JOHN ROBERT LEE
Holy Blues
Alvin Ailey’s Revelations
intense extensions along sheltering arms
bent spines, turned knees, high palms
impossible translations of journeys
by pilgrims of sorrow
and their burden of strange fruit
Contortions choreographing
pain beyond the covering tracks
of naked field spirituals
storefront sanctuaries
stubborn marches on Washington
the faith of holy blues and night club jazz.
Dance Hall Queen
Ocean shadows off the horizon
play themselves like archipelagos
or extending continents of forest
fictions of colored globes
imagined spaces without explorers
traders in ivory and bodies —
I am, she says, those myths and metaphors
aboriginal transcendent spirits
in hip-hugging torn jeans
taking all my green lights to swing
over the pedestrian crossing
under their narcotic glaze.
gnostic
“I am old and in the company of shadows” (Dionne Brand)
existential, unutterable hungers
like homeless planets, drifting stars
at interstices of vapour worlds
like black holes of distracted hearts
opening in cosmetic theatres of inter-galactic dioramas
through sinuous mirages above desolate asteroids —
who, who will embrace you
in their orbit, fading comet?
who restless gnostic, persistent
veteran of “calligraphic shapes
of imagination”
will translate the far light of your hybridities?