“Erasure for the Body" and "A Space for Living" by Dwayne Lawson-Brown

Erasure for the Body

“A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a home sickness, a love sickness." - Robert Frost

I am homesick in my body Homesick body
I am lovesick in my home Lovesick home
Sometimes I want the rice to boil over Sometimes rice boils over
Sometimes I want to be the housefire To be housefire
Sometimes I want to break all the windows in Break all the windows
Hope of escape Hope
The body is a death sentence Escape the death sentence
Reflection, a reminder
The body is a golden lamp
And we, genie, imprisoned The body, genie;
The body is a collection of empty things A collection of empty things
There is an inhuman ache that knows me Know me
A want to be connected to everyone and Connect and disengage
everything
While simultaneously wanting to disengage
Selective isolation feels like relief Feel relief
There is a wrong That I can’t define I can't define
Because definition
Isn’t what is sought What is sought
I am homesick in my body In my body
I am lovesick in my home In my home
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A Space for Living
For Shirley Ann Jackson

In the beginning there was
Black, Bang
And stars sprinkled along the first

A black
Full of potential
Depth
And then everything else

Black so full it seems empty
So vast it holds enough space to gather us all
Every action
With it's equal and opposite
Every compound
Sticky and explosive
Held in the arms of black

Some say a void
This black
Some call the blackness dangerous
Must be charted
Conquered
Claimed by flags and rocket’s red glare

Some fear this
That surrounds all we are
Claim it the unknown
How?
When every study
Starts with the space to think

For every denial of time and space
A black
Holding it all together
A big crunch of creation and motion
Kinetic and live

A science to living.

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3/15/2025

Dwayne Lawson-Brown is the author of three poetry collections: One Color Kaleidoscope (2019), Twenty:21 (2021), and Breaking the Blank (co-authored with Rebecca Bishophall, 2022). Dwayne has co-authored three plays: From Gumbo to Mumbo (2018), Push the Button (2022), and the forthcoming, Midiculous (2025). Learn more about his work at CrochetKingpin.com.