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D. ALEXANDER HOLIDAY
 D. Alexander Holiday attended Bernard M.Baruch College and The State University of New
York at Albany, receiving both a Bachelor and a Master of Arts degree from Albany University.
He is the recipient of the Spellman Award from Albany University. He has published in various
publications, among them The Amherst Society, A&U Magazine and more recently Arabesques
Review (an international anthology and website). He has four chap books of poetry, Notes to
Porshé, Tales From This Black Heart, The Voices in My Head (which is a collaboration with
fifteen area poets) and I Use To Fall Down. He has published essays on ERIC, the research
database. He has read on radio, for Crystal Brown's "Reading for the Blind" program, has been
on radio for Kym Fleming's RPI program, and has read and performed on Public Television.
D. Alexander Holiday also volunteers and moderates a creative writing workshop for inmates
at a state maximum security facility in upstate New York. His is also a local liaison for the
GBS/CIDP Foundation International. He is the author of three books of poetry and prose;
Letters to Osama, I Use To Fall Down, and All The Killers Gathered. His memoir, In The Care
Of Strangers: The Autobiography Of A Foster Child, is published by Xlibris.
His work can also be found at a variety of websites such as www.Helium.com and
www.speakwithoutinterruption.com.
POEMS
IN THE CARE OF STRANGERS
1. Malice
With malice toward one
you gave a fifth child away,
Mother,
to a stranger
to neglect
and the police
to rescue
and he is sent
to Dorothy’s red house
and she will display
such malice to Dorothy’s child,
almost killing him
before he has
to be rescued
in St. Albans
2. Hypocrisy
That next stranger was like Edith Bunker
in Jamaica Queens, and she was nice
to your two boys, Dorothy,
but not too nice,
not enough to keep them together
when one got sick
and the other misbehaved
and a young life was shattered,
more damage done
than any paralysis could ever do
3. Pride
You used your daughter, Dorothy,
to find your boy in braces and a wheelchair
in a Bayside, Queens, hospital
trying to get better
so that you would be proud of him
and bring him home to you
even though you were
already planning to give him away
to strangers forever
and what you made that girl child do,
that act of meanness,
no mother should ever be proud
of doing that
and when he got up and walked again
only strangers were there to silently applaud
4. Hatred and Murder
Another strange woman
in Brooklyn told your boy
to his face, “I took you in
because you’re crippled
and your own mother didn’t want you,”
and there was some truth in that,
he was crippled
and his mother was proving
to not want him
even though you visited with him
in secrecy, having already signed him away
to this or other strangers
and he came to hate
this stranger and you
for doing all these mean things to him
for no reason other than
you do this to children
and she did things to children
she was mean and nasty
and he began to think of killing,
her or himself in Queens Village
or Far Rockaway
and although he ran away physically from her,
he hasn’t mastered how to mentally run away
5. Greed and Envy
The final set of strangers
were in Laurelton, Queens, Dorothy,
treating your boy like the help,
envious of his drive for education,
greedy for what the state said he was worth
and so he left your other boy behind
and went off to pursue goals he felt unreachable,
scarred and alone but determined
He’s standing,
Dorothy,
see him there,
unwanted, unloved, and unadopted,
but standing
you tried to destroy
this child too, like the others,
getting worse and worse with each child,
eight in all
but he bested you
and all those strangers too
paralyzed and terribly alone
and with anger and education
he bested you, Dorothy,
your abandoned boy
I bested you
HOW'S YOUR INVASION GOING
Messrs Bush, Blair, Powell, and Rumsfeld
how’s your invasion going
on the heels of the assassination
of Martin King, a black man who stood for peace,
and shot down for asking America
to hold to it’s principles of equality and fairness,
how’s your invasion of an Arab nation going
How’s your invasion going
messrs Bush, Blair, Powell and Rumsfeld,
