A long, dark year
filled with distance and disease,
murder and marching,
prejudice and protest.
Tag Archives: poem
The Tourney by Patricia Hope and Keaton Lake Hope
If people concentrated on the really
important things in life, there’d be a
shortage of fishing poles.
—Doug Larson
He prepares his tackle box
by adding the buzz bait
and crankbait—his favorites.
He has caught hundreds of bass
with both lures: smallmouth,
largemouth, and spotted bass;
white and black crappie, too—
he landed a three-pounder once.
Each time he casts, he hopes
for a smallmouth—they fight
the hardest, but the fisherman
is confident he can win the battle.
After eleven hours on the water,
he comes ashore, hopefully with five
keepers. And if he’s lucky, a top-five
win before he throws them back
so they can swim, and he can fish,
another day.
Image credit: Impressionism image of a fish (staticflickr)
Conversation with Cousin by Wesley Sims
Cousin Mack from upstate Maine
snapped his syllables clean
and crisp like green beans
dropped in my grandmother’s lap.
Jimmy Joe from Arkansas
plopped his words like handfuls
of new Irish potatoes
tossed into a bucket so we
missed the sound of some.
And cousin Marlow from Georgia
extruded his, pushed them out
like sausage, long fluid flow
with soft, squishy pauses
and periods held and strung out
so they seemed like dashes.
Image credit: Just A Pinch Recipe Club superimposed with Microsoft WordArt
Boardwalk by Michelle Young
I had heard The Drifters’ song,
played Monopoly—knew
the expensive property was paired
with Park Place, that rent
for houses and hotels could
bankrupt a person.
Five Children on a Boat by John C. Mannone
Five Children on a Boat
off Dauphin Island, Alabama
They say five is a figure of grace
and these children are a testimony
to that. Boisterous laughter fills
the air, drowns the squawks of sea
gulls that some of them imitate:
the swoop and hover, the taunt and
impatience for food thrown off
the stern by people in the bay-bound
boat in Alabama waters. They follow
us from shore wanting more bread,
fresh or stale, it doesn’t matter, they
are happy and unashamed to beg
food from us. We humor them,
mimicking their cries, which often
sound more like laughter.
We by Mark Anderson
When your people are my people then
I will grieve, moan, and wail through the night
when they are jailed, oppressed, abused, or killed.
The pain will not be your pain, but our pain
on that day, when your people are my people.
When the voice of your people is muted
by the voice of the mighty majority so loud
that small voices are only whispers.
Then your voice will become my voice
on that day, when your people are my people.
Día Profética by Kelly Hanwright
At morning, the sky is blood
pouring from the cup of Aries
over brown gingerbread apartments.
A girl exits and hits the stairs to smoke
all day, trata pensar, ¿Qué puedo hacer
para detener la sangre que viene?
Time and again, the world shatters
like an egg, y nunca una solución.
At evening, she sinks with the sun
into quiet oblivion.
_____________________________
Editor’s Translation Notes:
¬—the title: Prophetic Day
—trata pensar, ¿Qué puedo hacer/ para detener la sangre que viene?
[she tries to think, What can I do/to stop the blood that’s coming?]
—y nunca una solución
[and never a solution]
Image credit: abstract background (Commericals-Production), House design (pngtree) and young lady in silhouette (getdrawings.com)
The Many _______ of Inocencio Rodriguez by Iliana Rocha
Rosary
Sleep’s body resting like a Chevy 4×4 slammed into a tree. Yeah, I lived, it says, as a million drunk ballerinas. As an arabesque upside down & backward. A papalote fractured. A windowsill made of broken tibias.
His ziggurat terraced by aggression, stone scored into steps like Isabel’s hipbones. Nothing from him has ever escaped, not so much a microfiche wheeze or lawnmower’s razor-thin snore, not his carnival of women, buck tooth, ferris-wheeled, first kiss, & hiss. Light without radiance, a circle deviant under construction.
Out of respect, birds drip the sky like stale coffee, dissimulate the parking lot where some automobiles stand unshelled. I shut my eyes the way I slam a door—puncture sleep, letting all this air out bored of its solitary room. His face is half-covered by blanket. He doesn’t dream.
Continue reading The Many _______ of Inocencio Rodriguez by Iliana Rocha
Watching the Game – by Devan Burton
America for me
is having black conversations
with white friends.
When asked
why million dollar football players
kneel
I thought of
Tamir,
Michael,
and the Minnesota gentleman
who had as much right to carry a gun
as he did to drive.
Jealousy – by Jazmine LeBlanc
As I hold you in my arms
Your gentle tiny undulating body
Wrapped in comfort
Soothed
I pray that you recognize
That your melanin I gave you is a gift and not a curse
So young yet society has already lied to you
Because they are jealous
Oh so jealous of your many shades of brown
ever changing hues that match the seasons
Jealous of the versatility of your curls and texture
That on a hot summer day your rows of corn keep you cool
Jealous of your curves that make any designer grab their sketch book
your full figure the inspiration for fall fashion
Jealous of your cooking, the deep ingrained recipes that let loose from your soul
Spices and seasonings that keep you warm in winter
Jealous of your ageless skin, those genes that you will thank me for later
When you look like you are still in the spring of life
I pray that you learn young to love yourself
So that you may live a full life embracing the gifts from your mother
Image credit: Girl of color by Alexandr Ivanov (Pixabay)