spring comes (poem by Kuwasi Balagoon)

spring comes
and mail
trickles in
and trickles out
as if written in blood
winter’s talk
hangs unresolved and useless as smoke
and well-­reasoned routines are questioned
with a runaway mind
that doesn’t stop to sleep
and has come to expect
the bare minimum
for the sake of an argument
that will only make sense
when it is a fight
spring comes
shiny grey
and coiled
in a box

Kuwasi Balagoon was a poet and a revolutionary, a participant in the Black Liberation struggle from the 1960s until his death in prison in 1986. A member of the Black Panther Party and defendant in the infamous Panther 21 case, Balagoon went underground with the Black Liberation Army (BLA). Captured and convicted of various crimes against the State, he spent much of the 1970s in prison, escaping twice. After each escape, he went underground and resumed BLA activity.

For more on Kuwasi Balagoon, see the book A Soldier’s Story: Revolutionary Writings by a New Afrikan Anarchist, available at leftwingbooks.net