how’s the destruction of the oldest civilization,
belonging to black people, going, how’s your
campaign to erase history and conquer oil going
How’s your invasion going,
where’s the weapons of mass destruction Mr. Bush,
or have you found all the al-Qaeda warriors
hiding in the country Mr. Powell, or have you been able
to replace the old regime with one to your liking Mr. Blair,
have you freed any of the Iraqi people, Mr. Rumsfeld
what about the ones you murdered, the women,
the children, the elderly too frail to get out of the
way of your smart bombs
how have your baby killers performed
are all of the people freer, now
Mr. Powell, how’s it feel to be a token
in this administration’s mongering to
destroy affirmative action with the one hand, in America,
while conquering colored nations with the other
How’s your invasion going
How’s your invasion going,
messrs Bush and Blair,
from Camp David where you
count up and divide the booty,
chuckling like drunken children
as you divvy up the spoils of victory
How’s your invasion going,
messrs Bush, Blair, Powell, and Rumsfeld,
this occupation cloaked as an invasion
IT IS A WONDER
for Speaker Pelosi
Today,
I am going to write
your poem,
because I saw you
on Today,
looking dignified
and speaking the words
that many in the world
need to hear
but only a few have
dared you to say,
speaking words of peace
to nations deemed evil
by this president and other
old broken-down evil men
How dare you speak peace
when the men love their wars
and death and carnage and destruction,
loving the killing
and hating the peacemonger,
King Bush wanting his coffers
filled to overflowing
with enough ransom to
make his wars last forever,
summoning you to kneel before
him and do his bidding
or be beheaded
It is a wonder
that upon your return
to the kingdom
you were not met by knights,
chained and molested,
dragged off to a dungeon
beneath the castle
made to sign a document
of treason to the realm
and then
beaten to death
WHEN I TALKED TO YOU LAST
For Jasan
When I talked to you last
there were things left unsaid
things you were holding back from saying
things you didn’t want me to hear
so rather than say these things
you terminate the conversation
you stay aloof, mysterious
just some more of men behaving badly
leaving things unsaid
but saying other things to end potential
friendships or love interests
no intimacies here, no getting close
no sharing of secrets
secret dreams
secret ambitions
secret loses
secret loves
secret illnesses
this is why men go to war
because they will not talk to one another
they will not tell their secrets to each other
they will not expose hearts and souls
and talk of their pain
their wants
their needs
Is the secret so painful, so terrible, so precious
that no one must ever have it
that you would rather die, maim, kill, destroy
push away, abandon another than let them share in the secret
the telling must be better than the not telling
a better medicine than
shame
knives
guns
death
GHOSTS
I am new here, granddad,
and I left my daughter and your son
behind
Tell me what was done to you
or what you did
I let my anger at my mother,
for what she did to my father,
your son, envelop and consume
me, pushing me to craziness and
rage and I wouldn't tell anyone,
keeping it all in until it all
exploded on that highway
I saw what your mother did
to your father, my son, and
she was like so many other
women in his life, even his
mother, your grandmother,
always hurting him and
treating him with such malice,
trying to break and destroy him,
to manipulate him into systems
or graves, but his stubborness
always saved him. Maybe I
gave him that, maybe I didn't.
I wasn't there in the physical
sense, to sheild him from the
meanness of women, but I
was able to protect him
Tell me how you did that,
granddaddy, tell me how you
protected him
It was me and some of the others
that was holding him down from
getting up and destroying your
mother all those years ago,
what you saw your mother do
and what you would not talk
about to anyone, but the rage
and madness leaked out in
your behavior and attitude
She attacked him, made
him leave me forever and
I loved him, grandpa, I did,
but she lied about him and
would not apologize for her
brutality and kept me away
from him, my own father.
