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A Giant Lie Flipbook PDF
A collection of Poetry
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The Series of Rodgers Bounty Books [RBB] Copyright © September 2017 poems selected by Bonwell “Kadyankena” Rodgers. All rights reserved. No part of this publication m ay be re prod uced or transm itted in any form or by any means, electronical or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any imformation storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the owner. Requests for permission should be mailed to: [email protected] Phone: 0881813953, 0881831435
A Giant Lie
“Stanley Meets Mutesa” by David Rubadiri Such a time of it they had; The heat of the day The chill of the night And the mosquitoes that followed. Such was the time and They bound for a kingdom. The thin weary line of carries With tattered dirty rags to cover their backs; The battered bulky chests That kept on falling off their shaven heads. Their tempers high and hot The sun fierce and scorching With it rose their spirits With its fall their hopes As each day sweated their bodies dry and Flies clung in clumps on their sweat scented backs. Such was the march And the hot season just breaking. Each day a weary pony dropped Left for the vultures on the plains; Each afternoon a human skeleton collapsed, But the march trudged on Its Khaki leader in front He the spirit that inspired He the light of hope. Then came the afternoon of a hungry march, A hot and hungry march it was; The Nile and the Nyanza Lay like two twins Azure across the green country side. The march leapt on chaunting Like young gazelles to a water hole. Heart beat faster Loads felt lighter As the cool water lapt their sore feet. 1
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No more the dread of hungry hyenas But only tales of valour when At Mutesa’s court fires are lit. No more the burning heat of the day But song, laughter and dance. The village looks on behind banana groves, Children peer behind reed fences. Such was the welcome No singing women to chaunt a welcome Or drums to greet the white ambassador; Only a few silent nods from aged faces And one rumbling drum roll To summon Mutesa’s court to parley For the country was not sure. The gate of needs is flung open, There is silence But only a moment’s silenceA silence of assessment. The tall black king steps forward, He towers over the thin bearded white man, Then grabbing his lean white hand Manages to whisper “Mtu Mweupe Karibu” white man you are welcome. The gate of polished reed closes behind them And the West is let in.
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“How Long Has this Been Going On?” by George Gershwin As a tot, when I trotted in little velvet panties I was kissed by my sisters, my cousins, and my aunties Sad to tell, it was hell, an inferno worse than Dante’s So my dear I swore, “Never, never more!” On my list, I insisted that kissing must be crossed out Now, I find I was blind, and old lady, how I lost out!
I could cry salty tears; Where have I been all these years? Little wow, tell me now: How long has this been going on? There were chills up my spine And some thrills I can't define Listen, sweet, I repeat: How long has this been going on? Oh, I feel that I could melt; Into Heaven I'm hurled! I know how Columbus felt Finding another world Kiss me once, then once more What a dunce I was before What a break! For Heaven's sake! How long has this been going on? Yes, I could cry salty tears; Where have I been all these years? Listen, you, tell me do How long has this been going on? What a kick What a buzz Boy, you click as no one does Hear me sweet, I repeat How long has this been going on? 3
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Dear, when in your arms I creep That divine rendezvous Don't wake me, if I'm asleep Let me dream that it's true! Kiss me twice, then once more That makes thrice, let's make it four! What a break! For Heaven's sake! How long has this been going on? How long has this... been going ... on?
