Sample Poems by Jerry Wemple
Frederick Douglass Learns to Read
My father was born into a hold, called Baltimore.
Being of neither south nor north, but rather west and east,
He ceased to be a man (some say ceased to be), and furthermore
To depend; captured, quantified, thus chained like beast.
My mother was a literate soul, sold on this bargain,
This deal between gods and God, the promise of the serpent
United rather than fallen, that became the legacy of this land.
And when the break came, it lingered, still splitting every fragment.
The land that is mine was built upon those brains and backs,
Its history a paradox, both unified and opposed, distorted.
Less than paper, only words, hints among the artifacts,
Glimpses, shadows of shadows: all that has been reported.
And here am I, a grotesquerie too, leaning back in wonder,
And here I am, a curious curiosity, hoping to not go under.
All I Know
My father is dead. No one
Seems to notice, save me.
I see his picture on the church
Hall wall. A souvenir of a mission
Trip to Kentucky. Imagine him,
With a creek in his own backyard
Teaching those Kentucks about
Plumbing, minor electrical repairs.
I, of course, have no mission.
Unaided all these years, I devise
Plans daily, but they all seem
To falter by noon. That’s generous.
Sometimes they fail before
I get my pants on. Once
I had a dream
About pants. Naturally,
This is a lie. My dreams,
Like yours, are too obvious.
So if I told you about the time
I died and returned to life
You’d say, “Sinner.”
Or when my bicycle flew
Escaping reason, you’d say,
“Atheist.” Or the time when
I knew love was a stream
Flowing to the big river,
You’d reply, “Me, too.”
That’s the way it is.
So my father is still
Dead. Each of us grows
Closer each day. Fragments
Of bitten nails renew
The earth, and rain and sweat
Flow down like mighty waters.
Dutch
And like the master he went about doing good deeds
Denmark Vesey,
They should have called you Dutch.
It was the Dutch who brought your first grandfathers to the tidewater,
Sold an old continent into bondage,
Bound a new continent to four centuries of turmoil.
Dutch, where are you? Can you tell me, was the price right?
Denmark, Sir Vesey:
They should have called you Moses
You set yourself free, through the providence of lottery
And you could have had it then
But God delivered you from slavery
You had to deliver them.
They could have called you Vulcan.
Oh, great fun was had with names:
These black beasts given names
Of the great empire – how many Caesars
Served in the rice swamps of Carolina?
If only they had known,
Sensed the fire within you.
Denmark, Saint Vesey
They should have called you the Christ
Brother to Gabriel,
The one anointed in the wilderness, felled in the wilderness
And you, too, betrayed,
They sentenced you and thirteen and thirty more
To hang from the gallows
But like Christ denied Pilate,
You denied them.
“Are you the one who led this plot?” they asked.
“That’s what you say,” came your reply
Then nothing more was heard
Only this judicial epithet:
It is difficult to imagine
What infatuation could have
Prompted you to attempt
An enterprise
So wild and visionary.
Difficult indeed.
In Later Years
She would wash
Their foreheads with cool cloths
Until the fever subsided.
Pray for them, former
Master and Mistress who once bound her,
To their God
(now also hers). Still later, she mourned
for them at the graveside,
like friends often do.
But on that day, as Mr. Thomas Jefferson, et al,
Gathered in the hall in town,
Proclaimed that all were created equal,
That liberty was endowed by the Creator,
Dinah, negro wench, property of the Honorable
William Logan, wealthy Quaker, provincial councilor
Of Pennsylvania, asked for her freedom.
And she received it.
And being free to choose, she made her choice,
And stayed.
Why, or why not?
This Ibo woman, or Angolan, or Senegalese.
Perhaps she knew, that in liberty,
This, now, was her country too.
Perhaps for that one moment
Free to ply a trade, live here or there,
Read, laugh, rest or labor, free to choose:
In that one moment.