Sestina
Produced as a free poem by the Great Mohasky Press, Detroit, November 4, 1974

This here’s Detroit,

home of hungering

dreams, home of my empty pockets

and tired worn fingers.

The shadows cast are Babylon’s,

that made scorpion death of my mother.

So many have sacrificed a mother

to become orphans of Detroit

grown cold in the shades of Babylon

that leave us hungering

with no place for our fingers

but our empty pockets.

Nothing in my pockets

is all that’s left of my mother

except tired worn fingers

grown empty by Detroit.

I have nothing but a hungering

dream, to escape these shades of Babylon,

Babylon, Babylon,

empty as my pockets,

black as my hungering

remembering my mother

dead, sacrificed for Detroit,

my home, where tired worn fingers

bled, red, bled blood raw fingers

cold, congealed in the shadow’s Babylon

shadow of Detroit.

I want to leave, to fill my pockets,

remember my mother

and satisfy this hungering

empty hungering

I cannot grasp with my fingers.

I want the memory of my mother

in the light the other side of Babylon,

on the other side of empty pockets,

outside the shadows of Detroit

where my mother’s shadow is Babylon’s

shade, my worn fingers empty pockets

hungering in this my home, Detroit.