Category: Books & Poetry

“Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men. Now, women forget all the…

I cannot sleep tonight stars scream in my eyes the train horn tosses and turns in my bed invisible children stomachs as empty as their dreams whimpering in the rush of night homeless clutching cardboard resumes and coffee cups void of hope fragile voices asking my nightmares for change —Jake St. John

  Life After Murder: Five Men in Search of Redemption by Nancy Mullane (PublicAffairs, $26.99) Will the stain of murder ever be removed from the soul of the perpetrator? There are many people in our society who are responsible for the death of another human being, and never face a judge or experience the confinement of a…

Martin’s Dream: My Journey and the Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. by Clayborne Carson. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 304 pages. $27. The intellectual property of Dr. King has been subject to much controversy over the last two decades. The discovery of his apparent plagiarism in his dissertation and other academic writing shocked the public,…

“Darling I miss you so much. In fact, much to much for my own good. I never realized that you were such an intimate part of my life”, writes a young graduate student, Martin Luther King, Jr. to his love interest, Coretta Scott. They are separated for a few months because King had gone home…

I cannot shut my eyes without seeing A parade of black and white passport photos, Monochrome faces of men who look uniformly old, Gaunt and unblinking in the sight of the camera man, Leaning on each other, having just dug their communal grave.   Women, segregated, sunken-cheeked, unknown Outside the boundaries of memory, eyes unflinching……

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander (New Press, $19.95) Michelle Alexander shines a light on the underbelly of the criminal justice system in her book The New Jim Crow (2012). She is bringing to our attention the fact that there is now, as there has been for…

Change My Breath The sardines Sliding in oil A dash of mustard A delicious hot dollop My tongue Ravished By horseradish. It dances Like a flapper Across my teeth. Now change My breath My love Before we kiss Sometimes I think All things so sweet Will inevitably stink. The Suburbs 1962 Mom a gurgling scream…

Common Cathedral It’s too cold for a Sunday in spring, I have been waiting for warmth so much, but I am here on the Boston Common, and have come to pray, praise, and sing with homeless people of faith, now scattered around a dry fountain. I wonder if I can play my guitar with cold…