Lala Kahle (Improvisation 12 19 09) Poem by Lee B. Mack

Hello from Ladysmith and to you
Mombasa meet me at the Sphinx
Nearest the women’s room if the sun
Bent light below western peaked dunes

Shadow cast to darken shares to zero
Limit cut across to the Red Sea over
Low incised rivers to lakes that rise
To the glare the edge to light plumes

Evening moons to a story about Shelby
County’s Finchville Road a single lane
Of loose limestone dust and rock cut
Milled by the rubber and rail to wheels

Tractors wagons and old Ford trucks
Bent hard muscle backs of quadroon
Orphans of whites and the recycling of
Browning skins of molecular power

Black on black -It was World War II
The world too young for western war
For the honor to allow veterans to be
Capitalized while I was at play one day








(Lee Mack, Lala Kahle, Page 2)


An army truck passed by Granddaddy’s
Sharecropper farm yard filled with German
Prisoners and American soldiers on guard
With rifles trained to stop the run away

At seven years of age and black as a Zulu
I could possess little knowledge progression
For comparisons between German prisoners
Who are now owners of Kentucky Utilities

And all we claim of America at risk is to be
Heirs to underwater properties -slave of
Ex-slave -one arm Navy veterans who won
Lesser frozen COLA Social Security benefits

What’s left of the Sphinx to pass on but
A marred face -nothing is wrong with us
Happy as we can be -but happiest is the health
We want and need -we got and feel it now

The power we have rifle’s honors ready trained in
Good time raised to stop the run away what could
We have loss of America but perspective just as
Who we are as what we could and would become.