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African American jazz poet L.E. Scott was born in Cordele, Georgia (USA). Scott is constantly experimenting with the sounds and cadences of the spoken word of the Black Church, which underpins the essence of his work. He defines his work as jazz blues, a repetition of sound that he trusts much more than the creation of defined words. The sound is a human tongue drum licking the flesh, sticking deeply in your ears to suck the taste of your mind and leaving in your consciousness the agony of a stolen race from Africa. His work has been published in magazines such as Ebony, Essence, Obsidian II, Black World, The Black Scholar, Catalyst and Chelsea, and in newspapers such as The New York Times, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, and so on. He has also had 15 books of poetry and prose published, dealing with subjects ranging from his childhood in the American South of the 1950s to his experience in the Vietnam War and his involvement in the civil rights struggle in the 1960s and '70s.

Dreams coming in a crowded night
                                                   giving birth
voices waking in fear
sometimes it is alright
not wanting to have been
                                      born
funeral homes having open days
as if death can be made safe
no references
                     required

Dreams coming in a crowded night
                                                   giving birth
blood is everywhere
                              the american general says
do not keep the young soldiers
                                             in the desert too long
they will begin to question the act of killing
baghdad/washington
                               two wrongs
having unsafe fucking
                                 bush an illegitimate whore of group sex
fathered by
the u.s. supreme court
                                   history
is in so much danger
                               from blood suckers

Dreams coming in a crowded night
                                                   giving birth
sometimes we want to live
in a space of not knowing
                                     anything
light                 darkness                 is about you
ask the dream who brought it
                                           the answer says
it is never just from there
                                     to here
there are too many gods
                                    witches
                                    demons
                                    believers
                                    and shadows of humankind
                                    for holy water
to be dipped from one well
                                       go on
with what follows
                          after the womb

Dreams coming in a crowded night
                                                   giving birth
all in one season
                         so much disappears
in the dust of childhood footprints
it was a night of wakeful sleep
something calling out
                               for remembrance
in Sudan
             a grandmother names her grandchild
                                                                    Rebecca
at 14
        she is taken by the rebels
at 16
        she escapes
at 16
        she has killed
at 16
        she doesn't fear death
at 16
        she doesn't feel
at 16
        her womb is dead
where have all the children gone
                                                they have been eaten
by madmen preaching freedom
                                              drinking their milk

Dreams coming in a crowded night
                                                   giving birth
the midwife calling your name
                                            who will name
what this child does tomorrow
                                             the witch-doctor says
sometimes
                 life is at the mercy of events
sometimes
                 women don't uncross their legs with care
sometimes
                 men don't know the difference
sometimes
                 things burn in the mind
time flows
                into the next moment
with no regard for the last
                                       we
are not here
                   for that long
a grave without footprints around it is a lonely
                                                                   place
sometimes
                 life casts a spell

Dreams coming in a crowded night
                                                   giving birth
to your yesterdays
                            these are not strangers
sleeping in your mind
                               they have been fathered
where they lie

Dreams coming in a crowded night
undress