Rosebuds & An Ode to Mama Comfort & Requiem

Rosebuds

There are children two-stepping on the corner

Into silhouettes,

a brooding shade of black.

I hope to myself that they will not fade into the concrete

Or grow like moss

When time is applied to the block.

An Ode to Mama Comfort

Dead.

Forgotten boys,

With hand me down names,

Like Trey....

The 3rd of his kind, the last of his kin.

Maggie's only light skinned grandchild & the most tender hearted of the brood.

He kisses his mother on the lips,

And on Mother's Day lays in bed with her celebratory breakfast running across his

face.

He cries for his brothers.

Although an only child he recognizes the distance is scarce.

Mother is no stranger to inheritance;

Dead boys & names ringing Taboo,

Crimson lips stained with farewells,

Star maps leading homeward,

Some with forgotten usage,

Singing something soft

for the children when they can no longer sleep.

Kinship is a steaming broth of something new,

All of the old and discarded,

And timelessness woven in patterns

A cloak for ghosts

Reunions require seance,

And a ghastly procession of Kente cloth robes.

Requiem

Everyone is dead now.

Learn to speak to ghosts

or you might become one.

A seance

is the only way to get down

these days.

Charles Frempong-Longdon is a queer black poet based out of
Minneapolis, MN. His poems reflect his perspective as the youngest child of Ghanaian immigrants living in America. He hopes to explore all the intersections of his own unique HERENESS & NOWESS through the lens of poetry.