Nii ayikwei parkes poems about love
Nii ayikwei parkes poems about love full.
March 2011 WLT
Clouds gather under a blue moon,
like trouble brewing as strange fruit
continues to swing – keeping time –
while Columbia turntables refuse to spin
the song; is vinyl too black, too flash to be
sleeved in white prisons?
Nii ayikwei parkes poems about love
The answer lies
like white gardenia petals on a bruise
too subtle to separate from wind; like
a trumpet caught in the ill wind of a jet’s
prejudice in the company of clouds – a
rumble in a jungle of noise, the forgotten b-
side that holds its breath.
Trouble brewing.
There’s nothing random about rain;
It clears the sky’s throat for the sun’s shrill
voice; the white hanky is for black sweat.
They’ll all laugh when I say it, whisper
as though I’m making whoopee with Communist
ideals.
They’ll laugh like they laughed
when Louis appeared coal-sketched on screen,
years before he lifted the smoke and called
Eisenhower a spade, said let’s call the whole
Soviet thing off, as sweetly as he sang that song
with Ella –– and there’s sil