{"id":3097,"date":"2014-10-27T11:09:42","date_gmt":"2014-10-27T11:09:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/?p=3097"},"modified":"2015-04-01T13:26:39","modified_gmt":"2015-04-01T13:26:39","slug":"ode-to-the-good-black-boots-that-served-my-soul-so-well-poem-by-aberjhani-poet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/ode-to-the-good-black-boots-that-served-my-soul-so-well-poem-by-aberjhani-poet\/","title":{"rendered":"Ode to the Good Black Boots that Served My Soul So Well. Poem by Aberjhani Poet."},"content":{"rendered":"

 
\n 
\n 
\nMy tears were never mentioned.
\nNor were my hungers, fears, courage, or rage
\nas that epic snort announced
\nthe lightning-shaped desire of the bull
\nwho transformed a cow pink as clouds
\ninto the mother of you, the one whose skin
\nfor two decades would leather around my feet
\nlike \u201cAmens\u201d safeguarding a drunken prophet\u2019s song.
\n 
\nBoots: like twin sentries who never once fell asleep.<\/em>
\n 
\nYou munched dopily on grass the same wondrous
\nemerald as the eyes of fairies tending every blade,
\npeering sometimes down tunnels of dreams
\nat your future existence in corners of my broken world,
\nsensing yours was a destiny chained to one
\nmadman\u2019s lifelong march against chaos\u2019s tyranny.
\nYour loyalty locked around my trembling ankles
\nlike enigma stamping shadows on Mona Lisa\u2019s smile.
\n 
\nBoots like the woman whose brilliance lit my soul.<\/em>
\n 
\nHow you bore without complaint the funk
\nand unkind humidity of my rallying cries storming
\nthe castles of caviar dictators decked out
\nin the skins of your brothers and uncles,
\ngurgling the milk of your sister\u2019s mooey virtue,
\nhow you jailed your tongue to indulge my screams,
\nsacrificed the length of your spine to the tons
\nof despair and joy that flooded my days.
\n 
\nBoots like my cousins pissing red steam in Syria.
\nBoots like my heart howling daggers in Missouri.
\nBoots like my daughter tattooed with grief in Nigeria.
\nBoots like my lover eating bullets in Ukraine.<\/em>
\n 
\nOn buses from Atlanta and Chicago to Washington D.C.,
\non planes from Capetown and Cairo to Oslo,
\non camels and horses from Peru and the Sahara
\nto just outside heaven\u2019s jukebox back door\u2013\u2013
\nyou paid for tickets inked with blood and gold,
\nyour proud sheen cracking and brilliant heels breaking
\nbut never doubting (when I so often did) if
\nthe weight of my demeanor deserved such honor.
\n 
\nBoots like sighs and moans crushed into a naked hot heap.<\/em>
\n 
\nO\u2019 good black boots that tap-danced genius and soul
\ninside the babel-tower myths of a house painted white,
\nthat ushered tears out of poppy-bright fields
\nin Afghanistan and the oil-burned sands of Iraq,
\nboots with bones marched thin by rumors of hope in Tacloban,
\nboots so good, so noble, so worthy of rest,
\nhow well you wear that legendary shine of bronze
\njust the way grace, and battlefields, always intended.
\n 
\nby Aberjhani (from New & Selected Poems)
\nDec 23, 2012\u2013Sept 8, 2014
\n 
\n\"Author_Poet_Aberjhani_2_dark_rainbow_profile_bio_art_by_PosteredPoetics\"<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nThe American-born author Aberjhani is a widely-published historian, poet, essayist, fiction writer, journalist, and editor. He is a member of PEN International\u2019s PEN American Center and the Academy of American Poets as well as the founder of Creative Thinkers International. He launched the 100th Anniversary of the Harlem Renaissance Initiative in 2011 and during the same period introduced netizens to concept of guerrilla decontextualization via a series of essays and website of the same name.
\n 
\nHe has authored a dozen books in diverse genres and edited (or sometimes co-edited) the same number. His published works include the Choice Academic Title Award-winning Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance<\/em>, the social media-inspired Journey through the Power of the Rainbow<\/em>: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry, the modern classic ELEMENTAL The Power of Illuminated Love <\/em>(a collection of ekphrastic verse featuring art by Luther E. Vann), and the frequently-quoted poetry collection, The River of Winged Dreams.
\n 
\nAmong his works as an editor are the Savannah Literary Journal <\/em>(1994-2001), plus the Civil War Savannah Book Series <\/em>titles: \u201cSavannah: Immortal City\u201d (2011), and \u201cSavannah: Brokers, Bankers, and Bay Lane-Inside the Slave Trade\u201d (2012). In 2014, Aberjhani was among a limited number of authors invited to publish blogs on LinkedIn. You can learn more about the author at Creative Thinkers International, on Facebook, Twitter, or his personal author website at http:\/\/www.author-poet-aberjhani.info\/ <\/a>
\n<\/strong>
\neditor@artvilla.com<\/a>
\nrobin@artvilla.com<\/a>
\n 
\n<\/strong>www.facebook.com\/PoetryLifeTimes<\/a>
\nwww.facebook.com\/Artvilla.com<\/a>
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

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      My tears were never mentioned. Nor were my hungers, fears, courage, or rage as that epic snort announced the lightning-shaped desire of the bull who transformed a cow pink as clouds into the mother of you, the one whose skin for two decades would leather around my feet like \u201cAmens\u201d safeguarding a … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2940,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,43],"tags":[18,136,3],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3097"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3097"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3951,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3097\/revisions\/3951"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}