City of Asylum reading on Nov. 15th 2026

 I will be reading for the International Poetry Forum in Pittsburgh on November 15th, 2026 at the City of Asylum bookstore. Below is a revision of an old poem set in Pgh. that I plan to read. 

FIREFLIES IN A JAR

My best friend Bruce

is allergic to bees.

He say if he get stung

he might swell up 

like a vacuum cleaner bag.

Then his Mama

will have to stab him—

with a peppy pen,

and he might miss school

for three whole days.

The Encyclopedias

my Mama got me for my birthday 

from the Salvation Army store

say if a bee stings you, they die.

The dictionary say “salvation”

starts with an “S”,

but the dictionary say

“encyclopedia”

don’t have no ”S”.

Bruce say bees & grasshoppers

be dancing, sometimes 

me & him run from bees

and catch grasshoppers.

If you pull they legs off,

the legs keep jumping,

but if you step on one

the shell goes scrunch.

Guess what else we saw?

A Praying Mantis!

Bruce’s mama say 

God made the Praying Mantis

to eat grasshoppers

and to remind us 

what to do before we eat.

Encyclopedia say mantises

are related to roaches,

but I don’t see it.

One time after it rained

I saw a silverfish

flickering in the laundry room,

it kept making the letter “S”

and had more legs

than my encyclopedia got pages.

I don’t know why 

they’re called silverfish,

Encyclopedia say 

they ain’t silver

and ain’t fish.

Sometimes at night

I be reading both books

under the covers

with a flashlight,

sometimes I even sneak

into the kitchen to see 

what roaches be doing

in the dark.

I’m only seven

and I need glasses

but I'm the best roach killer 

in our whole projects.

Encyclopedia say 

it’s the nature of roaches 

to carry disease,

but I ain't never seen a sick roach.

Bruce say you can tell 

a St. Clair Village roach,

cuz they don't run 

when you cut on the lights.

Encyclopedia say in some countries 

people eat insects,

I wonder if they eat roaches?

Sometimes me & Bruce go

to the laundry room together, 

the spiders down there

are tiny & yellow,

except the Daddy Long-Legs.

Encyclopedia say they ain't spiders

but LaTricia Taylor still screams 

if you put one on her.

Bruce say he was by hisself

and saw two Black Widows 

in the laundry room

jumping like Double Dutch.

I don't believe him,

his mama wouldn't leave him 

in the laundry room by hisself.

When it's night enough,

God turns on the street lights

and then the fireflies.

They both be flickering,

but not like a silverfish.

Last week we caught some fireflies

in a Mason jar

and Bruce gave them

to this girl Terri he likes.

They all died,

so she washed'em out

and filled it up

with red Kool Aid.

I told him he shoulda

gave her a caterpillar,

Encyclopedia say 

they turn into butterflies

and what girl don’t like butterflies?

Bruce say there's Nature 

in the woods behind our projects.

Them bee stings must

be hurting his brain,

because everybody knows 

Nature is in 

Encyclopedias.

OLDIE BUT GOODY

 A CRY OF IMPROVISATION AT 33 ⅓ RPM

(for Eardrum)

First hold your lover's hand—

the needle.

Then lower it slowly

to tongue

a curve

            of the record's ear.

Maybe cultivate 

           what sweet beats

seem to bloom in the valley

of the groove

Next laugh at folks

who try to make requests

Because what Chef would let

the diners determine

Which entrees 

make the menu? 

Young boys

think it's about

            quick flicks of the wrist

            or transforming scratches

But could it be about 

            knowing the beat

            of every rhyme

like a mama knows 

her child's cries?

Or filling the page

            of the empty floor

with a cursive language

of dance?

Suppose nobody cares 

           how fast you scratch 

Cuz it ain’t 

            about soothing

any itch,

But about how many hairstyles

are still standing

At the end of the night?

Cabo Verde na Copa!

SEASCAPE WITH VESSEL

(for Cizè)

Because tonight—

even before you wrinkle

your nose and mouth 

with the sound of Sodade—
what craft in your tone
invokes ten toes of melancholy

on the Atlantic’s azure carpet?
What rasp in your Mindelo dialect

insists that if 

my name is Dias-Porter,

then surely I was born

on the 11th island—

the diaspora.
From this distance

I sip a liquid paradox

as the single malt 

of your amber timbre
spirals ever higher—

a passarinho’s blue tale

passing the echo 

of an old proverb—

“Si txuba ka bem, morri di fomi; 

si txuba bem, morri fogadu."
I know why

you plucked Frutu Proibido
to ripen in the night

with the ease of a girl
pulling seaweed from her hair.
But I don’t know how

you charted a Destino Negro
from a path between stars

with the skill of a boy
dribbling a ball of rolled up socks.
The wailing harpoon

of your contralto 

could also be aimed

at your sons working docks 

in Rotterdam,
or your daughters 

waiting on tables 

in Brockton’s taverns.
Is the hope 

of a rising hull

what kept your eyes squinting

towards the horizon?

Yes, fate can be prickly

as the arms of a pear cactus

and I recall how you burned 

through your gift

like Pico Grande’s molten lava 

through a new carton of Marlboros,

but for us whose only birthright
was a Gerbera daisy

in a dusty wind,
you meant

both morabeza 

& despidida.
Perhaps that’s why

if there is no rain
syllables of your song
settle into our soil,
or if there is no grain
kernels of your choruses
can sprout in our mouths.
Why your voice seems to circle 

into the shell of a turtle 

yearning to return us

to those ten rocks
whose ruggedness

wrinkles the aqua silk
of our sea.