Faces at the Bottom of the Well Derrick Bell authored a metaphorical polemic on race and struggle titled, “The Faces At The Bottom Of The Well: The Permanence of Racism”, published in 1992. The book is a collection of allegorical narratives that conflates the composite of orthodox  racial thinking, and the structural/institutionalized racial plutocracy beneficial for those inherently reserving that power. “The Space Traders” aliens arrive on earth with wealth and solutions to prosperity, but will trade only if the nation can a depose of a commodity in return. “The Afrolantic Awakening” discovers an island of abundance where life thrives only skin deep. “The Racial Preference Licensing Act” enacts and…

At one point in my life I wrote for lack of a better description a “Love” poems, full of yearning and similes . I was doing a deep cleaning of files and ran across a lost poem of which I assumed some great poet had written.   A Season of Hearts  Words fall like leaves And a gentle wind blows at my heart Words fall like leaves And a gentle breeze softly touches me Words fall like leaves And a gentle wind takes me Words fall like leaves And a gentle wind moves and caresses my floating body Words fall like leaves And a gentle wind places me softly on…



Suburbs Nothing saps your energy like the suburbs! You become complacent and walk in the shadow of  anger; you are castrated by the mundane sameness of each. I look down the cul de sac and I see no one….I feel indifference coming from house to house. The only way I know someone cares is when some unknown unseen person’s dog shits in my yard. This stirs my civil action and energized my civil unrest…. I dare someone invade my pursuit of nothingness. I dare someone come into my space and shit “by golly” on me. I find more emotional connection to this place when some unknown dog shits on my…

    It stung like a jolt of lightning as she slapped me into reality. Denise was in isolation to keep the infectious bacteria from spreading. Dr Ashby or Dr Scott came early that morning, and said to my father, “she’s gone”; Denise was only four. Many years later, my mother shared that two children in the neighborhood had died, because they did not have their diphtheria shot. A boy had not had his and my sister was the other. “Nisey”, had gotten one shot, but not the other. It was a day filled with crisis, but for me at the age of six, I would experience the compression of…