James Whitley
Click on the "Archive" button above to return to the Features archives
Originally from New York, James R.Whitley has lived in or around Boston, MA since 1988. His poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and published in numerous literary journals including African American Review, The Caribbean Writer, Gargoyle, and Mississippi Review. James' first poetry book Immersion (Lotus Press, 2002) was selected by Lucille Clifton as the winner of the 2001 Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Award. His second book, This Is the Red Door, won the 2003 Ironweed Press Poetry Prize and will be published later in 2005. James is also the author of two poetry chapbooks: Pietà (Pudding House Publications, 2001) and The Golden Web (Wind River Press, 2003).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Smoke
(first published in Native Tongue)
Whisper something darkly,
something gently steeped
in shadow and
smoke.
Reveal the nuances of triumph
and torment, torture and trust,
the gray tones of charcoal, silver, slate,
smoke.
Filter all impurities and leave only
epiphanies, leave only
raw flame, heat, light,
smoke.
Billow and glow within
like a soul, a wayward supernova,
like love, pride, hope,
smoke.
Against Contrivance
(first published in Facets)
The doomed solitary roach daring to saunter
across my kitchen floor is doing it.
The sycophantic honeybees dancing their prescribed
jigs beneath my kitchen window sill are not.
The musky ferrets spelunking through the new space
they've discovered behind my refrigerator are doing it too.
While their shed fur tufts spiraling floorward
in calculable diminishing cycles are not.
There must be ways to arrive though mapless,
manners of travel yet undiscovered,
roads still not taken, paths unpathed,
the virgin soil there waiting patiently to feel
its first flesh, to be ravaged.
The take-home here: when you move,
do so like the roach, not the bee. And when you write,
listen for the clicks, don't make them, every button
snapping in due time, no need for force,
every letter comfortable where it is in the world.
Primal
(first published in the Paumanok Review)
It is early in the new millennium.
It is the end of the summer.
And in the media: disturbing news of
increased shark attacks. Everywhere,
a rash of reports of sharks,
previously wary of the chaos at
the shoreline, swimming in closer
to beaches with, it seems,
a single frightening purpose:
to get to where the people are.
And I’m no marine expert, but
I think I understand their drive—
more compelling than hunger,
more powerful than risk.
The feeling that staying
where you are could, eventually,
seem like moving backward,
circling the same gray leagues of sea
could start to reek of surrender.
all my best,
jrw
