "Nikki-Rosa" is probably the most anthologized, critiqued, essayed and deconstructed in her oeuvre. Not much more can be written than what has already been written about the poem's intense voice in advocacy of personal and cultural identity; its chronicle of familial connection over the generations; and the poem's embrace of essential, common truths. Better to let Nikki Giovanni tell it. Better to let her tell of those days when she was known as...

Nikki-Rosa

childhood remembrances are always a drag
if you're Black
you always remember things like living in Woodlawn
with no inside toilet
and if you become famous or something
they never talk about how happy you were to have your mother
all to yourself
and how good the water felt when you got your bath from one of those
big tubs that folk in chicago barbecue in
and somehow when you talk about home
it never gets across how much you
understand their feelings
as the whole family attended meetings about Hollydale
and even though you remember
your biographers never understand
your father's pain as he sells his stock
and another dream goes
and though you're poor it isn't poverty that
concerns you
and though they fought a lot
it isn't your father's drinking that makes any difference
but only that everybody is together and you
and your sister have happy birthdays and very good christmasses
and I really hope no white person ever has cause to write about me
because they never understand Black love is Black wealth and they'll
probably talk about my hard childhood and never understand that
all the while I was quite happy

-- Nikki Giovanni

(Farm Road and Running Fence, Olema, California / copyright Justice Putnam)

Voices and Soul



20 April 2010

By Justice Putnam
Black Kos, Tuesday's Chile Poetry Contributor




The Song which is America is harmonized by many diverse voices. Some of those voices sing America from an unbridled joy deep within them; while others sing America from the constant anguish brought by generation after generation suffering under the manacle and the lash; a sad refrain sung from that inner pain brought from the loss of ancestry and Home. The melodies of both interweave and play a coda on the landscape and the Soul of America.

It is on that landscape that the first faint strains of the Song that is America became the forceful tacet on an American Exceptionalism; a certainty of purpose and an almost religious devotion to save those not touched by our benevolence. It is the chorus singing that they must be saved and it's for their own good. As when...

A Missionary Brings a Young Native to America

All day she heard the mad stampede of feet
Push by her in a thick unbroken haste.
A thousand unknown terrors of the street
Caught at her timid heart, and she could taste
The city of grit upon her tongue. She felt
A steel-spiked wave of brick and light submerge
Her mind in cold immensity. A belt
Of alien tenets choked the songs that surged
Within her when alone each night she knelt
At prayer. And as the moon grew large and white
Above the roof, afraid that she would scream
Aloud her young abandon to the night,
She mumbled Latin litanies and dream
Unholy dreams while waiting for the light.

-- Helene Johnson

Poetry Month: "Woman as Muse, Man as Dog"

She is neither pink nor pale,
And she never will be all mine;
She learned her hands in a fairy-tale,
And her mouth on a valentine.

She has more hair than she needs;
In the sun `tis a woe to me!
And her voice is a string of coloured beads,
Or steps leading into the sea.

She loves me all that she can,
And her ways to my ways resign;
But she was not made for any man,
And she never will be all mine.

-- Edna St Vincent Millay
"Witch-Wife"

The last time I saw richard was detroit in '68,
And he told me all romantics meet the same fate someday
Cynical and drunk and boring someone in some dark cafe
You laugh, he said you think you're immune, go look at your eyes
Theyre full of moon
You like roses and kisses and pretty men to tell you
All those pretty lies, pretty lies
When you gonna realise they're only pretty lies
Only pretty lies, just pretty lies

He put a quarter in the wurlitzer, and he pushed
Three buttons and the thing began to whirr
And a bar maid came by in fishnet stockings and a bow tie
And she said drink up now its gettin' on time to close.
Richard, you haven't really changed, I said
It's just that now you're romanticizing some pain that's in your head
You got tombs in your eyes, but the songs
You punched are dreaming
Listen, they sing of love so sweet, love so sweet
When you gonna get yourself back on your feet?
Oh and love can be so sweet, love so sweet

Richard got married to a figure skater
And he bought her a dishwasher and a coffee percolator
And he drinks at home now most nights with the tv on
And all the house lights left up bright
I'm gonna blow this damn candle out
I don't want nobody comin' over to my table
I got nothing to talk to anybody about
All good dreamers pass this way some day
Hidin' behind bottles in dark cafes
Dark cafes
Only a dark cocoon before I get my gorgeous wings
And fly away
Only a phase, these dark cafe days

-- Joni Mitchell
"The Last Time I Saw Richard"

The Lone Dog

by

Justice Putnam


It is said
That if you
Throw a rock
Into a pack of dogs

The one that is hit
Barks the loudest.

