project garden
planted seed
left to decay
in rotten soil
blood boils
fatherless truth
mother’s poisonous fruit
sold drugs on polo ground
concrete blocks
wall feels like thorns
face smash
search by cops
hustle or rap
couldn’t water the jump shot
Koofy died
Charles got knocked
resilience calls, black man
high school equivalency
educate
get masters
then PhD
gray hairs in beard
wisdom shows
like leaves grow
bark skin darker and stronger
the richest seeds
soaks pain longer
I would like to write poems about stuffed peppers
when I take a bite – the taste
brings up a past memory
about a perfect childhood that never happened
write about eating pizza
on a Friday night as a family
laugh about jokes never told—
I dream to hit a restart button on life
have my own little junky blue room
inside the hood
instead of sharing it with brothers
I would have stayed in high school
passed the SATs
apply to scholarships
get college opportunities
for a poor black boy
from Polo Ground Towers
get to college and double major
in poetry and business finance
diversify my investment portfolios
take more risks in my twenties
complete the study abroad application
spend two months in another country
on the other side of the world
learn a second language
speak Spanish in Spain
eliminate the D on my transcript
spent my time reading more poetry books
by black authors like Terrence Hayes
Claudia Rankine
essays by James Baldwin
study more Maya Angelou and Toni Morrison
improve my use of language
master forms and metaphors
maybe I would write prose
in my free time I would climb a mountain
where the air is thin and touches the sky
a place high enough
to converse with God
about why black people suffer —
stick my hands in soil
feel the earth between my fingers
to never chop down crack rock
with these hands and distribute
to my people like food for fast money
be more patient
with black women I dated
water them like flowers in spring
encourage them to grow
be gentle with their petals
but ruin only knows ruin
in God’s garden
I want to write about dragons blowing fire
my mother a dragon
my childhood burnt by fire
black ash blows in the wind
to nothingness —
I want to tell my father
he wasn’t a father
my mother
she wasn’t a mom
but better than my father
forgive my brother Jason
when I had nowhere to go
he left me in the project hallway
never pulled a gun on my brother James
ready to shoot in the living room
that day
I want to write poems about love
my love for my grandma
her smooth bronze skin from the sun
how her hug feels like the warm ocean
from St. Thomas
I want to paint portraits of living black people
instead of poems about friends dying
I wish my brain didn’t absorb
every traumatic black experience
like a sponge
slavery
poverty
addiction
police
prison
murder
rape
death
my surface smiles calm
deep thoughts of a broken home
my brain a hurricane
waves roar
trigger typhoon anxiety
I can’t breathe
I am fragile
all dreams shattered
in hands cuffs
when blood spills
Jaray Hunt is a young, black, Harlem poet from Polo Ground Towers. Harlem has been the very essence and foundation for all his creativity and education. Jaray received his MFA at The City College of New York (CCNY), also he was the co-recipient of The Jerome Lowell DeJur Prize in Poetry (2021). CCNY is where he discovered his voice and built a bridge between the world he grew up in and the new life he created for himself. His work is hybrid that includes photography and poetry, reflecting the living conditions of black people in America, and especially black men. Poetry and photography is the safe space that helps him visualize and contextualize beauty and cruelty of life.
