Marcus Anderson is a poet/visual artist who was born in Kingston Jamaica. He has lived in the Capital Region since the age of 2, and has been involved in some form of the arts for as long as he can remember.

Marcus has been a featured reader at “Alchemy of the Word,” at the Lionheart Cafe, and Changing Spaces art gallery. He also doesn’t like to write bio’s about himeself... he really doesn’t... the poems are the bios.

The end.

LINKS

• Marcus Anderson on MySpace

POEMS

• Saxophone Love Jones
• Snow on the City
• Love on the C Train
• Absorbtion

SAXOPHONE LOVE JONES

listen...
u hear that?
..the blues,
sound sad to u?
SAXOPHONE LOVE JONES

if u can't hear the blues
i feel sad for u

i am the blues
american made hue
often misconstrued
candy yam jams soul food
the setter of moods
emotion in the nude

i got a jones
for the saxophone's moan
and the heartache
that becomes a beat break

staggering staccato
voice of vibrato
later for whiskey
i get tipsy off of pain
poured into pianos

ivory & ebony
keys
together making melodies
we may never see
in society
sistas sing my life
into mics
strummin' my name
...my pain
to maintain the flame
oblivious to monetary gain
soul became the main aim

don't call me sad
the blues is true
the blues is

Black
Life's
Undying
Essence in
Song

preserved
prolonged on wax
hopped the turnstile
rode the coltrane for a while
while u cried for me i smiled

not sad. just true
the blues is in the boondocks
the blues is on the block
i am the blues
and i'll excuse
if u cant read my hue

SNOW ON THE CITY

i'm snow on the city
when the sky shines at night
and everything seems alright
for the time being

time,
being the elusive lover
that she is, slipping
through my fingers
forever fleeing

and quiet as it's kept,
sometimes, behind closed doors
i cry... just to remind myself
that i'm a man

but being that i'm a man
i usually don't let
the saltwater see the light
of day... so i cry in ink
on napkins and loose-leaf

but i've grown sick

sick of writing eulogies
to deceased babies
swallowed by the streets
sick of writing
unanswered letters to "the man"
sick of rants
sick of trying to paint the sun
on this cloud-covered land
sick of tears
sick of bleeding blue
on pages

so today...
i'm just snow on the city
when the sky shines at night
and everything seems alright
for the time being

LOVE ON THE C TRAIN

baby, i'm a dreamer...
even in spite of the fact
that i don't sleep

maybe you won't weep
if i pass tonight
i'd like to think
that i'd be the crescent
on your lips
ear to ear beaming
like 7am sun fingers
lingering thru the blinds
giving birth to sight

and even though you'd miss the shell
you'd take comfort knowing that
i'd now dwell amongst the rest
of the universe's music
and you know i'd probably
feel like coltrane
in your veins
making brass cry
puffy cheeked
nappy headed
afro glow
warming the flowers
in the head of lady-day
who is finally free
of the venom in her veins

half of my heroes
were jazzy cats and birds
and 3 quarters of them ended
in tragedy or was it that
they began fresh in tragedy
shedding flesh and tragedy
to magically dance
through time long after
legs have rotted away
and horns no longer play

do you recall the day
when we first bumped into
one another on the C 'Trane
you dropped your grocery bag
full of dreams
and i bent down to help you
pick them up begging your forgiveness
and i was answered by that
crescent that
i wanted to be so badly
i remember...
i took that day
and hid it in a cowry shell
one that i wear in my locks
to keep close to
my thoughts

so if tomorrow i'm no more
know that i'll be much more
and take that shell
from my head
holding it to your ear
and you'll see me
you'll be me
and i you

and i'll be the Trane
in your veins

baby, i'm a dreamer
holdin' a love too supreme
to name

ABSORBTION

i've really begun to loathe
self-absorbed poetry
so i wrung out my sponge
praying that the last supper
of pity parties has been
flung from my lungs
i breathed deep and exhaled up
unaware that my pen
lurking behind me
mopping up the muck