Michael Angelo Poetry


Author: Michael Angelo

  • Guardians

    Guardians

    I was lamenting again
    my poverty, the conditions
    that reduced my world into blocks and hoods,
    and still today cuts boys and girls down
    before their legs begin to take root.

    I was lamenting
    but then I saw the sparrows,
    brown puffs of play
    in the dirt, darting and twittering away.

    Imagine, all of this suffering bursting
    out of me like a diseased tree,
    threatening to bury the sky and its night,
    and the few stars the kids in the projects can see.
    How selfish of me.

    But the sparrows came,
    and they played
    with nothing but dirt;
    they played,
    and for that day, at least,
    I and the world were saved.

  • A Stone

    A Stone

    I will always be here, a stone of the world,
    but you will move on
    as the wind moves on
    as the seasons move on
    as the stars and the night move on
    and disperse into various
    clouds and ideas and desires

    and you will move on
    as everyone does
    as every child
    moves from womb into world into death
    and death into matter into fetus
    and passion into boredom into despair
    and into new embraces of arms between legs around waists

    and you will sit for a while
    and you will move
    on but I
    will always be here, a stone of the world.  

  • In the Middle of Things

    In the Middle of Things

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  • Library Staff

    Library Staff

    The library staff changed
    and my heart grew a little colder.

    Not bitterly cold—just room temperature water
    pooled when crying in the tub for too long.

    The library staff changed,
    just when I wanted to share a crazy idea:
    that maybe my poetry had a place
    there among the authors.

    I knew a guy, a bigshot library guy—
    thought I’d make him my messiah, but
    the library staff changed,
    and I witnessed an interview.

    I could tell from the prospect’s face
    that she knew about the change,
    and that it was coming again soon,
    and that home

    was a crazy idea.