Frozen Boots and Boiling Lakes
Poetry is our salvation.
By Austin Allen James
Are we the jazz worthy of the Harlem River?
Is the riff kind? We do not understand forever—only
now. Human gospel lives in black mud as slivers
of diamond, and our Earth is a lantern oculus sipping
Sangria from the dark side of melancholia. It is the essence
of poetry that releases our greed and unfurls fear. Are we
the dark trumpet worthy of the Harlem River? Is the riff kind?
We are the shine but not the light, and the Harlem River is a gulp
of soul. Let us reclaim what’s left of harmony and polish
our silhouettes. Kind souls are not specks, they are scrimshaw
and glitter, the legacy of a planet. Frozen boots and boiling
lakes ignore the gentle riffs of James Baldwin, the most
brilliant galactic shine of us all, and prose joins salvation.
Austin Allen James has been teaching at TSU, an HBCU, since 2012. In 2016, Austin and colleagues established a writing concentration that includes five creative writing classes. He received his MFA from Naropa in 1998, and Austin is the Arts Editor for Merion West. Austin is working on a collection of poems due out in 2027 that examines the purpose hate serves and perhaps discovers an alternative.
