Between the World and Me

Norman Rockwell

Southern Justice

Between the World and Me

And one morning while in the woods I stumbled suddenly upon the thing,

Stumbled upon it in a grassy clearing guarded by scaly oaks and elms

And the sooty details of the scene rose, thrusting themselves between

the world and me....

There was a design of white bones slumbering forgottenly upon a cushion of ashes.

There was a charred stump of a sapling pointing a blunt finger accusingly at the sky.

There were torn tree limbs, tiny veins of burnt leaves, and a scorched

coil of greasy hemp;

A vacant shoe, an empty tie, a ripped shirt, a lonely hat, and a pair of trousers

stiff with black blood.

And upon the trampled grass were buttons, dead matches, butt-ends of cigars and

cigarettes, peanut shells, a drained gin-flask, and a whore's lipstick;

Scattered traces of tar, restless arrays of feathers, and the lingering smell of gasoline.

And through the morning air the sun poured yellow surprise into the eye sockets

of the stony skull....

And while I stood my mind was frozen within cold pity for the life that was gone.

The ground gripped my feet and my heart was circled by icy walls of fear--

The sun died in the sky; a night wind muttered in the grass and fumbled the leaves in the trees;

the woods poured forth the hungry yelping of hounds;

the darkness screamed with thirsty voices; and the witnesses rose and lived:

The dry bones stirred, rattled, lifted, melting themselves into my bones.

The grey ashes formed flesh firm and black, entering into my flesh.

The gin-flask passed from mouth to mouth, cigars and cigarettes glowed,

the whore smeared lipstick red upon her lips,

And a thousand faces swirled around me, clamoring that my life be burned....

And then they had me, stripped me, battering my teeth into my throat till I swallowed my own blood.

My voice was drowned in the roar of their voices, and my black wet body slipped and rolled in their hands as they bound me to the sapling.

And my skin clung to the bubbling hot tar, falling from me in limp patches.

And the down and quills of the white feathers sank into my raw flesh, and I moaned in my agony.

Then my blood was cooled mercifully, cooled by a baptism of gasoline.

And in a blaze of red I leaped to the sky as pain rose like water, boiling my limbs

Panting, begging I clutched childlike, clutched to the hot sides of death.

Now I am dry bones and my face a stony skull staring in yellow surprise at the sun....

~ Richard Wright ~

Incident

Norman Rockwell

The Problem We All Live With

Incident

Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.

Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue, and called me, "Nigger."

I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That's all that I remember.

~ Countee Cullen ~

Sweet Sweet Suburbia

David Hockney

Lawn Being Sprinkled

Sweet Sweet Suburbia

No matter what the cost,

You'll pay the price,

To live in a place that raises eyebrows,

Especially with friends at the pottery club.

The leisurely housewife arranges flowers,

And makes macramé pot hangers,

Her husband tinkers with the company car,

After tinkering with the company secretary.

Even in their garden they add that little touch.

The rabbit has a quaint, half-timbered, Tudor hutch.

The Pekingese has a cute mink collar, to collar the fleas.

And the birds wear miniature shower caps to use in their sunken bath.

You're so proud of your liking for ethnic food.

Chinese, Italian, French - maybe the odd curry.

But if Mr. Singh moved in next door.

You'd be moving house in a hurry.

~ Eddie Armchair ~