She killed me, killed my spirit
and my dreams, filled my
head and heart with such poison
and then acted as if she had
nothing to do with it, that she
was not to blame, that it was
all his fault that I turned out
the way I did in the end
I saw the whole thing, He
sees all things and lets us
see it all, too. So, I know
she is not innocent and He
will judge her, in time, that is
not for us to do, even in death,
all we do here is watch and
protect when we can
How do I protect my father
and the daughter I left behind
Just watch. Just watch
IF I WERE AN ARTIST
09/28/2007
If I were an artist,
you know,
the kind that paints,
uses oils on canvas,
creates beautiful mosaics,
I would have painted a picture
of all of you yesterday
in the family court building
all of you together
like in a rogue’s gallery
all of you plotters and schemers
having joined ranks
in an allegiance against me
while a child is at risk,
living with a suspected murderer
and con artist, a suspected murderess
of the very child’s mother
and having run a con
against the legal father,
a foreign national, too young
and too gullible to know
anything about evil women’s wiles
Yes, I would have painted a picture
of all of you criminals
sitting against that wall
as if you were all in a lineup
just missing a name and numbered plate
against your chests,
each of you looking sullen and dull
and it would have to take
a lot of colorful paints to
capture the essence of each of you,
the evil and mean mother and grandmother
to the child dead and the child at risk,
what color depicts evilness and meanness best,
black, I guess, yes a black women
dressed in black, with black pupils
and to her left a sister
that would have to be painted dysfunctionally,
but what color represents dysfunction
and to the sister’s left is the husband,
poor man, he would have to be painted invisible,
trapped between wickedness to his right
and deranged madness to his left,
the immature foreign dissident
to his immediate left, painted in dull colors
to capture his expressions about the proceedings
and the danger that he has been placed in
by the criminal to his immediate left,
a woman suspected of murder
and certainly one that has conned
him of hundreds of dollars
(remember the stroller incident, dummy),
and she is painted with flaming red
Medusa-like hair because of her power
to turn the others to stone before her,
except me, because I’ve seen her so many
times before, in the dull ignorant faces
of foster parents and ex-lovers and others on the street
and she is not as powerful as the others
would have me believe, because she is too stupid,
literally ignorant, and yet she has corrupted
some of the educated in the picture
to bend to her demands, how does she do that
and why do the others follow like
dimwitted sheep...,?
perhaps that is how
they should all be painted
like dull-eyed sheep for slaughter
and her as a yellow-handed shepherd
with a gun and knife in each hand
and I would have to put a book under a tree
in the painting
But, I am not an artist,
most certainly not one that uses canvas
and brushes and pails of paint
to depict my characters….
RIOT!
Steve Almasi
is running through
the halls of Coxsackie Correctional Facility
screaming at the top of his lungs
that Mr. Holiday is causing a riot
with the few poems that Mr. Holiday
was called upon to perform
by the inmates
for President’s Day
and for Black History Month
Steve Almasi
the weasel librarian state bureaucrat
believes in his demented warped brain
that the poems are somehow inflammatory
and that there will be a riot
by the inmates
because they all stood up
and clapped for Mr. Holiday
and his performance of only three poems,
two from his own published book
and one from total recall known as rote
and he, Mr. Holiday, had been invited
to participate at this Black History event
because others know he is a poet
and that he volunteers to conduct
a poetry workshop each Monday evening
In Steve Almasi’s feeble and destructive mind
the very fact that the population enjoyed
the performance and showed it with an ovation
is enough cause for him to determine
that a riot is in the planning
and so he decides to unceremoniously
escort this guest specifically to the front gate
and kick his black ass out of the building
on President’s Day during Black History Month
Steve Almasi had an Orwellian moment
during Black History Month
on that Monday morning and before
the afternoon performance was to commence
in which he believed in his meltdown
that all guests are equal,
but some guests
are more equal than others
or maybe it was that
all blacks are equal
but some blacks
are more equal than others
or perhaps he saw it as
all volunteers are equal
but some volunteers
are more equal than others
but however his sickness saw it
Steve Almasi has been seen
running through the bleak gray
halls of Coxsackie Correctional
yelling and screaming incoherently
about riots and uprisings
while the guards are seen to
be getting their guns and
riot squads ready
and the inmates stand
quietly along a wall
shaking their heads
in wonderment
and other inmates
remained in their cells
quietly shaking their heads
Steve Almasi
left the facility
that evening and returned
to his dull boring trailer
and went to sleep on a cot
and dreamed of riots
and in his dream he was killed
by his own hand
BLACK HISTORY MONTH BLUES PART III
INCIDENT AT COXSACKIE
It is President’s Day
in this building today
and I have been in here,
along with Dr. Clark,
since seven thirty
in the morning
We are both invited guests
by the population
and Dr. Clark will read
his essay, some of the guys
will read and then I have
been invited to participate
by reading a poem or two
I will get a standing ovation
from the audience
but one person is not too
happy with my performance
“You were only a guest, Alex.
