Omowole Jesse Alexander

ain't nothing but a bucket full of light

(for bell hooks)

what if you were infinity
&
your head was nothing 
but a deep blue bucket brimming with light?

Suddenly you nod
& winking at me
your stars spill out
all over the
indigo kitchen table between we
(they sing, twittering like steel jacks as they fall).

And what if this is really all there is:
you
me
the kitchen table
your loose stars forever spilling
onto the floor
through the walls
up to the ceiling 
until there are no walls
no ceiling
no floor
no table
only this breathless infinity between we?

You're Lucky We Brought You Over As Slaves

(a blackjack poem for “Karen”)

“You're lucky we brought you over
as slaves,” the official said 
“or we would deport you too.”

“We’ve done so much for you, you
should be more thankful and kind
and at least less demanding

of us, who, though greater, saved
you from your primitive selves,
saved you from your animist 

natures. If we hadn’t turned 
you into slaves, you’d still be 
running around dark and lost.”

The stanzas of this poem are in the blackjack form invented by Maritza “Mariposa” Rivera, poet’s poet, US Army Veteran, Puerto Rican, grandmother. Each line has seven syllables, each stanza consists of 3 lines yielding 21 syllables: Blackjack!

Omowole Jesse Alexander is a son of Maude Anna, Griot, visionary artist, poet, muse, teacher, Knowledge Keeper, Ancestor, member of ZΦB Sorority, and Jesse, patriarch, leader, organizer, Raceman, Lt. US Army Retired. He lives on land stolen from the Piscataway in Maryland.

Omowole Jesse is a “poète engagé”, an Apprentice Griot, a Perpetual Abecedarian, an ol' Bell Head, a wireless systems Engineer, a Hacker, a window through which The "I Am" Shines, knowmad, a Ham Radio Operator, a Nerd, a Blerd, a member of ΑΦΑ incorporated, and a Free-Range librarian.

He has recently published a collection of poems, entitled “the light box: prayers, spirituals, poems. His poetry has won second place in the First Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) Zero Hunger 2018 Contest and placed as a finalist in the 1999 Paterson Literary Review’s Allen Ginsberg Poetry Contest. He has been featured in Grace Cavalieri’s The Poet and the Poem 2020-21 Series, Words out Loud, Evil Grin, the Davies Memorial Unitarian Universalist Church’s Annual Poetry Service, The Knitting Factory, Groove Drops, and the Sumei Multidisciplinary Center. His work has appeared in Remembering Amiri Baraka, Free Black Space, Obsidian, Sojourners Magazine, The Drumming Between Us, and Drumvoices Revue.