But I have to tell you
I am a loud dog

But not of the Pack

I am the individual
Surviving
By my wits
By my ability

To adapt to
The situation and
Accept that the
Given

May not be enough

I don't act out of impulse
I knew the rock
Would be thrown

But my survival
Depends on
My abilities
By my experience
And analytical prowess

Does the Moon
I howl to at night
Have power over me?

I suppose
It pulls at the
Oceans.

Does the
Hunger
I constantly
Feel have
Control?

The answer is obvious.

Is the two-legged animal
With the whip and leash
God?

No

God
Is much
More mysterious
Much more Powerful

Much more the
Provider
Much more the

Taking Away

God does
Speak to me

Yes
God speaks
To a loud
Lone dog

God doesn't
Speak through the
Pack

But to me
Personally

You could say
I have a
Personal
Conversation with

God

But not of
Words

God is
Much more
Mysterious
Than that

So I pray alone

For what
God and I have is
Personal.

I figure
It's the same with
Everything that has

Soul.




From: "The God Debate- a dialogue between Tom Paine and the Carthaginians”

© 2002 Justice Putnam
and Mechanisches Strophe-Verlagswesen;
and also appeared on verse 3, "The World is Mine" from the CD Judgement Time
by 50 Tramp Dawg
and World Wreckards Productions

Enough is Enough

by

Justice Putnam


ya ever get tired
of someone whining
that their big ass
had nothing to do
with the hurt?

do ya?

and do ya ever get tired
of someone moaning
that they’ve never
been this hurt and
it’s worse than
all that came before?

do ya?

well
i for one am

i’m tired of it

because
how many times
does the same line

get used
for each perceived

conquest
that flew out the door?

and how can this
special one be more
special than
the previous
special one?

or the one after?

answer me that.

it’s like a guy
i knew in L.A.

he told me once

he always picked up
the intellectual chicks

(his words, mind you)

at the art museum.

he asked if i
wanted to also

well
i begged off

because
if that was
the best it got

i figured
i’d curl up
with an ancient
author instead.

from: “The Nature of Poetics Collapsed Outside My Window”

© 2005 by Justice Putnam
and Mechanisches-Strophe Verlagswesen

In Answer to Fundamentalism




by

Justice Putnam



It is not right
To elevate Her
To the status of
Goddess

Rational man
Would refute it.

A material world
Critical of
Class and place

Would find
That elevation
To be demeaning.

My Heart
Doesn’t beat
In a material world

Though
I be nothing
More than
Flesh and
Bone.

In a sky
Of light

A universe
Of gravity

A galaxy
Among the void
And plasma

And yet some
Would question
Whether another
Would doubt

The Power of
God’s hand?



© 2006 by Justice Putnam
and Mechanisches-Strophe Verlagswesen

The Poet Walks The City At Dawn

by

Justice Putnam



Why cry
When I can
Have the sun

When I
Can walk
To the corner

And turn it.

When every
Face could be
A Home.



© 1980 and 2004 by Justice Putnam
and Mechanisches Strophe-Verlagswesen


Arctic Dream

Words and Music by
Justice Putnam


Come across the desert
Up over the sea
Through the Bering Strait
Where the seas freeze

(Come on, baby
Have an arctic dream
With me.)

Put down the palm fronds
In the Polynese
Tack into a
Northern westerly breeze

(Come on, baby
Have an arctic dream
With me.)

The frozen tundra
Aurora's eerie glow
An igloo house
Where we can go

(Come on, baby
Have an arctic dream
With me.)


© 1980 by Justice Putnam, El Segundo Linea Music and Arch Heights Publishing;
© 2005 by Justice Putnam, Fleur de Sel Musique
and Mechanisches-Strophe Verlagswesen

I'm Way Gone

(words and music
by Justice Putnam)

(bluesy)

I'm sometimes monastic
But I'm not a priest
I just feed the birds
At the towers of ivory

(I'm gone
yeah man
I'm way gone

I am so gone
Yeah man
I'm way gone)

I got a gift
Of roses
The thorns were removed
But that fragrance
Without that pain
Is just not the truth

(I'm gone
yeah man
I'm way gone

I am so gone
Yeah man
I'm way gone)

I kissed a girl from Kyoto
I kissed a girl from France
We all played
Wet at the
Industrial dance

(I'm gone
yeah man
I'm way gone

I am so gone
Yeah man
I'm way gone)

I've slept with some
Older women
Some young ones too
But talk of loving me
Or me loving you and

(I'm gone
yeah man
I'm way gone

I am so gone
Yeah man
I'm way gone)

I got my sin
I got my poetry
I got my transcontinental
Blasphemy

(I'm gone
yeah man
I'm way gone

I am so gone
Yeah man
I'm way gone)

