The art of Kevin Blythe Sampson

THE ART OF
KEVIN BLYTHE SAMPSON

2/2/10

Art Beat | Weekly Poem: 'Centuries of Ashes' | Online NewsHour | PBS

By Patrick Sylvain

The shard-like anger of Port-au-Prince
Will slice through social veins
And harvest life with a Machete.

Two centuries of ashes and blind privilege
Hoarding in palaces, suffusing fetidness
With extraneous air-freshners.

Two centuries of ashes and cruelty
Has been mastered with a surgeon's
Precision. We laugh as we bleed.

Despite drunken drums
And frolicsome hips,
Shard-like anger will rankle

And stream through peasant fields,
Shanty towns and regal abodes the way
Red ants march on pressed sugarcanes.

Despite drunken drums and frolicsome hips,
Drifting angels will wing themselves away
The way bats flock out of dark caves.

--September 2005.

1 comment:

  1. like to feel the spirit when you're writing, this work has the emotion of the original poster, very impressive

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