Inauguration Poems

Inauguration 1
I know about not quite fitting in...

When your own kind calls you a foreigner
for wanting more...

This is what my grandmother meant by
the makings of a leader.


Inauguration 2
Jesse wanted to move Black people forward
by exploiting victim mentality...

Barack wants to move Black people forward.


Inauguration 3
He's marketable
The others weren't so
Maybe Powell but
Not anymore...


Inauguration 4
His swagger is not conceit
nor a reason to refer to Hip Hop
Rather, it's a reflection of the slave's promise
to find his butchered foot...





Inauguration 5
To have the meek reside
at the foot of your castle is
practically a military tactic
For it takes uncommon ammunition to even recognize
how a dream defers, in the first place...

Sometimes a military tactic
turns on itself...

This is what my grandmother meant by
waiting your turn.


Inauguration 6
You pose next to change
but your smile says otherwise...

Firm handshake
yet no vision in your grip...

Just more fluff for the family scrapbook
while your children despise you.


Inauguration 7
They rolled him onto the ramp
and into the bright wintery...

His horns having lost their significance,
out of an embarrassing yet well-deserved exit...

And he sat there
A wealthy yet broken, ornery old man...

The First Words
shushing his agitated self,
forgiving him, even...

And he sat there
in his borrowed ambulette...

This is what my grandmother meant by
tending to your own.









Inauguration 8
There's been so much fuss
over her not looking camelot enough
When Eleanor whispered in the January air,
Am I not already beautiful?...


Inauguration 9
Across a pool of camera heads,
Indonesia wished him well...

He looked over
then answered back in first tongue...

And we all smiled

For the first time
in a long time.




















Inauguration 10
Amen means Amin means Ashe means And so it is
Or do you still see walls?....*


*From my second book of poems, Throw.