Four Poems by Willie James King   

Willie James King is a poet, educator, and actor who lives in Montgomery, Alabama. Visit his website at williejamesking.com.

Flounder

I was not drinking
the night I leaned in-
to our imagined
banister, spooning
jelly from a jar; we’d
come into such frigid
weather, but I did
not know that far.

 

At the top of the Stairs

What little we discern
from Lear’s rejections
of the Fool’s jests might
be applied to our own
affairs: when we think
we have the last rung
in sight, another flight’s
at the top of the stairs.
 

 

This Is Grief
 
Ah, Michael, as a poet
I suspect I am suppose
to pen something about
you this morning. Here
in Montgomery, it’s rain-
ing; the wind has lost its
will; there are no yellow
bolts of lightning, or any
loud thunder-claps, like
a brassy cymbal crash to
announce your absence.
That is for grandeur, this is grief.
Yet, you left all of these
heartfelt songs that almost con-
sole us, now that you’ve gone.
I Can’t help but look back
on a fall day much like
this, it was on a Friday,
friends goaded me toward
our gym’s auditorium, all
trying to prepare me for
what I was about to hear,
a boy’s voice soulful as
an angel’s whaling who's
sadden, sassy in the same,
all that ease at which you
hit those high notes, even
our teacher peered at those
squealers, nervous talkers
and held a silencing finger
to her lips to kindly urge us
Please! Michael, yours was
the magic we needed man,
having just months before
been deprived of our good
Prophet, Martin Luther King.
I was also young, and I both
heard and knew at once, it
was tragic being black and
gifted, enormously packed
and rapt with ethereal talent
as so often you shared with
all, on stage and in life; you
tried to warn us in each song.
 

 

It Hasn't Got a Chance

The dog, with an albino eye,
just appeared out of thin air
at a time when I didn’t need
and added yelp in the form of
another dog to feed, I let it stay.
I was stunned and surprised to find
It fetched even so, it wasn’t expected,
as the dogs raised in my backyard
couldn’t be depended on to do.
They  only obeyed when there
was a biscuit, or a bone about
to be given them immediately
after the doing. Suddenly there
appeared this fox who had an
insatiable appetite for my fowl,
who found pleasure and ease in
walking off with its carefully
chosen pick. The dogs I felt obli-
gated to merely gazed, as if to say,
No need to fuss, it didn’t come
for us. But the intruder with that
albino eye shored up to prove it
had fight, much pluck and worth
when it tore into the fox and bit
a plug out of its roguish courage
kept its nose to its heels, as with
amazement, the fox raced like a
wind-blown blaze toward the forest.
Now, the other dogs keep an eye on
my one-eyed hero, to grab for scraps
it leaves. They seem far more eager
and more watchful than ever before.
And I am certain that fox knows, as
well as its thieving clan,
it hasn't got a chance.