The Man That Poetry Made (saluting Langston Hughes, Feb 1, 1902-May 23, 1967)

[Author-Poet Aberjhani]

(A crowd of young fans gather around author-poet Langston Hughes)


The man that poetry made stands luminous
on the broken corners of history’s suicidal cravings,
he watches splashing in the street
birds cleaning their feathers inside
the crystal flow of words he gave them,

he is a vintage wine now
traveling with ease over the tongues
of other people’s intentions,
he is a quilt
made of one billion black hands
spread like guarantees from a single living God
over the heads of the misbegotten.

The man that poetry made wonders
on which day will he finally recite his soul.
Ask him who his mother is
and he will sing for you memories
of bosom-heavy haikus
filling his mouth with the milk and nectar
of joy neverdying.

Ask about his father and he will boast about a ballad
that thundered all the way
from Spain to Zaire
bouncing him like a sack full of sonnets
upon his broad whistling shoulders.

This man that poetry made stumbles barefoot
through the city, a huge blue ribbon wrapped
around one big toe, a small pink one tied
to the other, ragged jeans loose
upon free-verse hips, fluorescent eyes blinking
surrealistic kisses of negritude revisited--

To the woman confused
by his lust for peace
he begs “forgive me lovely genius
I was not born as you were born,
my blood was written
by a different kind of coupling.”
To the man frustrated
by his lack of animalia
he sang, “Beauty is a thing finer
than exalted fears of actual love.”

The man that poetry made sometimes
blows himself to pieces with bombs
made from metaphors, he enjoys watching
the words that shape his life
scatter like golden ashes of imagination
then one by one float back down to earth
covering him with forms and meanings
he never knew existed.
People passing the corner
where he stands luminous and throbbing
rarely see a man at all.
They look at the man that poetry made
and see a public toilet
or a burning bush flaming in the most unlikely place.
Sometimes they see him as a rare jewel
and snatch him up before anyone else
can look. He is always curious riding along
inside the pockets of strangers
wondering how they shall react
when they see him for what he is,
and he reveals, with
love lighting up his every cell
exactly who they are.


by Aberjhani
from I Made My Boy Out of Poetry