Remembered Names: Selected Poems Fifth Edition

By Donley Phillips

Los Angeles, California. Memories make great subjects for art. For writer-poet Donley Phillips, his experiences and memories that have been etched carefully in his mind are what make his latest book phenomenal. Remembered Names: Selected Poems Fourth Edition will surely entice readers as they delve into the poet’s mind, heart, and soul.

With over ninety of the most beautifully written poems to marvel, Phillips reveals his deepest emotions and innermost thoughts about his past. With loving tributes to his family and significant loved ones, Phillips pens down with utmost sincerity yet masterfully conveys life and art. The stunning portraits and images included in this amazing book undoubtedly fuse perfectly with themes that embrace love, pain, sorrow, race, religion, and faith.

Readers will find themselves enveloped in a myriad of emotions in this amazing poetry collection by Donley Phillips. Remembered Names: Selected Poems Fourth Edition creates an unforgettable, illuminating experience.

Remembered Names was received by Poetry Magazine of Chicago.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 29, 2017
• ISBN: 9781524526702

Donley Phillips

About the Author Donley R. Phillips, a writer-poet, was born December 21, 1935, in Tyler, Texas. In 1945, near the end of World War II, Phillips lived in San Antonio, Texas. He attended segregated public schools: elementary school, Frederick Douglas Junior High School, and Phyllis Wheatley High School. In the early fifties, Phillips was elected president of the NAACP Youth Council. Along with Thurgood Marshall and Harry Burns of the NAACP, he actively participated to end public school segregation in San Antonio and the South. In 1953, Phillips was awarded a scholarship to tour Europe in a student exchange program, sponsored by the NAACP. Upon his return to the USA, he received a Ford Foundation Scholarship to attend Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. In 1955, Phillips moved to Los Angeles, California. He continued his involvement in the Civil Rights Movement, with the NAACP and Martin Luther King Jr. During the sixties, he participated in the San Francisco marches. He also was a protester at the anti–Vietnam War rallies together with William McNeil during the late sixties and early seventies in southern California. Phillips presently resides in Los Angeles and is a Beverly Hills Optimist Club International member (promotes positive development of youth).

Book preview

Copyright © 2017 by Donley Phillips.

