Darius A. Frasure

Howells

 

my therapist says

men put things in boxes

they compartmentalize


if that’s true then I truly understand how you—

how a man can

leave lives behind


erase them from the blackboard of memory

in exchange for whiteboards


but some things don't erase

they smear

like mistakes


same mess

new medium

the grass is truly much greener

because the shit is much deeper


but sometimes men get swallowed by the grass because the box they moved to was their last, and nobody ever forgets the past—those lives do come back, spring from boxes buried in soil deep as blood—and those murky corpses’ oily residue stains the present with their footprints

‘til men can’t out-box their feelings


and even if they don’t meditate ‘til their heads become like stone in cement

or if you don't see men tarry over their new grass


it doesn't mean the ghosts don't invade their thoughts like a storm of wasps—sting

their dreams like blitzkrieg—their eternity like a missing being out of joint out

of place out of face


you can see it when they blink and look down to the left

a mask for a disgrace a displacement like wink

a lie swallowed in a smile

 

Bio

Darius Ajai Frasure, Professor of English at Mountain View College in Dallas, Texas, is a proud graduate of Paul Quinn College, Luther Rice Seminary, and National University. He is deeply involved in the literary arts and education community in the Dallas, Fort-Worth area, and his poetry has appeared in literary journals, The Manila Envelope, The Lion’s Roar, Illya’s Honey, Red River Review, and the Dallas Poets Community anthology, Cattlemen & Cadillacs. In addition, he read for season five of Dallas’ story-telling show, Oral Fixation (An Obsession with True Life Tales); he has one spoken word album, Spoken Pieces (2010), and one collection of poetry, stained glass medusa (2015).