“Once Upon a Time,” by C. Uche Onuora New pilgrim on stilled horizon Scours a virulent threshold through a prism Wasted lands tell a sordid tale; a life of its own With twists and turns—a fire-lit tail… Invocations were death-throes galore As baldies with hook beaks circled patiently “One last time!” was the bellow yielding a sob “For my fathers and my children’s children…” Beyond the chants and the heaving pants Beyond even the memories gone-by with recants “We who walked with thunder and supped with gods!” “We who bestrode colossally – wielders of fiery word swords!” Bones of old pilgrims were littered in plain sight They with plain beaks, dared to salivate intently When Canines cracked canines encored in vain plight Once upon a time, everyone knew their place… We swill the caustic froth of fermented truths We yield to the relentless pace of fleeting youth Beyond the Crier’s bell clang – the dreary herald Our dreams yield sharply to our reality’s pangs… Wasted lands tell of wasted lives As new old pilgrims retreat in peace New Prodigal of soil returns with fleece 4
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“Telephone Conversation,” by Wole Soyinka The price seemed reasonable, location Indifferent. The landlady swore she lived Off premises. Nothing remained But self-confession. ‘Madam’, I warned, 'I hate a wasted journey—I am African.' Silence. Silenced transmission of pressurized good-breeding. Voice, when it came, Lipstick coated, long gold-rolled Cigarette-holder pipped. Caught I was, foully. ‘HOW DARK?’...I had not misheard.... ‘ARE YOU LIGHT OR VERY DARK?’ Button B. Button A. Stench Of rancid breath of public hide-and-speak. Red booth. Red pillar-box. Red double-tiered Omnibus squelching tar. It was real! Shamed By ill-mannered silence, surrender Pushed dumbfoundment to beg simplification. Considerate she was, varying the emphasis‘ARE YOU DARK? OR VERY LIGHT’ Revelation came 'You mean- like plain or milk chocolate?' Her accent was clinical, crushing in its light Impersonality. Rapidly, wave-length adjusted I chose. ‘West African sepia’ and as afterthought. ‘Down in my passport.’ Silence for spectroscopic Flight of fancy, till truthfulness chaged her accent Hard on the mouthpiece ‘WHAT'S THAT?’ conceding ‘DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT IS.’ ‘Like brunette.’ ‘THAT'S DARK, ISN'T IT?’ 'Not altogether. Facially, I am brunette, but madam you should see the rest of me. Palm of my hand, soles of my feet. Are a peroxide blonde. Friction, causedFoolishly madam—by sitting down, has turned My bottom raven black—One moment madam! - sensing Her receiver rearing on the thunderclap About my ears—‘Madam,’ I pleaded, ‘wouldn't you rather See for yourself ?’
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“Evidence,” by Julie Collar When the men came to speak to my father I was sent out into the garden. I could hear the cold hissing in the cracks of the concrete, could feel its boldness, how it longed to slip between my edges. Hands buzzing like wasps, I practised my skipping, counted steps, the lash of the rope on my calves only right, only proper. I looked out of my eyes at the crumble-bricked wall, the white rose blooming still. Then I rose up in the air and looked down on myself. As if I were the Angel in the painting, hovering. As if I were the Virgin crouched in a heap in the corner. I saw the straight white scar of my parting, saw my bunches bounce, knees cold-mottled above white socks. The fear a series of yellow wavy lines zigging from the dog-tooth check of my duffle coat. The smell of it nettles, the smell of it cat’s piss. My father was in that room
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alone with those men with only my mother to protect him. I did the only thing I could do – I skipped, my back to the French windows, my arms raised out like wings.
“The Body In the Library,” by Jane Yeh It always starts with a dead girl somewhere in the picture: Lukewarm and pretty, in an organdy crinoline, One arm sticking out from under a credenza. There is a foreigner with dark hair and a secret Who says Eet ees not me! when he is questioned; A shady dressmaker who’s missing a finger; A doctor struck off for fiddling with his patients; Another girl, in a bedroom (the second victim), Dolling herself up in French scent and mascara. Pretty lips and curls smile back at her from the mirror. She has a date with the killer. She just doesn’t know it. The detective follows the clues. He is a metaphor Like the girl in the library, like the guilty pistol, Like the dressmaker’s friend with a fatal knack For murdering women, like the end of a story Or its aftermath: the part that doesn’t get written, Four years later, when the case has been closed And the bodies have been forgotten— how the dead We have failed to keep remembering are alone.
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“Searching For An Affordable Crossbow,” by Frank Ortega The women in the Umbrian mountain village gather around the hood of the parked blue Alfa-Romeo touching it reverently with the palms of their hands whispering “Roma”, “Roma” at the heat of the engine. They stand on medieval cobblestones marvelling at such things as head, distance and speed. The older women, the ones in black, think only of time. “When I Think About Myself,” by Maya Angelou When I think about myself, I almost laugh myself to death, My life has been one great big joke, A dance that's walked A song that's spoke, I laugh so hard I almost choke When I think about myself. Sixty years in these folks' world The child I works for calls me girl I say 'Yes ma'am' for working's sake. Too proud to bend Too poor to break, I laugh until my stomach ache, When I think about myself. My folks can make me split my side, I laughed so hard I nearly died, The tales they tell, sound just like lying, They grow the fruit, But eat the rind, I laugh until I start to crying, When I think about my folks. 8
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“Caged Bird,” by Maya Angelou The free bird leaps on the back of the wind and floats downstream till the current ends and dips his wings in the orange sun rays and dares to claim the sky. But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage can seldom see through his bars of rage his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing. The caged bird sings with fearful trill of the things unknown but longed for still and his tune is heard on the distant hill for the caged bird sings of freedom The free bird thinks of another breeze and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn and he names the sky his own. But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing The caged bird sings with a fearful trill of things unknown but longed for still and his tune is heard on the distant hill for the caged bird sings of freedom. 9
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No Return by Kim Chi-ha I shall not return having once stepped into this place. If I sleep, it is the sleep which cuts deeply into the flesh— That sleep, that white room, that bottomless vertigo. The sound of high leather boots in the night, The place where they come and go on the ceiling, Invisible faces, hands, gestures, That room where voices and laughter arise That white room, that bottomless vertigo. Opening my eyes With the pain of a fingernail being pulled out, Crying, my body being torn apart, My wizened soul alone remaining. Can I not depart? In vain, Comrades who died in vain, Fallen into humiliating sleep, Fallen into sleep in vain. In the past Sometimes faintly smiling, sometimes crying out Those wonderful friends. Ah, I shall not return, not return.