(m/16) Mama sang some Beatnik
Daddy drove real fast
But Grandma
Always took me
To the Early Mass

Mama sang some Beatnik
Daddy drove real fast
But Grandma
Always took me
To the Early Mass

I'm sometimes monastic
But I'm not a priest
I just feed the birds
At the towers of ivory

(I'm gone
yeah man
I'm way gone

I am so gone
Yeah man
I'm way gone)



© 2004 by Justice Putnam
Fleur de Sel Musique
and Mechanisches-Strophe Verlagswesen

She Looks Familiar To Me

Words and Music
by Justice Putnam



I've seen her serve tea
In Hawaii

Pour an oil slow massage
In Denver

Her henna painted foot
On a Moroccan
Mosaic floor.

A walk through
The Tenderloin
In latex

A North Beach
Dance behind glass

A motel neon
Fading on a
Red door.

(The streets of Portland
The booths of Amsterdam

The canopies of tapestry
In Bangalore)

She hides tears
Of memory

With a touch
And a fragile
Invincibility

Yet
She looks
Familiar to me.

(It's not because
Of fantasy
That I see her
In the places
That I go

But something more
Recognizant
As family

A survivor-sadness
And a strength
On the road.)

She hides tears
Of memory

With a touch
And a fragile
Invincibility

Yet
She looks
Familiar to me.



© 2005 Justice Putnam
Fleur du Sel Musique
and Mechanisches Strophe-Verlagswesen

She Leaves The Gypsies
(Howling at the Moon)

words and music by
Justice Putnam


1) My baby's got
Such a sweet disposition
She'll stop traffic
In Paris at noon
She might take
A little Basque vacation

She'll leave the gypsies (m/16)
Howling at the moon.

2) My love is like
Some sweet libation
The kind you drink
At some Left Bank Rue
She'll take you
Way past intoxication

One glance at her (m/16)
And you begin to swoon.

3) My baby's not
Afraid of Tradition
Just watch the seditious
Way that she moves
It's not that
She waits for consummation

She wants love (m/16)
And a whole lot of truth.

My baby's got
Such a sweet disposition
She'll stop traffic
In Paris at noon
She might take
A little Basque vacation

She'll leave the gypsies (m/16)
Howling at the moon.

© 1996 Justice Putnam
Fleur du Sel Musique
and Mechanisches Strophe-Verlagswesen

So Very Late

words and music by
Justice Putnam


Pardon moi
Monsiour
S'il vous plait
Je ne sais pas
Tre bien parle

Pardon moi
Monsiour
S'il vous plait

Je ne suis quand Americain
Je ne se pas
Tre bien parle

The night is cold
The winds blow late
The train pulls loud
The Bells toll late

The roses
Are still blooming
In a broken vase

(And she comes (refrain)(m/8)
To see me
So very late.)

(repeat refrain)(m/8)

Pardon moi
Madame
S'il vous plait
Je ne sais pas
Tre bien parle

Pardon moi
Madame
S'il vous plait

Je ne suis quand Americain
Je ne se pas
Tre bien parle


4) The moon may
Be shining bright
But it is sinking late

The waves are
White thorns
Roaring late

The lights (m/16)
Of the city
Stab the night
So late

(And she comes (refrain)(m/8)
To see me
So very late.)

Pardon moi
Madamoiselle
S'il vous plait
Je ne sais pas
Tre bien parle

Pardon moi
Madamoiselle
S'il vous plait

Je ne suis quand Americain (tacet)
Je ne sais pas
Tre bien parle

Je ne suis quand Americain
Je ne sais pas
Tre bien joue

Je ne suis quand Americain
Je ne sais pas
Tre bien parle


© 1998 Justice Putnam
Fleur du Sel Musique
and Mechanisches Strophe-Verlagswesen

The Disinherited

words and music by
Justice Putnam

In your
Book of dreams
You have so many
Stages of grief
You stay so well hidden
You have the tenure
Of the given

(Go ahead (refrain) (m/8)
Go ahead and be tempted
Go ahead and be tempted
By the love
Of the disinherited)

2) You painted shade of light
On your own chosen
Radiant sphere
A seascape
Behind a landscape
Advocate the darkness
Of your fear

(Go ahead (refrain) (m/8)
Go ahead and be tempted
Go ahead and be tempted
By the love
Of the disinherited) (m/16)

3) What does it represent
You're only just a
Pilgrim in revolt
The chosen
Angel fallen
And there's going
to be a summing up

(Go ahead (refrain) (m/8)
Go ahead and be tempted
Go ahead and be tempted
By the love
Of the disinherited)

