JAWANZA DUMISANI

Statue At Sacred Heart Seminary

Part I

(July, 1968)

We yelped like torched dogs.

After the loot & burn

M-16s lowered, tanks returned to 'Nam

I rushed before school

as if Judas returned

& rolled away the stone.

Face, hands, glazed coal

whitewashed & back again

three times or more, clandestine

while the salvaged sleep.

Even the alabaster foot

beyond his robe.

Woven through darkness

relentless eyes tarry

beyond slits of patience

black paint stashed in the trunk

of a '62 Ford,

saint & soldier play shell game

with a deity in the dark.

Momma declares

its just a statue, he lives within.

I peer up at a white one

on our dining room wall

for a moment

I'm saved.

Statue St Sacred Heart Seminary

Part II

(August, 2012)

Papal lips urgent flap,

Lost Books & Nag Hamada

sealed in Easter's cadaver.

Pope John Paul visits Sacred Heart

the white statue utters prophesies

even Rome denies. Martin Luther King

coffined in Motor City's effigy; bullet proof leather

& black berets wear defiance,

rewrite gospel one savior at a time.

If only thoughts were my tongue's taskmaster.

As a boy I transcribe on sheets of fire,

wonder why Cro-Magnon aren't in Genesis

or Coelacanth don't dangle

from saber skin. My sixth, seventh,

forty-eightth birthday; the words

two thousand years ago echo,

time propped perfectly still

resurrection fossilized by fear.

Returning from school

I'd pass the other statue

crossed-over & cornered.

Grandpa use to say: Someday

blue-eyed gatekeepers will claim

heaven's for those who pay.

Concealed behind black wrought iron

subterfuge discovered half a century late

sleight of hand outstretched like scepter.


                                      --- Jawanza Dumisani

   

Detroit native Jawanza Dumisani resides in Los Angeles, where he is Executive Director of LBLLA Art Agency of LA. Previously he served as the Director of Literary Programming for the World Stage Anassi Writers from 2004-2011. He received a scholarship to UCLA and studied with Suzanne Lummis. In 2005 he was the recipient of a PEN Award and remains a PEN fellow in good standing. His first full length book BLACK RAISING CANE OVER RED is part of a two book project. URBAN MIAFFA is a collection of photographs documenting the city of Detroit, due in 2016.