Library of Congress Control Number:        2016911871

ISBN:                    Hardcover                        978-1-5245-2672-6

                             Softcover                          978-1-5245-2671-9

                             eBook                                978-1-5245-2670-2

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 01/22/2020

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

727949

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

MEMENTO MORI

THE CREEK BEHIND MY AUNT’S RANCH HOUSE

HOMECOMING

MOTHER AT HER WINDOW

1211 WEST CLAUDE STREET, TYLER, TEXAS

MY GRANDPARENTS’ NEIGHBORS

IN SOLITUDE, IN LA

HYMNAL

IN ST. AUGUSTIN CHURCH, PARIS, 1980

I LIVE

THE SUPPLIANT

THE WHITEWASHERS: LATE 20TH CENTURY POSTSCRIPT

LEGACY

LORE

COMMUNIONS

SO LITTLE, LORD

AFTER THE HOLOCAUSTS

RUSH HOUR ON A CITY BUS

STARGAZERS

IN TYLER, TEXAS, CIRCA 1947

OF ROOTS AND OTHER THINGS

THE WELL-WATER BLUES

THE BOTTOM

GENERATIONS

ONE SOUL BROTHER TO ANOTHER

BALLAD

FREEDOM RIDERS

FRAGMENTS

ON GENESIS

ON LEAVING JERUSALEM IN AUGUST 1979

THE OTHER SIDE

WORK SONG

ON LISTENING TO A RECORDING OF JOHN COLTRANE’S DEAR LORD

ORPHEUS IN NEW YORK

ANCESTRAL GROUND

AMERICANA

LIKE DOGWOOD BLOSSOMS’ BLAZING CROSS IN ATLANTA, GEORGIA, SPRING 1955

AMERICAN INFERNO

EVERYMAN

MEMENTO

THE BATHROOM

THE PYRAMID

THE PRESENT TENSE

ON LISTENING TO J. S. BACH

LONDON, SEPTEMBER 1979

ON THE DEATH OF MIMSIE, MY MAINE COON CAT

SEPIA LADY’S SONG

FIRST LOVE

LA TIME MACHINE

PAEAN

SONG OF THIS NATIVE SON

CRISTO REDENTOR

OVERTURE

EARLY ROSES

LIGHTING THE NIGHT

ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD

ENCOUNTER

EPITAPH

CLOCK-WATCHING

LODESTAR

AT SHAKESPEARE’S DEATHBED

LIKE LAZARUS

THE RAINY SEASON

JAZZ SUMMER

ELEGY FOR MY UNWRITTEN LINES

SOME POETS

ATHENS 1979

THIS SIXTY-FOUR-YEAR-OLD

EVENSONG FOR EARTH

CROSSINGS

ALL THINGS

AN OLD POET’S DREAM

A PARADOX

THE SCENT OF HONEYSUCKLE

THE CONQUERORS

TO A WOULD-BE PROPHET

SUNSET IN LA

BIRD LORE

DENIAL

DIVING IN

PRELUDE

OLD-TIMERS

ELEGY FOR JOE DELANEY, RUNNING BACK FOR THE KANSAS CITY CHIEFS

NOCTURNE

AMERICA IN THE DARK LA 1999

EVERYMAN II

EURYDICE

ANCIENT SLEEP

A DAY

THE SECOND COMING: CONFESSION

THE PRESENCE

FOUND

A GIRL AT A YWCA CHRISTMAS DANCE IN SAN ANTONIO IN 1952

REQUIEM FOR THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

ON JACOB LAWRENCE’S ‘LADDERS’

THE THANKSGIVERS

REVELATION

EPILOGUE

A LOVE SONG

A LIFETIME

FIRST AND LAST THINGS

EVENING

DAWN WATCH

ON SOME BLACK TEACHERS

MY MOTHER’S LAST REQUEST

LAST WORDS

ELLINGTON

ON ELLINGTONIA

TEACH US TO COUNT OUR DAYS

THE SUPPER THAT LASTS

A HOUSE OF CONSTELLATIONS

ON PENNING A POEM

A SWEET TOOTH

ELEGY FOR MY PATERNAL GRANDMOTHER

A SWORD

AT SIX YEARS OLD

SIDEREAL

HAMLET AND THE COSMOS

OUT OF THE TEXAS WOODS

LIKE GETHSEMANE

CANTICLE

ON THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED

THE DARK BEFORE CHRISTMAS

A MEMORY OF COUNTRY LIFE

THE GIRLS AT THE VIEUX CARRE COTILLIONS

AGNUS DEI

A SNAPSHOT OF LA BASILIQUE DU SACRÉ-COEUR, IN PARIS, FRANCE

ON GRACE AND EINSTEIN

RIDING ON THE A TRAIN

ALPHA AND OMEGA

NOTES TOWARD A FAMILY MEMOIR

THE BLUEBIRDS ON A COUNTRY ROAD

AT SUNSET IN SUMMER

THE LAST STATION

IN SOLITUDE, PHONE IN

ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE

THE CONQUERORS II

CONFESSION II

LONGING

A BOOK

PHOTOGRAPH ALBUM

CHRONOLOGY

To my parents, Ross Earl Phillips and Billie Marie Ware; my sister, Carolyn L. Goode; my grandparents, Jody Donley Phillips and Diora Spikes Phillips and Will R. Downey and Emma Louise; my aunt, Sadie Melton and her

husband, Frank Melton, and their daughter, Francine Melton.

This book is also dedicated to

Barbara Mounts

Gloria Lindsay-Hobbs, PhD

Carl Wilson

President Barack Obama

Leonard Taylor

Michael Schwerner,

James Chaney,

Andrew Goodman, Martyrs

Harry Victory Burns

William McNeil II

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Justice Thurgood Marshall

Rosa Parks

T. M. Alexander Jr.

T. M. Alexander Sr.

Jeanne Jackson and her brother, Maynard Jackson

Kim and Bill Downey

Red Garland, Jazz pianist

Madame Beatrix of Paris, France

Toni Morrison

Rev. Dr. Cecil L. Murray

Florence Anderson

Rev. Dr. S T Williams Jr.

Myra Hemmings

Burghardt Edwards Jr.

Dr. Eugene Fuller and his wife, Mae

Georgia Martin

Jacob Lawrence and his wife Gwendolyn Knight, painters

Pauline George

Cheryl R. Leigh

Benny Carter, jazz artist

Southern Black Churches, donors

Lady Norma Guillotte

Kenny Burrell, jazz guitarist

Teddy Edwards, jazz artist

Duke Ellington, composer

A. J. Delahoussaye III, aphorist

Barbara Wells, jazz singer

John Coltrane, jazz artist

Ernie Watts, jazz artist

Louis Armstrong, the greatest jazz artist

McCoy Tyner, jazz pianist

Edna Hopkins;

Mahalia Jackson, gospel singer

Nina Alexander and her brother Rev. Felix Dancy

Robert and Mildred Patton

Evelyn Hays

Jo Ann Weakley

Bob Claster

Opal White

Opal Thomas

Medgar Evers, civil rights hero

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to thank my sister Carolyn L. Goode and Rose Clements, my friend and publicist, for their support in making this book possible. In addition, I would like to extend my gratitude to the novelist Toni Morrison, for her encouragement.

Donley Phillips

After great pain, a formal feeling comes.

—Emily Dickinson

I had perished, had I not perished.

—Soren Kierkegaard

image001.jpg

Ms. Billie Marie Ware

Military