Tuesday Poem: "Half Caste" by John Agard

Excuse me
Standing on one leg
I'm half-caste

Explain yuself
Wha yu mean
When yu say half-caste
Yu mean when picasso
Mix red an green
Is a half-caste canvas?
Explain yuself
Wha u mean
When yu say half-caste
Yu mean when light an shadow
Mix in de sky
Is a half-caste weather??
Well in dat case
England weather
Nearly always half-caste
In fact some o dem cloud
Half-caste till dem overcast
So spiteful dem dont want de sun pass
Ah rass
Explain yuself
Wha yu mean
When yu say half-caste?
Yu mean tchaikovsky
Sit down at dah piano
An mix a black key
Wid a white key
Is a half-caste symphony?

Explain yuself
Wha yu mean
Ah listening to yu wid de keen
Half of mih ear
Ah looking at u wid de keen
Half of mih eye
And when I'm introduced to yu
I'm sure you'll understand
Why I offer yu half-a-hand
An when I sleep at night
I close half-a-eye
Consequently when I dream
I dream half-a-dream
An when moon begin to glow
I half-caste human being
Cast half-a-shadow
But yu come back tomorrow
Wid de whole of yu eye
An de whole of yu ear
And de whole of yu mind

An I will tell yu
De other half
Of my story

by John Agard

For more information about poet, John Agard, see:

https://www.poetryarchive.org/poet/john-agard

Tuesday Poem : "My Father's Kites" by Allison Joseph

were crude assemblages of paper sacks and twine,
amalgams of pilfered string and whittled sticks,
twigs pulled straight from his garden, dry patch

of stony land before our house only he
could tend into beauty, thorny roses goaded
into color. How did he make those makeshift

diamonds rise, grab ahold of the wind to sail
into sky like nothing in our neighborhood
of dented cars and stolid brick houses could?

It wasn’t through faith or belief in otherworldly
grace, but rather a metaphor from moving
on a street where cars rusted up on blocks,

monstrously immobile, and planes, bound
for that world we could not see, roared
above our heads, our houses pawns

in a bigger flight path. How tricky the launch
into air, the wait for the right eddy to lift
our homemade contraption into the sullen

blue sky above us, our eyes stinging
with the glut of the sun. And the sad tangle
after flight, collapse of grocery bags

and broken branches, snaggle of string
I still cannot unfurl. Father, you left me
with this unsated need to find the most

delicately useful of breezes, to send
myself into the untenable, balance my weight
as if on paper wings, a flutter then fall,

a stutter back to earth, an elastic sense
of being and becoming forged in our front
yard, your hand over mine over balled string.

by Allison Joseph

For more information about poet, Allison Joseph, see:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/allison-joseph