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“Nothing But Good...” by Sarah White I will not speak ill of Jack Flick. I will rarely look at the scar he made on my cheek one summer at the lake. I won't speak ill of Jack whose freckles and gangly legs are gone. So is the drained face I saw when he saw what he'd done with a sharp rock nonchalantly skipped. I will speak well, for it was somewhat sweet to lie on the dock while Jack and his friends bent down and wiped my face with a sandy towel. I will speak well of them, for most are gone and the wound proved small. I will speak well, for the rock missed my eye. I can hardly find the scar. Jack went into the air corps, fought in one of the wars, retired, and lived less than a year before his tender heart gave out. I will speak well of Jack. “Porcupine,” by Kelly Madigan You think we are the pointed argument, the man drunk at the party showing off his gun collection, the bed of nettles. What we really are is hidden from you: girl weeping in the closet among her stepfather's boots; tuft of rabbit fur caught in barbed wire; body of the baby in the landfill; boy with the shy mouth playing his guitar at the picnic table, out in the dirt yard. We slide into this world benign and pliable, quills pressed down smooth over back and tail. Only one hour here stiffens the barbs into thousands of quick retorts. Everything this well-guarded remembers being soft once. 11
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“Alone,” by Maya Angelou Lying, thinking Last night How to find my soul a home Where water is not thirsty And bread loaf is not stone I came up with one thing And I don't believe I'm wrong That nobody, But nobody Can make it out here alone. Alone, all alone Nobody, but nobody Can make it out here alone. There are some millionaires With money they can't use Their wives run round like banshees Their children sing the blues They've got expensive doctors To cure their hearts of stone. But nobody No, nobody Can make it out here alone. Alone, all alone Nobody, but nobody Can make it out here alone. Now if you listen closely I'll tell you what I know Storm clouds are gathering The wind is gonna blow The race of man is suffering And I can hear the moan, 'Cause nobody, But nobody
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“Two Traveling Together,” By Hiromi Itō Translated by Jeffrey Angles I came to encounter a coyote I left all sorts of things behind You couldn’t get on a plane unless you traveled light Back then there were weight restrictions for planes, they don’t have them any longer, American bodies have no restrictions, they’ve become so big that there aren’t restrictions on the weight of bodies or luggage any more, but back then, I can’t even count how many times I picked up my bags and stepped on the scale, no matter how many times I weighed myself, I still wasn’t the least bit lighter Not knowing what else to do, I took out my books Then I took out my clothes Then I went to the bathroom and defecated Then I took out more clothes Then I threw up Then I took out more books Then I stripped off all my clothes, held my bag, and stood on the scale, but I wasn’t the least bit lighter Know what I mean? That’s what it means to go on a trip That’s what it means to leave the place where you live Trips and then more trips There are things you need to carry with you to survive Not knowing what else to do, I called my husband, filed for divorce, talked to my children and told them Mommy wouldn’t be home for a while, in other words, it was only after I abandoned my relationships, my attachments, and even my language that I was light enough to get on the plane, when I arrived, all I had was a few changes of clothes, some cash, my passport, my visa waiver, my credit cards, and an international driver’s license In California, the sky was blue, there was nothing but seashore, wild land, and housing developments, it was hazy and hard to see in the evenings, it was as if everything was immersed in mother’s milk, my toes got cold, I bought some socks, but after wearing them three days, the cheap things were ready to fall apart, I looked long and hard at them, feeling like a coyote (Yeah, I tell people I came alone But that is not entirely true I was always thinking about the coyote The two of us traveling together) I saw dead raccoons 13
