DON’T THREATEN ME WITH LOVE
– I never hurt nobody but myself and that’s nobody’s business but my own.
-Billie Holiday
Pres named you Lady Day, Eleanora,
an improvisational genius
singing of the turbulences of youth,
or what it’s like behind bars, or even
about what a little moonlight can do.
*
April 7, 1915, Philly—
—one of many birthdays for you, Billie—
Clarence was 15 and Sadie 13.
One day Clarence and Sadie threw you out,
pregnant, Sandtown-Winchester at your back.
*
Soon enough, Daddy left with his banjo,
and hit the road with Fletcher Henderson.
Needing to be born again you went south
to the Millers, in-laws in Baltimore;
on the road with no mama, no daddy.
*
You managed to get through kindergarten
but not much further. And one Christmas Eve
when you were only eleven years old—
—imagine a little girl so alone—
you got caught having sex with a grown man.
*
He was sentenced to jail and you were sent
to the Good Shepherd Home for Colored Girls.
Did you dream you’d end up in a brothel,
or if, when you managed to sleep, you’d be
dreaming all was fine, and you a Lady.
*
Pres named you Lady Day, Eleanora,
—one of many birthdays for you, Billie—
Needing to be born again you went south—
—imagine a little girl so alone—
dreaming all was fine, and you a Lady.
A FRACTURED HISTORY OF STRANGE FRUIT
Here is a fruit for the crow to pluck
For the rain to wither, for the wind to suck
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop
Here is a strange and bitter crop.
-from Strange Fruit
-Abel Meeropol, 1937
We killed the spies; no one said “delicate” strange fruit?
I’m sad about the children, exquisite strange fruit.
It was a photo that haunted Abel for days.
Abel Meeropol held by pestilent strange fruit.
Abel graduated in 1921—
Dewitt Clinton in the Bronx—germinate strange fruit.
Other big stars—Burt Lancaster, Neil Simon.
Quite the high school! Ralph Lauren; elegant strange fruit.
The photo was of black men hanging dead from trees.
For this young communist, no room for rank strange fruit.
Abel stayed to teach English at Dewitt Clinton,
but racism slew him; he caught its scent—strange fruit.
Though his brain had turned to iron, he could still write
a poem—do not underestimate strange fruit.
When the poem was done he set it to music;
and a bar owner dug the malignant strange fruit.
The club owner played it for Billie, who loved it;
memories of her Pop’s death, a poignant strange fruit.
He suffered from a fatal lung disease, and died,
the hospital closed to blacks, repellant strange fruit.
Billie disliked performing it; it was too sad,
but she did; racism lives on—rodent strange fruit
The club-goers were made up of mostly white folks
who clapped ‘til their hands hurt, at this pendant strange fruit.
Others hated it and walked out the door on her;
they refused to stand for this repellant strange fruit.
But what a mystical sight—March of ’39.
West 4th’s Cafe Society—silent strange fruit.
Waiters ordered to stop serving, the lights blacked out;
one spotlight on Billie’s face, inspirit strange fruit.
She was just 23 when she stepped to the mic,
Blood on the leaves, blood on the root—pungent strange fruit.
Black body swinging; Southern breeze and bitter crop;
when she was done, her light went out, expunged strange fruit.
Patrons stood in black dark, wondering what happened.
The lights came up; Billie was gone—lucent strange fruit.
SPECIAL SALE AT OCEAN STATE JOB LOT
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
-Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening
-Robert Frost
You can get fire pits; relax before you sleep.
You can get shock; pool cleaning acts before you sleep.
Pavilions, private blend coffee, and pool covers,
tents to set up, and Coleman lamps before you sleep.
Buy bleach for your Covid, inject it and be cured.
Hydroxychloroquine? Check shelves before you sleep.
But a cashier who recites Frost to perfection?
It’s not that you see her teeth, black before you sleep.
It’s not that you see her eyes, off and rather sad.
It’s her reciting of Frost, trance before you sleep.
You’ll find Paula at a register, wild black hair,
eyes a tad off, but Frost she’ll speak before you sleep.
I remember when she said, “Are you a teacher?”
“Yes. Poetry.” Eyes bright, she talked “…before you sleep.”
She said, full of joy, “I love poetry the best!”
She spoke Stopping By The Woods. Dance before you sleep!
Flawlessly, word for word, she said the whole poem.
John, call for a sale! Poems for grabs before you sleep!
IMAGINARY SUNDAY EXCURSION
The sun is always shining, we have oxygen, trees,
birds. There’s so much good things on earth, still.
We haven’t destroyed everything.
` -Ziggy Marley
just beyond that thin cape the lake opens up
the wind is freed
the water becomes choppy
local legend tells us
there are old cars at the bottom
resting rusting in the deepest parts
fish swim in and around
the old junks
imagining starting one
and driving it out of the lake
taking the back roads
to the sea
freedom there would be magnified
ten-thousand fold
they could drive down leagues
mesmerized by forests and mountains
the likes of which
they could never begin to envision
of course if the world in which we lived
were actually as soft as Churchill
has rendered his painting
perhaps the fish wouldn’t crave the open sea
maybe they’d just drive
those old clunkers out of the lake
and speed along the country roads
learning the sweetness of oxygen
and opening up those old jalopies
to see what they could really do
EVERYWHERE IS WAR
That until the philosophy which holds one race superior and
another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and
abandoned: That until there are no longer first-class and
second class citizens of any nation; That until the color
of a man’s skin is of no more significance than the color
of his eyes…
-Haile Selassie
-United Nations General Assembly NYC – -October 4, 1963
“you’re never more alive than when you’re almost dead.”
–Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried
When the first bug of spring
kamikazed into my beard
and the sweat-forest
of yard work and hangover
brought to mind
(curiously)
images of the war.
I plucked the bug out
released it to the warming wind
and smiled at my embarrassment, tantrums, regrets
while just offshore
weapon-erections threatened.
There can’t be much time left
for the soldiers hiding in the shade,
the man and the woman on a blanket in the park,
the infant dazzled by the sound of its rattle.
(There has never been much time.)
I want to scream
the lilies are blooming
there’s a red-winged blackbird on every branch
and you cannot torture me enough to stop me loving you.
Even though most of the bodies are babies
and you’ll have to hose them down,
even though the wars that fume
have always raged,
and even though when we flay each other
it’s always over the same thing,
even in the face of all that,
still the elders come
backpacks strapped on and full of seeds
as resilient as the skunk cabbage
creaking silently up through the hoarfrost,
the dark cold crowd
shoulder to shoulder and not moving,
thick steam rising,
hot mist getting ready to stifle the air
and yet
some of us embrace the futility
emerging in the wetlands.
We exchange exhalations,
fill each other with our personal cosmos
so that when the sky rains metal and poison
some of us will chant what we know
as we burst into flames whose snarl
will sound so much like a hymn
that the last thing to burn
will be our hearts
our joyous singing hearts.
John L. Stanizzi, Author – Ecstasy Among Ghosts, Sleepwalking, Dance Against the Wall, After the Bell, Hallelujah Time!, High Tide – Ebb Tide, Four Bits, Chants, Sundowning, POND, The Tree That Lights the Way Home. Besides Ovunque Siamo, John’s poems are in Prairie Schooner, Cortland Review, American Life in Poetry, and his nonfiction in Impspired,Plainsong, and many others. He was awarded a Fellowship in Creative Non-Fiction, 2021 from the Connecticut Office of the Arts. https://www.johnlstanizzi.com
OVUNQUE SIAMO 