Thursday, June 9, 2016

DC Poets: Sydney March

Brother

I remember when our laughter
filled those empty spaces
between the days and nights
and you and I were flashing flames

no one blocked our paths 
in those shining bandit-day
of stealing mangoes, fistfights
cowboys and soccer games

poverty blessed us then
with her savage songs
and we grew hard and strong
beneath unyielding suns

time sped crazily
beneath our dancing feet
as new dead leaves 
trampled old dead leaves
but we were having fun

then years gushed by in torrents
breaching the sturdy banks
that preserved our sacred river
silencing the music
that filled the space between us

desperate, we held on 
shored up the levees
but then we had those other cares
each cherished his own weakness

for me there was no welcome
and you were not invited
our continents had drifted
out of sight and hearing

our laughter served no longer
to fill those empty spaces
as they did before our ships set sail

for that uncertain twilight


Sydney March is a Jamaican poet, essayist, musician and journalist residing in Washington DC. A member of the WritersCorps (1996-1998), he had been a recipient of grants from The DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, as well as Jenny McKean Moore and Lannan Fellowships. He was awarded a Poets and Writers Workshop Grant (2007). Sydney currently serves as a panelist for the DC Commission On The Arts Artist Fellowship Program in Literature and the Larry Neal writer’s competition.   
Publications include “Dark Warriors of the Spanish Main,” Smithsonian New World, Smithsonian Institution 1992, “The Maroons of Jamaica” Encounters, University of New Mexico Press 1994 a collection of poetry “Stealing Mangoes” Mica Press, 1997, and essays and poetry published in numerous anthologies. He is currently a resident poet at CentroNia and teaches at Montgomery College.
He has read at the Miller Cabin, The Library of Congress Poet at Noon series, The Writers’ Center, MLK Library, The Smithsonian Institution, Iota, The Arlington Arts Center and many other venues. He is a woodwind player, who sometimes uses musical accompaniment to enhance public readings.

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