Remember Paul Mooney

 

COMIC IMPERATIVES

(remembering Paul Mooney)

 

"like muscadine grapes growing wild on the vine

it jes-grew in/to us making us free men

and women"

 

Charlie R. Braxton, "Shot House Blues"

 

 

When engaged with judicious outrage

he pressed scuppernongs into laughter unashamed

and named the wrongs and rights in/to being

for a racy audience with comic imperatives

none of us would avoid.

 

Let time applaud his genius

to flay lies and leave the room

in a pile of blood-fleshed comedy

cluttering the anthropocene

with implacable imperatives of imagination.

 

Jerry W. Ward, Jr.                            5/20/2021 9:06:19 AM

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