Creative works

I speak to you in code
to protect your eyes
dark eyes of a Sub-Saharan son.
Nappy hair soaked moister held cooled
by breezes burning a new tongue
communicate the need of warring.
Desires waning in frustration voice rage
strike out with bloodied hands a
hurt too unkind for death.
Wishing they would just die, spare them
this silly game of take and take.
Nothing is theirs but giving
what they do not own and a language
stale like bed sheets soiled by embalmed
wet dreams. Clean. Your new language
of love, war and virgin each time you speak it.

Knights, a screenplay

Knights is a timeless, magical story of miracles, of a teenage boy, abandoned at birth, who wants a family and to see his friends live better lives, and, after saving his community from drugs and despair, overcomes poverty and learns to forgive his mother who has struggled desperately against her guilt and the boy's arch enemy for her son's acceptance and her psychological freedom.

Knights is Camelot, set in an American inner city. The court is an asphalt playground. The gift is a basketball. The boy king is an abandoned child raised by the community. His struggle is against an evil priest to save his court. He wants a family and the best for his collection of street friends. By the end he saves his community from drugs and despair. His victory too is a reunion and his acceptance of a mother who when she was a teen turned him over to a sorcerer, a bag lady, who cursed the basketball and the court to assure the young boy's success in life.

Lost Brothas

A Poem For Tupac
and all of the young brothers on the front line.

Gifted warrior poet brother thug
niggaz shot you rapping friendly fire
burning hip hop rage unchecked desire
fighting a battle as old as Cain against your own,
as a gangster god looks down laughing
from casino dreams of a Contra crack fiending mother.
Living with a bastard's shame
craving your only father: a faceless phallic,
dissing giggling girl groupies
like a rebel with Panther pride
struggling w/ Huey and Hampton
for bartered rights conceived in jail a man slave.
Talented living art, jeweled nose and knuckles
pants sagging ghetto sex appeal slinging with your strut,
branded across your chest, tattooed in
your eyes cry out I'm a man! I'm a man!
w/ a blood bandanna wrapped around your head.
Lost trooper with a death wish.
Shouting help me.
Stop me before I kill another mother's child.
Hold me and let me follow. Love me,
leading you blind w/ keep your head up.
Protect me from my brother, God;
until I make your enemies my footstool.
Et tu, Brutus.
This battle ain't easy. But fight.
Fight! In death there is no pain,
so why wouldn't you wish to die?
"E'li, E'li la'ma sa-bach'tha-ni?
'Father, father why have you abandoned me.'"

© Cody Williams 9/24/96 in the heart of Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn.

Falls

September 3rds
and your eyes
I will never forget,
a smile, a dance then breakfast
on the 4th a walk, a talk
under a bridge along the river
on the 5th love and making love,
my dreams came true and
you took my heart away.
I was happier than I
had ever been with another person,
anyone less than God
wanting it to last, just last,
that love that gave me the 20th
like no other on earth alone
with you, Chinese take-out, birthday candles,
and a promise of forever
with "i love u" notes and chocolate kisses
that took my heart away.
Then October Sunday in the park
"Black & Blue" and you,
the sign that something was wrong,
a look not returned,
two hearts beating out of sync,
a snap, a pout.
You lost it, wanting
a "Silver Moon" to "Make it like it was."
We fought
that morning you naked in the door,
calling to me walking away
through Autumn colored leaves, into
November's separate Washington weekends,
"Can't we work it out?" answered by
"I think you should see other people,"
blew me away.
No love this week, or last.
I tried as hard as I could to hold on
as you slipped further and further away.
"I'm not in love, "
blew me away.
I tried harder and lost even more
putting all I had
in one kiss that I wanted to work
by December
I couldn't eat, couldn't sleep, couldn't love
anyone else, couldn't touch a soul
that was not yours.
I'm not crying anymore
seeing you with him
tore my heart out.
You stepped on it not trying.
Being only friends does
not seem so right after
September 3rd.

Night Dance

After loving, passion's tempo
beats through the night when in
a light sleep I awake to your
covering my naked body, protecting
me from the gentle breeze that
crosses you and fills my third
sense with a sweet assurance that
our embrace has gone unbroken.
We kiss and love again.
In the dark against your darkness
our hearts echo the rhythms of an
earlier pace as I rest in your wetness
beneath your grin.
We smile and hold again.
Under your soft caress my
worries die, my fears subside,
my soul is at ease
knowing your are pleased.
We talk and laugh and tease.
In our sleep as we twirl through
our night's dance I rest in knowing
that when morning comes you are
the first I'll see.
And you'll have a kiss,
a promise of love for me.

© by Cody Williams

Divorce

Poor Lamb slaughtered in vain, a dowry
no price for temper tantrum volcano
where a virgin-like princess wannabe is
sacrificed to social climbing aspirations.

Archaic patriarchal dreamer in a scissored
wedding jacket. Failed moratoriums on bitch
bastard barely contained genetic verbal bullying
trapped in a sacrament born not in Heaven, but Hell.

Stained band of silver and gold
scratched and tarnished by one
point three karats of unmet expectations
and divided marital property as a perfected
passive aggression rips beautiful
babies from a garden home
with less than Solomonic wisdom.
Courts decide visitation as shyster
lawyers cast lots over still unopened gifts.

Lonely in bed with angered touch,
frustrated glances not kissing as fantasies
take us there. Needing a long, short, any
conversation, with someone other than myself.
Is anyone else even there?
Is there another person there?
Is there a caring heart there?
Self-serving love's fool misunderstanding.

Burning rage bear false witness to defend
the indefensible. The abused abuser
taken away handcuffed until next time.

I do I don't I tried I could I won't I will not lie.
Leave.
I used to.
Love.
Can't take another day.

Lord, let us out of this nightmare, save for your two beautiful Life Gifts.

� Cody Williams 5/15/2003

The Author

A Detroit native, Cody is a graduate of the University of Michigan majoring in Journalism with studies in Business Administration and Organizational Behavior. He studied dramatic writing at New School University and the Frederick Douglass Creative Arts Center, both in New York City. His essays have been published in the New York Times and the NAACP�s Crisis magazine. The single father of two now lives in the wooded hills of Connecticut where he writes and develops training seminars.

For almost 20 years Cody has delivered professional development training & seminars in top Fortune 500 companies for thousands of employees. He has conducted sales, management, leadership, technical and personal development seminars across the US, Canada and in Europe.

Cody has helped to developed employees from Wall Street to Main Street mid America. He is credited with helping to advance the careers of west coast multi-millionaires, northeast insurance reps, investment bankers, trial judges, clerks, salespersons, financial advisers, managers and IT professionals.

Cody has developed professional training curriculum for the investment banking firm Goldman Sachs, IBM, Citicorp, CIGNA, Prudential, Compaq Computers, the Manhattan Civil Court, Marsh Inc., Mass Mutual and each of the Big Three Detroit based auto manufacturers.

Williams� poetry was published in an anthology of writings by University of Michigan students. While at Michigan, Williams founded and edited Black Perspectives, a student news quarterly. Williams has written material for the stage, screen and helped to edit a non-fiction book on blacks in film.