Visions of the Horizon

Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note

a poem by Amiri Baraka

Lately, I've become accustomed to the way

The ground opens up and envelopes me

Each time I go out to walk the dog.

Or the broad edged silly music the wind

Makes when I run for a bus...

Things have come to that.

And now, each night I count the stars.

And each night I get the same number.

And when they will not come to be counted,

I count the holes they leave.

Nobody sings anymore.

And then last night I tiptoed up

To my daughter's room and heard her

Talking to someone, and when I opened 

The door, there was no one there...

Only she on her knee, peeking into

Her own clasped hands

Clasped
Hands

a poem by Eillya-Marí Kocumba

I used to be a wave

Ebbing and flowing across

The same blue seas

And I would see the same old fish

Desperately fighting the same old tides...

But I found solace in the ships that pass.

Brightly colored sails

Erected high in the distant sky--

They come and go on the horizon

Riding the wave of opportunity...

Am I so different?

No one drifts in my current

It leads to some unknown destination

Far, far in the distance

Beyond the eye, beyond imagination...

There's nothing there in my path,

Only God's creation