JAMES BALDWIN JUNETEENTH POSTER ART BLUES

 

JAMES BALDWIN JUNETEENTH POSTER ART BLUES

Commingling days contribute

to the Anthology of Signs,

double-sided, pressing against

each other through cardboard,

my pocketful of colored sharpies

learning from the kids with paint cans.

The fallen crown discarded: No king

is coming for you, America--

this is the necessary shock

before the jail break. Birds

are singing it’s a busy time.

Kings leave behind despair,

and James Baldwin has come home

to begin again. “Everyone was paying

their dues and it was time.” My friend

sends me Martín Espada’s poems

as he traces his father’s camera

“searching for the faces of the people

he would call our people.” These

are the after times, and when

I finished my sign on the porch

I met the NAACP group in the church

parking lot and we caravanned

through Yakima. Not too many

of us this year. Transforming

sorrow into poster art. Shivering

and huddled, Eddie Glaude, Jr.

hunkers down with Reverend

Trumble who asks what time

service is tomorrow. We’re shivering

before the fact and fear of cheap grace

of birthdays. Even our people

don’t know the black poets.

Glaude calls this the weaponization

of jubilee. Jusice Harlan’s lone

dissenting vote—score it 8 to 1,

made separate but equal

the law of the land, didn’t they,

Justice John G. Roberts.

This blues-soaked hope.

Raw song singing for discarded

crowns. Who would want laurels

with all this available? Baldwin says,

I’m beginning again—and so am I.

Signed on the poster. The path

is right. Ir’s a good path.

And true. No King coming.

Discard’s as easy as gin rummy.

We do this one by ourselves.

Jim Bodeen

13 June 2026