Weekly Poem: 'Storm'

**By Kwame Dawes** Kingston settles on your skin, the grit of wood-fire and exhaust on your body; you know sin, the pleasure of untrammeled lust. Kingston is green in November, so much rain; the water creeps to the surface. I remember the taste of june plum seeds. Most of my friends are dying-- the thing is they know it, and the others are busy nursing the dying: God's cruel edits. So many saints frighten me and I grow silent, disease has a name: HIV/AIDS. We are caught up in a breeze that grows to a growl crossing the water, dragging the belly of the sea--a howl shattering the black evening. I stand in the storm, let its battering break me; I know now every form of death; no more mystery here. The eye passes mutely; and while the earth vomits and shingles cartwheel around me. I doubt it all; the conspiracy of death. I will live to see the wasting of my flesh; my last breath will be in a calm season. They will know my sins, every betrayal; those I killed, those whose voices begin whisper to me until tears come, until I pray to slip away like night, a frail man limping towards morning light.   "Kwame Dawes":http://www.pbs.org/newshour/indepth_coverage/entertainment/poetry/profiles/poet_dawes.html is director of the "South Carolina Poetry Initiative":http://www.sc.edu/poetry/index.shtml and the "University of South Carolina Arts Institute":http://artsinstitute.sc.edu/index.shtml, where he also teaches as distinguished poet in residence. He also blogs for the "Poetry Foundation":http://www.poetryfoundation.org/ and serves as programming director for the "Calabash International Literary Festival":http://www.calabashfestival.org, which takes place each May in Jamaica. Recently, "Dawes teamed up with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting":http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/july-dec08/jamaica_10-07.html to create a multimedia Web site called "'HOPE: Living and Loving with HIV in Jamaica.'":http://www.livehopelove.com/ The interactive site pairs his poetry with music, essays and video from people living with the disease and their caretakers.