Category: From the Soul

by Ernie McCray

It wasn’t much more
than a week ago
when a presidential race
was burdening me with woe,
but ever since Biden,
who goes by Joe,
let Kamala Harris
step into the spotlight’s
bright glow,
I’ve gone loco
with giddiness,

by Ernie McCray

Joe Biden,
like the decent human being
he happens to be,
gave his race for the presidency
to his vice-president
and she, like an anchor sprinter
in a relay race,
has taken the baton
like a runner fully into
winning the race,
saying, without slowing her pace:

by Ernie McCray

I can’t help but wonder why
we’re making it possible
for Donald J. Trump
to become our president again
when he once failed at the job miserably,
nodding off in the oval office,
waiting for a ride, from time to time,
so, he wouldn’t miss his tee time.

by Ernie McCray

After the assassination attempt
a Trump disciple was heard to say
“I’m going to vote for him
more than ever now”
and to the question “Why?”
he replied
“You can’t stop us,”
spreading a little taste
of that divisive attitude
we’ve come to expect
from Trump’s MAGA tools
and, as he steps into
his new role as a fist-pumping martyr,

by Ernie McCray

So many voters
want Biden to drop out of the race
due to
how he imploded
in the first presidential debate,
showing his age,
they say,
and that’s easy to understand.

But the contest between him and Trump
still stands,

by Ernie McCray

Although I’m 86 years of age
I never
thought much about
what growing old
would actually be like,
that I would someday be in an
age group
that’s laughed at,
made fun of
in comedy routines|
and on late night TV shows
and on a sitcom or two.

by Ernie McCray

Jerry West’s passing
is very much on my mind.
The reason being he was a
true contemporary of mine
as we were born a month apart in 1938,
and our names, a couple of times,
were mentioned among
the top scorers
in the 1959-60
college basketball season,
both of us
basketball legends
at our respective universities
but my being in the spotlight in hoops
came to an abrupt end
while “Zeke from Cabin Creek”
took greatness to another level,
becoming the logo
that symbolizes the NBA.

by Ernie McCray

The other night
I saw a video
of a cheap shot
laid on Caitlin Clark
that was called a foul
but it seemed more like a mugging
to me,
way-way-way
unnecessary.

by Ernie McCray

Clicking through
a civil and human rights
kind of website
my eyes came across
a very familiar sight,
images of “Colored Only””
and “White Only”
water fountain signs
which immediately reminded me of
when my mother and I
would travel down below
the Mason and Dixon line

by Ernie McCray

Bill Walton.
The Big Redhead.
Dear friend.
Gone.

And I will miss him immensely
for the sheer joy
he brought to my life,
beginning when I first saw him
on a basketball court
in high school,
never having seen
such dominance
in a basketball game,

by Ernie McCray

Looking through a box
of my mother’s things
I came across
“The Negro,”
a magazine
my mother used to subscribe to
when I was a child,
this particular issue
dating back to
June, 1945
when I was a seven-year-old,
and it brings back memories
of me listening
to conversations
my mother and her friends
engaged in
about articles they had read,

by Ernie McCray

Just returned home after
spending a very nice couple of days
in Savannah, Georgia,
a town well thought of
by anyone I’ve ever known
who has been there
and after being there myself
I can sing its praises too,
the beauty of its live oak
and Spanish moss trees,
the busy energy in the ports
off the river
that carries its name,
cobbled streets that remind you of
times gone by,