JAMES COBURN ’s free style verses are pregnant with reason , emotion and mesmerizing rhythm . Coburn is a day by day poet serializing human experiences and earthly happenings with a willing pen. His diction is creatively economized, while the expression is satirically delicious, meaning is creamed with metaphoric opulence and reason is dipped in paradox. The Imagery is beautiful and proudly portrays signals and symbols with that astonishing poetic exuberance. The delivery is organic, original like a fertile womb yet to be born. EXLUSIVE! The poet in Coburn is a griot of his land and a singer for his people. Ironically Coburn’s poetry dishes taste African politics and protests for justice. Some ingredients of reason, experience and emotion are borrowed from African Poets of resistance. We live under one universe despite demographical and geographical parameters. I always say, James Coburn is an Africa Griot in Oklahoma. Happy Great Year of 2020. ALUTA CONTINUA!!!
COLLECTED POEMS
- I like the spill
la Luna has upon cold blue clouds warming thought.
White House hallways are hollow.
Invasive species gorge through corridors, all pointing to a self-aggrandized center
as oligarchs leave empty bellies casting ballots
in finger-shaped districts
carved by meaty signatures of ink.
Gray suits burst forth the consequence of how leaving “their” oil in the ground leaves children’s futures to deprivation.
Really.
God made in their own image without “his” cause and affect.
Science careth nothing
as Adam steps from a garden of spilling insensitivity.
Step into the puddle.
Clear photosynthesis for convenience.
Hot, arid air burns the Pacific
where kangaroo pouches
are in high demand,
but too warm for comfort
these days.
- In your hand
I cross the sphere
To the highest land.
Essence of the valley
Peaks in your eyes
On Sagarmatha.
You are the son of ancients,
Blending with trees
On the mountain overlook
Casting Nepal a cradle
Of life
Where your eyes cross
The horizon.
Praise to the morning
After the night from within.
Fertile birth.
Song of freedom
Crosses earth.
Song of freedom colors mirth.
- I got a ring for your finger
and laughter for your smile.
I don’t know when in this country wind
If the stars will come along.
Oh hear my soul a asking
how far are the pearly gates.
Smell the cotton in the breeze
and the cherry wood leaves
all dancing for a song
Ah ha
- When the wind scatters
my leaves
there will still be violence
among men.
Babies will learn a world
of intention.
Tides will call on poets
to make peace.
Beauty will emerge from struggle, and a poor man will give another his bread.
Demigods will deceive nations while peacemakers try to cool a warming planet.
Tribes will claim the sun rises
for them.
A child will share her meal with a street urchin.
Life will go on without me. But in my lifetime seeds were planted to survive beyond me.
These seeds were protected the eternal.
My body breathed within my soul.
I was witness.
Puppies will find other arms for warmth. Fragments of light will cross stairways. Friendships will span oceans.
Love will change lives. Kindness will prevail.
And I will be a new beginning
where lightness of being overcomes the fall.
- Pathway of lanterns
My body within my soul
Luminescence upon the road
I am the journeyman shaping om
We meet
Float as wildflowers along the creek
Depth of beauty beyond finite edge.
Beyond singular
Pebbles in the stream
mark landings
Bees cross-pollinate our birth
Landings are beginnings
- Into the depths I’ve seen all the love
a man can know. Must be the beginning.
Nothing owed to the fates of passersby.
They made their choices and I’ve made mine.
Nothing more than love will shine.
Nothing less than love will invite my day,
for nothing less than love will I stay.
JAMES COBURN – is an Oklahoma poet in the United States of America. Coburn has always valued the subtext of life and seeks to reveal its undercurrents. He believes indifference is the enemy of man as it is the benefactor of ignorance, racism and xenophobia. Coburn is currently collaborating with Nairobi poet Brian Kasaine on a book of poetry. His first book of poetry “Words of Rain” was published in 2014. The book was a finalist for an Oklahoma Book Award. In 2016, ten of his poems against terrorism and to save the Sunderbans (wetlands) were published in “Onnyodhara” (The Alternative Way) Eid-special issue festival edition in association with “Anushilon” (The Culture & Literature Society) the National Literary Organization of Bangladesh. Coburn is a 2013 inductee of the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame. He has been published in several anthologies. Three of his poems were published in Canada’s Tuck magazine in 2017-18.
TIME OF THE POET CURATOR/EDITOR- MBIZO CHIRASHA
,Recipient of PEN Deutschland Exiled Writer Grant (2017) Literary Arts Projects Curator, Writer in Residence, Blogs Publisher, Arts for Human Rights/Peace Activism Catalyst, Social Media Publicist and Internationally Anthologized Writer, 2017 African Partner of the International Human Rights Arts Festival Exiled in Africa Program in New York.2017 Grantee of the EU- Horn of Africa Defend Human Rights Defenders Protection Fund. Resident Curator of 100 Thousand Poets for Peace-Zimbabwe, Originator of Zimbabwe We Want Poetry Movement. African Contributor to the Table of Words Demer Press International Poetry anthology edited by Hannie Rouweler in Netherlands. Solidarity Member of Global Alliance for Politics and Arts. African Participant to the 2014-2020 World Poetry Almanac Anthologies series in Mongolia edited by Hadaa Sendoo. Co-Editor of German Africa Bilingual Collection with German International Translator Andreas Weiland in 2016 (http://www.street-voice.de/SV7/SVissue7.html).2003 Zimbabwean Young literary Delegate to the Goteborg International Book Fair Sweden ( presented at Nordic Africa institute, Swedish Writers union , SIDA Diplomatic luncheon , Radio Dialogue , Swedish International library Association , Sweden National Education Summit).2009 Poet in residence of ICACD ,international Conference of Africa Culture and Development courtesy of African Culture Development Institute .Founder of the GIRLCHILDCREATIVITY PROJECT. Curator of MIOMBOPUBLISHING, miombopublishing.wordpress.com and PERSONALITIES OF INSPIRATION, personalitiesofinspiration.wordpress.com.
