The Stubborn Principles of Belief

I
Like
To go
Around
Believing
In things. I
Believe in Autumn
The green leaves turn rust
And orange out of Summer's fatigue.

I
Believe the
Sound petering from
Coltrane’s hHorn ... Can heal
Most anyone’s failing rhythms. I believe
You can can feel chord changes on your skin,
Like a baby’s breath... or a sudden shift in wind.

But...
The wind
Is music, you see?
I believe that this rhythm
Of my heartbeat is made by
A playfully insistent God.

And
I believe,
Just a little,
In everyone's gods
And even more in the passion
With which people praise them.

I
Believe
The boundlessness
Of God to be inherent in
The sound of children's laughter,
When it’s free. I believe that sex and
Laughter creates its own rapturous music.
I believe that my breath makes these minuscule
Sparks... and then ... flames... when I’m singing.


I
Believe
In what
Nietzche said:
That without music,
Life would be a profound mistake.

I
Believe
That Angels, Spirits
And Deities make soothing
Sounds. They gather around in
Cliques, speak in whispering tongues
And they insist on traveling with me...
And at night, I hear then quaking, fluttering
Like flights and flocks of feeding birds.


I
Believe in
The power
Of my words, and
Deeds can sweep and move
Across the terrain of souls and beings I’ll never know.


I
Believe
That to read
A poem is to weave
And sew the tapestry of your own
Infinite reality... and inside the mirror of
Words, you can discover your own affinity.


I
Believe
Every human
Being is a singer, singing
Its own unique solo, and every
Heart... is... a... drummer... which
Bangs, and clangs and sounds in an echo
Forever, and ever and ever in the Universe.


I
Believe
In this as much
As the richness of my
Own Manifestos. I believe
So religiously in collecting
And keeping and giving back.
I believe less in fables, and more
In the stories of my actions. I believe
For each of my beautiful mistakes, for
Each of my most gorgeous of failures, there
Lies within.... a d e e p e r l e s s o n.


And
I believe
Even harder in
The sweetness of
Aspirations. I believe in
The strength and the willfulness
To succeed, even in the ignored
And weakened spines of Black men like me.


I
Believe in
Shimmering warriors
Wet with sweat. I believe
In Kingdoms, in Karma , and distance.


You
See, I've
Always been
A believer in Things.
Maybe I'm a Hopeless romantic, or
Maybe, just a little deranged. I believe

In
Questions and
In answers which
Fall or tumble slowly....
Like autumn leaves tumble,
Upon the softest winds of change.






One.