A POEM SPEAKS NATIVE:
Original 10 30 2009

A poem speaks native speak
The proper colloquial greetings
Writes streets of conversation hip
Turns on its charismatic native cool
Moving its foot rhythmically with
Shoulder turns sure to twist toward
The liquid lighted avenue -girls set
On stoop steps with brown knees
Tucked toward their chins holding
Winter wool skirts by the hem
To cover bottoms but knees to tease
The passing Metro Lines –the poem
Speaks the metric rhythm -passing
Traffic defines
With pretence in comparing eyes
The poem drags an instep behind
Fake knocked kneed limps -happen
To bend to turn hips toward consciences
Incline to thought –to be
Exposed by poems for it ought
Be what poems ought ideally be -the
Supple poem yearns the body slides
On down the avenue -a poem can
Speak a native tongue as good as
You please -take to whistling avenues
As it tools on out of hearing range
Dims on out of sight -speaking softly
And proper things to neighbors -singing
As loud as you please ‘bout history and
stoops that poems never forsake
to speak the native greet.

Lee Mack copyright 2009. ISBN # 0615318347. Do not reproduce without permission.