(repeat refrain (m/8) to coda)

© 1986 Justice Putnam
Fleur du Sel Musique
and Mechanisches Strophe-Verlagswesen

Josephine

words and music by
Justice Putnam


Josephine
Josephine
I’m pleading
With Josephine

Taking the steps
Down to the sea
Somewhere along
The coast of Normandy

Where the white
Fossil sands
Churned turbulently

Where men rushed
Into battle
And died violently

Whose last
Dying breath
Was to plead with

Josephine
Josephine
I’m pleading
With Josephine

Could be
The grasslands
Of the Sioux

No matter
Which side
They were on
They were all
Thinking of you

Could be in
In the South Pacific
Or the Persian Gulf
An Indonesian jungle
Or an Arctic hut

Could be in a
Manhattan penthouse
Or a cold water den

We’ll all grasp
At that last
Bit of hope
In the end with

Josephine
Josephine
I’m pleading
With Josephine

Josephine
Take me
Home


© 2005 Justice Putnam
Fleur du Sel Musique
and Mechanisches-Strophe Verlagswesen

("Woman on Bicycle, Paris, France" and "Winter Moon and Clouds, Forestville, California" copyright Justice Putnam)


cross posted at Daily Kos

Voices and Soul




13 April 2010

by Justice Putnam
Black Kos, Tuesday's Chile Contributing Poetry Editor


I had a fairly heated discussion with a couple of Bible Belt tourists to San Francisco recently. I work at a small bed and breakfast on Nob Hill and we get visitors from around the world. I usually avoid political or religious discussions among the guests as they mingle in our lobby during afternoon tea and sherry; but I'll offer my opinion, historical and literary expertise when asked. The Bible Belt tourists complained that we "coddle" the poor here in San Francisco and proceeded to recite biblical verse to show the error of such charity. I reminded them that the city was named after St. Francis, after all; and I came from a liturgy that exalted charity.

They didn't know who St. Francis was, but were well acquainted with Leviticus; and shamelessly recited verse from his texts to "prove" the inferiority of gays, blacks and anything Liberal. They were complete "eliminationists" and I wondered why they came to San Francisco; business, apparently. When I attempted to approach the argument from a more secular and less religious stance, I was accused of being part of the, "blame America first crowd." It was like being on Fox News, only in the lobby of a small B&B in San Francisco, California. I'd had enough. It was completely lost on them, but I recited the following Michael S. Harper poem that is a small lesson in...

American History


Those four black girls blown up
in that Alabama church
remind me of five hundred
middle passage blacks,
in a net, under water
in Charleston harbor
so redcoats wouldn't find them.
Can't find what you can't see
can you?


-- Michael S. Harper

Voices and Soul



6 April 2010

by Justice Putnam
Black Kos, Tuesday's Chile Contributing Poetry Editor


The witness of poetry is a powerful force. It not only can describe events, it also can give voice back to those people and things that have been rendered voiceless. Martin Luther King not only fought for civil rights in the U.S., he also fought against war and oppression around the world. He advocated for human rights to the lowest peasant in the most oppressed regions. He encouraged his followers to extend the fight to those so oppressed.

A little more than ten years after Martin Luther King's assassination, Carolyn Forché travelled to El Salvador. The witness of her poetry is never more powerful as when she recounts her conversation with...

The Colonel


What you have heard is true. I was in his house. His wife carried a tray of coffee and sugar. His daughter filed her nails, his son went out for the night. There were daily papers, pet dogs, a pistol on the cushion beside him. The moon swung bare on its black cord over the house. On the television was a cop show. It was in English. Broken bottles were embedded in the walls around the house to scoop the kneecaps from a man's legs or cut his hands to lace. On the windows there were gratings like those in liquor stores. We had dinner, rack of lamb, good wine, a gold bell was on the table for calling the maid. The maid brought green mangoes, salt, a type of bread. I was asked how I enjoyed the country. There was a brief commercial in Spanish. His wife took everything away. There was some talk then of how difficult it had become to govern. The parrot said hello on the terrace. The colonel told it to shut up, and pushed himself from the table. My friend said to me with his eyes: say nothing. The colonel returned with a sack used to bring groceries home. He spilled many human ears on the table. They were like dried peach halves. There is no other way to say this. He took one of them in his hands, shook it in our faces, dropped it into a water glass. It came alive there. I am tired of fooling around he said. As for the rights of anyone, tell your people they can go fuck them-selves. He swept the ears to the floor with his arm and held the last of his wine in the air. Something for your poetry, no? he said. Some of the ears on the floor caught this scrap of his voice. Some of the ears on the floor were pressed to the ground.

May 1978                                                                               

-- Carolyn Forché