In our house lived three men with one name, and all three fought or ran.
They lie like stones and dare not shift. Even asleep, everyone hears in prison,
prison made of emerald & pennies
Don’t wear sunglasses in the house, the world says, though they soothe, soothe sight, soothe you.
To live through the days sometimes you moan like deer
no matter what we’ve been taught.
Each time it begins in the same way, it doesn’t begin the same way, each time it begins it’s the same.
Of my house to do what they must,
Or scuttle off ghosts that come.
Who need peace?
We have no word.
Seen God?
Take your God back, though is beautiful, his miracles are inconsistent.
In a landscape drawn from an ocean bed, you can’t drive yourself sane—so angry you are crying.
I take a pill. Miss one, and I’m gone-
I won’t look at it, of course. It’s
in the back, and I will not hang myself.
If I went to jail I’d live rent-free but there is no way to avoid making white people richer-
that feeling. That’s black;
truth be told.
You like to think memory goes far back though-
Look at what the lord has made.
I have contracted. I have eased,
I am sick of writing this poem,
Bore me, unless I get a mountain view.

by. Philip G. Steverson