You were not allowed to give a speech.”
Steve Almasi, a white supervisor
for this poetry workshop volunteer
for nearly two years (in May),
a volunteer who has not missed a day
due to sickness or laziness, a volunteer
who has not had any incidents from
the population (other than banning
or kicking out the phony so-called
“writers”), a volunteer who has shown
nothing but respect to the population,
the guards and this white supervisor
is going to get chastised by this
white motherfucker on President’s Day
in the month of February,
during another Black History Month
Steve Almasi will make his remark
right after the morning event
has come to an end
and morning session attendees
have to return to their cells for morning count
and while Dr. Clark is taking a piss
and the look in his eye
shows indicators of
a full and complete meltdown
Steve Almasi, the bureaucratic loser
will escort the doctor and the volunteer
back to the library at the end of the
very classrooms that I, the volunteer,
use most Monday evenings
to conduct a poetry workshop
with members of the population
The doctor and the volunteer
will take a table and talk for
a little over an hour
during which time
this pathetic state bureaucrat
will bring over his poster board
sizes of Dr. King’s, I Have A Dream speech
(complete with a photo of the late reverend)
alongside another famous black individual
and this is the closest that this individual
gets to “celebrating” black history
and when the doctor and the volunteer
glance at it quickly and return to
their discussion, Steve Almasi
takes it away
Steve Almasi will return to
gather the black men for
lunch in the gymnasium
before the afternoon performances
and he is walking the two men down
the long corridor from the library,
past the classrooms, past the bathrooms
and they are almost through the gate
at the end of the long corridor
when Steve Almasi will turn to
the volunteer, the poetry workshop volunteer
and state, “Alex, I need you to go back,”
and the volunteer will remark, “Go back
to the library?” and Steve Almasi,
in the presence of the doctor, a guard or two,
will state, “No, I mean I want you to go home.
you were not supposed to give a speech,
you were only supposed to be a guest”
The volunteer attempts to point out
to this northern cracker that he
was asked to participate by members
of the population, one of those very people
was someone from the workshop,
that he was being asked to read a poem or two
because he conducts a poetry workshop
and so the guys, liking what he does
in the workshop, were asking him to
participate at their event for President’s Day
in the month of February,
the Black History Month
and the volunteer had brought this to
the supervisor’s attention near the
end of January and through early February
There is more said, more words exchanged,
and the look in Steve Almasi’s eyes are weird
but the volunteer has been here before
oh, boy, here we go again,
and one of the words that this demented
state bureaucrat loser uses is, “riot”
He actually said, “…, you could have caused a riot
this morning and I am not going to allow that again….
If a standing ovation can be interpreted as
a “riot” in this place, then heaven help us all
The volunteer performed an approved poem,
directly from his published book
(the second one of three total books),
When Black People Go Dancing,
was called back to the podium
to help fill in for time left over,
performed from rote Dudley Randall’s poem,
Booker T. and W.E.B., received a standing ovation
and was called back a third time
and read again directly from his book,
Il Walad, which is just a poem
about starving children in Sudan and Somalia
and from this brief performance
this evil motherfucking bureaucratic loser
interprets riotous inflammatory text?
So, rather than let the volunteer perform
at the afternoon session, Steve Almasi
escorts both the doctor and the volunteer
to the front gate and
ceremoniously kicks the volunteer out
of Coxsackie Correctional Facility
on President’s Day
in the month of February
during Black History Month
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