Writings And Other Manifestations of My Mind

Sitting here, thinking up a poem
about menfolk's disregard for womenfolk
I recall La Chiesa Gran Madre di Dio
Considering its signification relative to our
learned fear of those 
who conceived, gestated, and birthed us
into the world, I say its name to you
in an imaginary conversation
In questo momento io recordo
molte cose meraviglioso: 
the brown of your eyes and hair
the jazzy interaction of our give and take
and the wonder of friendship
that coursed through me head to toe
each time we traveled to Piossasco
to visit Rosello and Luca
Sitting here this April midmorning Sunday
thinking and sipping from my cup of coffee
I am moving with the feeling and whatnot
copyright © 2026 Trifoglio

I partnered Sandra Fortune-Green in the first two of three rounds of competitive dancing. She is a native of Washington, D. C. and was a matriculant at Howard University in 1973.

Les Deux: choreographed by Billie Wilson. Sandra’s contemporary entry in the Competition.

This sketch of Sandra and I was published in one of two brochures printed during the competition. We sat for the artist in a room located off the lobby of the Bolshoi Theater.

When you sing soul anthems, pop songs, 
Jazz standards, Dorsey and gospel-infused Puccini 
To an arethafied completion
Each offering rates among the best 
Of the best sounds I've ever heard uttered
By a journey agent of the vocalizing kind
The spiritual nurturance of your sacred/secular tonality 
Touches me up, rectifies the imbalance between 
My ego and my true self; and moving on up a little higher
I say "YES!" with everything I feel in me
Knowing for sure that each self-dividing 
Go up, go down, go here, go there, go yes, go no
Was an overture to the unfolding of my destiny
And having these two aspects in balance again
I acknowledge that moving and moving with the spirit
Is the surest way to navigate life's episodes
Of learning, unlearning, relearning, 
And forgiving oneself
While the blood still runs warm in my veins    
I won't forget your sweeter than sweet notes
Which are heard with the heart, not the ears
Copyright © 2024 Trifoglio

Ciao Lawrence!
You understood the meaning of Inter Alia.
Thanks for the feedback one more time, and
      thanks for the example of your courage:—
      still open to the sinister currents of these days,
      seeking a farther star, embracing the unknown,
      becoming more you as you approach
      the twilight passage back to where we all came from
      when we first got here.
Your Benin visage/presence, 
      like that of il padrone or a trickster,
      resides on the altar of my heart.
Someday we'll meet again and resume poetic exchanges
      in the key of brotherhood,
      offering cryptic attitude galore evermore.
Ciao fratellino!
Copyright © 2024 Trifoglio

A review of Bob McNeil’s big little book

Bob, thank you for this collection of essays, illustrations, poems, and short stories. They are a timely antidote to the widespread lack of compassion, here, there, and everywhere, in these United States of America. I am afraid the nightmare to which Stevie Wonder alluded in his 1970 recording titled “Never Had a Dream Come True”, has become real life. Since the COVID-19 epidemic and the January 6, 2021 uprising in the District of Columbia, the American democratic promise has gone undeniably and indisputably belly-up.

Compassion is in need of compassion today. The exercise of laws in the Nation that once safeguarded our human rights—and protected us from the malfeasance of overzealous governmental officials—are routinely flouted in the twenty-fifth year of the Twenty-first Century. The calamities that every citizen faces here and now, threaten to turn the world upside down in a way that defies comprehension. The haves (rich, powerful individuals) are valorized, and their wealth is highly praised. The have nots (poor and less fortunate individuals) are criminalized. They are treated like alien undesirables, although their lot in this collapsing American Empire is not entirely their own fault. They are not fully responsible for their misfortune, and the rest of we the people are likewise not responsible for what is happening to us, as a result of the Nation’s decline. Today, wealth is a social and political requirement; might is right generally speaking; and that much sought after mean green still is God Almighty and the national religion. Love, brotherhood, sisterhood, and the fragility and preciousness of human life seemingly are irrelevant ideals in the New Millennium.

The beauty and power of your little big book inspires hope in me. It is good medicine; one that alleviates the particular spiritual darkness and psychological pain produced by these hardhearted and uncertain present times. Each essay, illustration, poem, and short story brings to mind the vision that defined the optimistic, breakaway years of our youth: those gone days when advocating for peace, love, and harmony across the Nation was the zeitgeist, during the 60s and 70s. Each skillfully written offering is a testament of love; a paean to the ideals of brotherhood, sisterhood, the emotionally responsive heart, and to breathing in and breathing out. Compositions On Compassion And Other Emotions is a welcomed verbal and graphic expression that indicates you are one of the diehard standard bearers of the love/compassion persuasion.

Copyright © 2025 Trifoglio

His name is my name
an Old English word 
for
the Shamrock symbol of Ireland
which crimson variety grows in southeastern Georgia

While traveling
in places and spaces sign-posted by my father
his father and his father
before him
and duly marked 
by every male person in the sweep of human history
I walked receptively into
those hereditary regions of thought and genderized behavior
with ears perked and eyes wide open
Copyright © 2024 Trifoglio

Everything must change: 
the young become the old, mysteries do unfold
No system, no ideology
no nation
no human being, and no thing lasts forever 
Change and change and change is the essence of life
Without change there is no life.
How do I know?
 I look inside myself and see
Copyright © 2024 Trifoglio

Il mio fratellino, dove stai?
Non ti posso vedere...eccoti!                                                   
Ti mi ha dato tanta gioia
Voglio gridare il tuo nome
Si tradire il mio segreto
Copyright © 2024 Trifoglio

Yes, Trayvon Martin was convicted for his own murder
No, he did not have a jury of his peers
Yes, there is a pattern of murdering 
       African descendant citizens since the day before yesterday
Racism in these United States is not a thing of the past:
      it is the mindset that murdered Trayvon 
      for not keeping his rightful place
      in Stanford, Florida on February 26, 2012
Yes, in this insane country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty 
      melanin positive lives don't matter except for their capacity
      as bones and muscles of production 
Thank goodness for Malcolm X and his successor
      Shahid King Bolsen— witnesses
      to what happened and is happening 
 
Copyright © 2024 Trifoglio