A Poem for Evangeline, And Other Songs

“Kevin Powell is one of this country’s most poignant literary voices. Powell’s vivid storytelling and beautifully crafted verses transport the audience. His mastery of language, rhythm, and delivery make each poem resonate deeply. There is sincerity and vulnerability that is both captivating and inspiring.” —Charlie Braxton, Mississippi-based Poet/Playwright/Cultural Critic/Music Historian

Kevin Powell is a Grammy-nominated poet, acclaimed journalist and humanitarian, author of 17 books, filmmaker, and writer of an upcoming biography of Tupac Shakur. A native son of Jersey City, New Jersey, he lives in Brooklyn, New York. You can reach him via email: kevin@kevinpowell.net, or follow him on all social media platforms by typing poet kevin powell.

Two poems by Kevin Powell:

Vangie

for Evangeline

Oh Vangie
You are the whole everything
Stacked in my deleted dreams so long ago
I blush to think
Starlight and blueberries
And kiwi and peaches
Did not materialize for me
Until I tasted the song in your eyes
Kiss me yesterday please
Promise me we will not be
My self-esteem’s
Messy leftovers
Or my cluttered lifetime
Of loneliness
And sadness
You saved me
Yes you have saved my life
The way a gasping swimmer
Is rescued by a mythical
West African mermaid
Even as I write this for you
My love
I never knew
That a pair of suspended hearts
Could be souls
mating like two liberated field hands
soaping our battered feet
in the Mississippi
That mother of rivers
is the poetry
I want to sketch for you
Like a Basquiat oil stick capturing
Our most soundless moments

Sunday, August 3, 2025
7:56am

Call Him King

inspired by the life and passing of D’Angelo

for colored boys who have considered suicide/when the rainbow ain’t for us
for a black messiah
who is the unshaken cowboy square root of
voodoo
and brown sugar and chicken grease
fingering the devil’s pie—
please call him
ay-yo please call him
call him king
like it is really love
an africa taste of love
shoved
inside the gloved compartment of 1000 deaths
do not call him yn
or the n-word at all
do not sweep pain from his sweat
with the broom of the oppressor
let it breathe let it breathe
like a high horse high on the hog
we swears:
it does swing if it got that thing
it does sing if you call him king
ain’t nothing but a man-child in a land promised to nobody
or
like i cried before
where does one run to when stuck in the promised land?
um, well, to the great return of muddy waters and howlin’ wolves—
oh nappy day
oh nappy day
oh nappy day
and we prays:
dear god, can you please scrape this bloody trauma from my flesh?
dear god, can you please snatch this poison fling from my hands?
dear god, can you please wash this dirty laundry from my eyes?
dear god, what they call you when they realize you black and alive?

2

i mean, we swears:
we are not monsters or magical negroes
we are the secret beehives of emcee walter mitty
we are the ninjas sizing up prison bars and penny jars
we are the superjet survival of nathaniel mary quinn
we are visually distorted sketches of one mo’gin
we are billie holiday’s red beans and rice
divided and multiplied by
original people mathematicians with pinky ice
and kidnapped carpenters with pentecostal pigeon toes
and slave ship rock stars roping moons with they beat-box
and cake-walking hustlers and lindy-hopping line dancers
over-came and over-come with
gospel-cooked grits and shrimp
bluesman banjo love affairs
country road tobacco vocabs
jazzy melodic moodiness
and de la soul hip-hop daggers
‘cuz we just be wantin’ to be sucker-free
a whipped bare sound garden
singing to us like donny hathaway sang to us
singing to us like marvin gaye sang to us
singing to us like sly stone sang to us
singing to us like d’angelo sang to us
sing brother sing
sing brother sing
sing brother sing
sing like heaven got a section
for colored boys who have considered suicide/when the rainbow ain’t for us
‘cuz it do—
and it does swing if it got that thing
and it does sing if you call him king
please call him
ay-yo please call him
call him king
like it is really love

Thursday, November 6, 2025
12:15am