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[with poetry by Dasan Ahanu]
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I see potential where others feel desolation
Show me a danger zone
I see an area under construction
An optimistic land developer
who’s been an indecisive bulldozer for too long
Never knowing whether to dig or bury
I’ve got a hard hat and a lunch box
because it’s a long day’s work
to rebuild a heart so beautifully broken
Fenced into construction sites
with lovers who have a lust for demolition
wearing orange vests
and steel-toe boots
Then wondering why all I have are stories
of things falling apart
. . .
from Suspense
Dasan Ahanu
Concrete Jungle Allegories, Sable Books, sablebooks.org; © 2025
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Love is a homeless wanderer. Might show up on your doorstep and make you decide whether to open /dig or slam / bury. Love is bread. You going to throw it out when it’s stale, then die of hunger? Love is not the punchline, it’s the plot; love is not the punctuation, it’s the enjambement; love is not the letters you learn to write or the words you learn to read, it’s the unlearned mother-tongue. Speak it.
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Love isn’t easy. Are all its stories about things falling apart? In Concrete Jungle Allegories, Dasan Ahanu experiences hot love and cold love, empty love and full love, mother love and father love, and always on the edge of being sliced open by love. But always, always there are second chances. I guess this is what it means / when a poet has an epiphany.
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The mystic discovers that love is the fabric of the universe, matter/energy/spirit within us and around us and every moment available for us if we will share in the discovery. The poet discovers love in every particular, a shout or a cry, a down-and-out or an up-and-over, and every moment discovers love is the only thing that can propel us forward. Years ago I argued with another poet that all poems are about Death. The immortal gods do not write poetry but only send us mortals such cutting awareness of our finitude that we are compelled to write the lines the gods hunger for. But the other poet challenged me that all poems are about Love. Love’s immanence or its distant faint glimmer are equal inspirations. Dasan Ahanu argues on the side of Love, and every poem must end with tears, or with AMEN. Hear it, and know.
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Dasan Ahanu is a community leader and cultural activist. He has taught courses on hip-hop and Black culture at UNC-Chapel Hill, coached the Bull City Slam Team, and served as Cultural Organizing Director for the NC Climate Justice Collective, as just a few of his influences for good. More about Dasan HERE; his newest poetry collection Concrete Jungle Allegories is available from SABLE BOOKS.
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Baggage Claim
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To the homeless kid
who knew about horoscopes,
spoke about success in life,
and asked me what to do
about a girl
who feels for you
but is in a relationship.
I wish I had more to offer you.
I pray my hesitation
wasn’t seen as disrespect.
It’s just that the look
in your eyes was so familiar.
The one that lets people know
we both prefer to play with
broken things.
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I sat there in that airport
listening to you conjure a roommate
and a job.
Watched you cast the illusion
of a roof over your head.
Became mesmerized
as you told me the story of
how you met her.
Conversations that left you hurt
and confused.
The man that doesn’t deserve her.
I don’t deserve to watch your magic.
To be front row
as you make the best of ghosts,
demons, and puppets.
. .
You say you know this girl
better than she knows herself.
Say that she pushes you away
because she’s fighting her heart.
I know that you are wrong.
You know an illusion that looks like her
better than you know her.
She pushes you away because
you call her the wrong tomorrow.
She only talks to you because she is curious
about this her you love so much.
I know how you got here.
Loving someone who doesn’t love
you back is a familiar model
established by your relationship
with your Gemini of a father.
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It taught you to learn to see
apparition and temptation
as two sides of the same thing.
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Isn’t it funny we met in the
baggage claim of the airport?
I was looking for an outlet.
I guess you were too.
Three in the morning.
I’m stuck there overnight.
Better than the cost of a hotel.
You are stuck with Cupid’s arrow in your heart,
talking to me.
Better than the cost of therapy.
You here telling me you want to claim
someone’s baggage got me all
teary-eyed at the selflessness.
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I want you to have a home and a meal.
You want a conversation
and a happy ending
that says she will recognize
the wizard in your eyes.
In that moment
I am so torn, yet
so awestruck.
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I force these working-class
pieces of advice out of my mouth.
They come in low and hushed.
This is an eloquent urban renewal.
Where I give you all the hope I have,
then rebuild my heart
high-maintenance.
Leave with an uppity faith I’m worth more.
It’s still just gentrification.
The kind I try to balance
with assistance for new residence
in your heart by vouching
for the value of optimism.
Justify it by saying it’s for your welfare.
That it is the only way that
I can be sure your dreams will survive.
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When the police officers arrived
and asked you to leave,
they said they had seen you here
++++ before.
Said they had talked to you
++++ before.
I now they still couldn’t see,
couldn’t imagine
the power you possess.
Here I was in a city I didn’t live
talking to a sorcerer and
wishing I was one too.
Wished I could think quick enough
to cast a spell to keep you here.
But like you,
I’m so used to things ending.
used to people being led away.
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I couldn’t even muster up a goodbye.
I had nothing to offer that would
stop your pain. For once in my life
I saw through my father’s eyes.
I could feel his mute silence.
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The officers told me to be careful.
Told me that the living dead walk and
search for warmth here.
Advised me to go back upstairs.
I just wanted to sit there and cry.
Didn’t know how to wield such magic.
How to hold to a wish
when you have no world around you.
How to craft such a work of art
with scraps and trash.
To want to love.
To care less about a home
if you could know the glimmer in her eyes
was yours.
To be able to contextualize your
father’s mistakes as library,
lessons shelved until you need them.
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Dammit, why couldn’t they have
left you be long enough for you
to teach me how to
want,
believe in,
and chase
a happy ending.
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Dasan Ahanu
Concrete Jungle Allegories, Sable Books, sablebooks.org; © 2025
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V E R S E and I M A G E 
Thanks, Mary Alice. Yes, Richard's poetry makes me feel that I live more deeply on earth, with all of us.…