Poem of the Day: Poem for My Father

[arnold richards]

For Father’s Day 



Having trouble viewing this email? Click here to view it in your browser. Poem for My Father By Quincy Troupe for Quincy T. Trouppe Sr.   father, it was an honor to be there, in the dugout with you, the glory of great black men swinging their lives as bats, at tiny white balls burning in at unbelievable speeds, riding up & in & out a curve breaking down wicked, like a ball falling off a table moving away, snaking down, screwing its stitched magic into chitlin circuit air, its comma seams spinning toward breakdown, dipping, like a hipster bebopping a knee-dip stride, in the charlie parker forties wrist curling, like a swan’s neck behind a slick black back cupping an invisible ball of dreams   & you there, father, regal, as an african, obeah man sculpted out of wood, from a sacred tree, of no name, no place, origin thick branches branching down, into cherokee & someplace else lost way back in africa, the sap running dry crossing from north carolina into georgia, inside grandmother mary’s womb, where your mother had you in the violence of that red soil ink blotter news, gone now, into blood graves of american blues, sponging rococo truth long gone as dinosaurs the agent-oranged landscape of former names absent of african polysyllables, dry husk, consonants there now, in their place, names, flat, as polluted rivers & that guitar string smile always snaking across some virulent, american, redneck’s face scorching, like atomic heat, mushrooming over nagasaki & hiroshima, the fever blistered shadows of it all inked, as etchings, into sizzled concrete but you, there, father, through it all, a yardbird solo riffing on bat & ball glory, breaking down the fabricated myths of white major league legends, of who was better than who beating them at their own crap game, with killer bats, as bud powell swung his silence into beauty of a josh gibson home run, skittering across piano keys of bleachers shattering all manufactured legends up there in lights struck out white knights, on the risky edge of amazement awe, the miraculous truth sluicing through steeped & disguised in the blues confluencing, like the point at the cross when a fastball hides itself up in a slider, curve breaking down & away in a wicked, sly grin curved & posed as an ass-scratching uncle tom, who like old sachel paige delivering his famed hesitation pitch before coming back with a hard, high, fast one, is slicker sliding, & quicker than a professional hitman— the deadliness of it all, the sudden strike like that of the “brown bomber’s” crossing right of sugar ray robinson’s, lightning, cobra bite   & you, there, father, through it all, catching rhythms of chono pozo balls, drumming, like conga beats into your catcher’s mitt hard & fast as “cool papa” bell jumping into bed before the lights went out   of the old, negro baseball league, a promise, you were father, a harbinger, of shock waves, soon come A Note from the Editor Today is Juneteenth and Father's Day. Quincy Troupe, “Poem for my Father (for Quincy T. Trouppe Sr.)” from Avalanche. Copyright © 1996 by Quincy Troupe. Reprinted by permission of Coffee House Press. www.coffeehousepress.org Source: Avalanche ( Coffee House Press, 1996 ) Please note: We strive to preserve the text formatting of poems over email, but certain email clients may distort how character indent, line wraps, and fonts appear. View this poem online More about Quincy Troupe Biography More Poems by this Author Subscribe to Poetry Get Poetry You have received this email because you submitted your email address at www.poetryfoundation.org. You may unsubscribe or change your newsletter subscription preferences at any time. © 2022 Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation 61 W. Superior Street Chicago, IL 60654 USA

[Burton N. Seitler]

Even with my bum ears

and compromised vision,

in all respects, this was 

absolutely perfect pitch.

Thank you, Arnie.

Burt

--
<><><>
To post to this group send to: clios...@googlegroups.com
Clio's Psyche is sponsored by The Psychohistory Forum. For questions visit: cliospsyche.org
Digest is available on request and sends no more than 1 email a day.
Home: http://groups.google.com/group/cliospsyche
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clio’s Psyche" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to cliospsyche...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cliospsyche/351E97EE-F559-409B-BC1D-BA30EF6D1CCC%40gmail.com.

[Arnold Richards]

Thank you 

Sent from my iPhone

On Jun 20, 2022, at 11:06 AM, Burton N. Seitler <binsi...@gmail.com> wrote:



To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cliospsyche/CADrgh9BoHHoxMZZnOpf8Arw9bru5O%3DFtVKtxLkvnUKmQTJHCsg%40mail.gmail.com.