Simple Things/ Lang Kenneth Haynes

             Poems & other Thoughts
Power
Power does not yield to reason. It only yields to power. And this need not translate into confronting brute strength with brute strength with predictable
results. It does require of the person who appears to have less power:  carefully assessing where the power resides; determining potential allies to
enlist if you can find people who will not sell or give away your game plan; analyzing ways to take existing power (wherever it resides) and molding it
to your advantage (kind of Aikido style); and measuring how much you are willing to invest and the extent to which you are able to absorb the
consequences of possible miscalculations. It is a war. Who has your back?

And So It Goes
There is a place inside of you that is large and deep and full, and the more love you spill out into the world, the more you are filled and the
unknowing smiles and laughter are the result of your cup running over with an infinite and incomparable love and trying less hard appears to be the
path to cruise. The wave is large and formidable. It approaches.
There is nowhere to go. No escaping it. Nothing to do but fall into it. The water will be warm. It will enfold and embrace you. It will tell you its
secrets. It will sustain you. You will glide on the froth of waves as they crash on the shore and gently place you in tact, more whole on warm,
crystalline sand. There is nothing to do but fall into the wave. Allow the wind to caress you. Let it to blow the veil from your face and your smile will
become another star for the world to gaze at in wonder on the warm nights of their hearts, minds and imaginations. And so it goes.

Lines from an Unwritten Play
There are no good times or bad times in this place. Just times we laugh and times we cry giving thanks for river views from cells of rooms behind steel
project doors painted green with peep holes that shrink the terror on the other side. Garbage shafts with hellish flames outside the ‘A’ apartments. Tile
floors polished slick with bacon grease, eggshells, beans and rice. Reminders that our lives are not unlike the stuff that feeds the incinerator shaft as
“Pick Up the Pieces” blares from two apartments at the same time with a whisper of a Mongo Santamaria tune three floors above. I smile as though
long fingers reach inside to move my mouth. I drink gin to feel the burn, smoke Kools to see my breath in these not-so-grand canyon-projects of
Jacob Riis, Cabrini Green, Henry Horner and Robert Taylor before they tore them down. Hi-rise experiments in subsistence with storybook names with
gardens and lakes in them when there ain’t no gardens or lakes for miles around.
Hey brother, want to buy a Rolex or some train tokens? I hope I find a job tomorrow. My kid has grown tired of tales of Huey Newton and Kathleen
Cleaver. My black beret crumpled and dusty on the floor next to a book by Frantz Fanon and a broken Gil Scot-Heron record.

It’s Just That I’m Tired
I’m tired of telling you my stories then having you prance away as though you understand, scathed only temporarily by truths that will fade away with
the next review of your stock portfolio handed to you at birth by your great-granddaddy with my grandfather’s tears as the watermark. I’m tired of your
fingers on my sleeve as you tell me how badly you feel for the horrors imposed on my people by your people long before your birth, and I say to keep
your bad feelings to yourself because I have enough of my own. I get nauseous from hearing stories about the black guy you knew who kept his yard
so clean who planted pretty flowers who had such smart children who served in the Army with you who served in the Marines with you who served in
the Air Force with you who served in the Navy with you during some war or other. How brave he was how crisp he kept the crease in his pants how he
should have been an officer how you would have served under him proudly except the officer was you. Must be related to the guy who was such a
good farmer such a good writer such a sentient human being such a peaceful person such a wise person such a caring person such an intelligent
person such a conscientious person such a trustworthy person such a kind person. I am tired of hearing you say that you didn’t know how it was and
your self-flagellations with whips made of feathers. I am tired of hearing about the few instances when you felt out of place in France because you
mispronounced words in the housing projects the day you visited with your sociology class at Beneatha’s parent’s house the Thanksgiving she took
you home and you tasted your first sweet potato pie. Do you expect me to believe that you were unaware that somebody else paid for your privilege?
Did you honestly believe that the collective grimace on faces that resemble mine were due to mass indigestion? Congratulations on your emerging
conscience. Let me know when you are done unraveling and then maybe we can have a conversation. Maybe. Don’t take it personally.
It’s just that I’m tired. I changed my mind. Take it personally. It’s about time you did.

Waking
It is somewhere in the darkness between dreams and dread of waking in the folds of gray sheets once white and crisp. A thought descends like bad
breath or a storm rolling over hills and mountains before coming to rest in the valley of dreams simultaneously terrifying and sweet. Incessant
clanging of alarm clock cymbals, vapid brass hats brought to life by the unwinding of the spring wrapped around his ankles yanking him out of bed to
dangle over the window ledge of the third floor tenement that overlooks the glistening streets after a fleeting, sleazy New York winter rain. A brother
nods below against a yellow Coupe de Ville with twenty tickets in the windshield, three flat tires, one hubcap and a mangy kitten sleeping on a bed
of pearls of broken glass on the dashboard. It is almost time for another shift at the factory. He bends to kiss his daughter’s fat belly between the
Huggies and nightshirt with the picture of Nelson Mandela. The room fills with stars. If miracles such as she can be then others are there for the
dreaming. There is slight movement underneath the sheets in the other corner of the room followed by a hoarse and barely audible “bye baby” before
the snoring resumes. There is rumbling in the street, the yellow Coupe de Ville is moving, the once-nodding brother is driving, the cat jumps into the
passenger seat and sticks her head out the window like a dog and yells, “c’mon or you’ll be late for work.” I guess magic is where you find it.