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I saw dead skunks I smelled them too Someone I met the first day said to me The whole place smells like skunk, must be a dead one somewhere It was an unfamiliar scent, but now I know it well The whole place smells like skunk, must be a dead one somewhere I know to say that to people now In any case, I didn’t see Any coyotes (Two traveling together) Someone in the street Told me to get the hell out of here Why had I come? I couldn’t find what I wanted, I had come so far but, get the hell out, this isn’t the place where the coyotes are, they’re farther away, in deeper places, where there is nothing, where there is much more emptiness So I headed east From the western edge of the continent to the east The interstates With odd numbers run north and south While even numbers run east and west Those in the 500s are the bypasses for I-5 (north-south) Those in the 800s are the bypasses for I-8 (east-west) I took I-5 south to I-580 I went further south to I-8 then went east East, east, east And even further east In Arizona, I took I-17 At Flagstaff, I took US Route 89 I dashed into a roadside motel, slept, and woke And started driving again The morning light shone brilliantly Each time I stopped to fill up with gas, I bought some brownies, each individually wrapped, I tore off the wrappers with one hand and ate them as I drove, the ridiculously sweet lumps stuck to the roof of my mouth, when I stopped in front of a motel that night, my fingers didn’t want to leave the steering wheel, at the registration desk, the words I needed to say in English didn’t rise to my lips, even though I knew them all too well (Two traveling together) There was a woman standing at the side of the road, I called out to her in broken English, asking her what was the matter, she answered in what was also broken 14
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English Would you mind taking me to the nearest gas station? She sat in the passenger’s seat I’m Navajo Where are you from? From California, I answered No, that’s not what I meant What tribe are you from? she asked (Two traveling together) From Kayenta I took US Route 163 toward Monument Valley I had heard that coyotes lived there long ago That it’s an amazing place, the moon rises, the sun sets I imagined it would be like seeing the ocean But when I got there, it wasn’t like the ocean at all Rocks soared into the air Rocks, rocks, even more rocks Red rocks In the dust I watched the sun set over them By the time I got back to Route 163, the sun had sunk deep beyond the horizon, the only thing I could see was the road in front of me, I drove on looking for a place to sleep, but I didn’t see a thing, there wasn’t anything to see, air rushed through my cracked window, letting out a long, thin, high-pitched whistle Hii-iuu-uuuuu Hii-iuu-uuuuu Like a reed flute My thin, hard window was slightly open, the wind rushed in but couldn’t escape Hii-iuuu Uuu-uuuuu Uuu-hiiuuuuu (Two of us heard it) I drove a long way before spying a large motel, I saw the vacancy sign as I approached, I thought I’d have to drive for hours and hours before finding a place to sleep, I thought I wouldn’t stop, that I’d drive all night without stopping, but the place I found was part of a chain you see in every city, the bed was big and deep, and there was lots of hot water in the tub (Two of us were there) The next morning The car was completely filthy The whole thing was covered with bright red dirt and sand 15
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The windshield was covered with the splattered bodies of countless insects No one knew I had slept there, nor that I was leaving, nor which direction I was headed, no one knew It was a day that invited Death along the roadside I hadn’t even driven for five minutes before I saw it — A single, dead coyote Lying on its back, legs in the air (It was both me and My travel companion, too)
“Pulchritude Is Passing,” by Emuobome Jemikalajah Beauty sat magnificent on a mount That is your rosy cheeks Beauty you wore like a garland around your neck, Majestic like Leonardo’s masterpiece. Your eyes belittle the stars, shining forth Like emeralds in lucid waters. Your smile cause the sun to hide in shame, And makes young Adams gasp for breath. Your lips are cupid’s bow; Shooting arrows through men’s hearts. So say, daughter of eve! Have you your satisfaction yet? Have not your ego been fed By hungry orbs that turn and stare? Or by commotion in market places? O comely daughter of eve! Do take heed, be not conceited. For roses in bloom today do wither tomorrow. For beauty is a gift ephemeral, As time on age’s wings Takes beauty away.
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“Touched By An Angel,” by Maya Angelou We, unaccustomed to courage exiles from delight live coiled in shells of loneliness until love leaves its high holy temple and comes into our sight to liberate us into life. Love arrives and in its train come ecstasies old memories of pleasure ancient histories of pain. Yet if we are bold, love strikes away the chains of fear from our souls. We are weaned from our timidity In the flush of love's light we dare be brave And suddenly we see that love costs all we are and will ever be. Yet it is only love which sets us free. “I’m Nobody! Who Are You?” by Emily Dickinson I'm nobody! Who are you? Are you nobody, too? Then there's a pair of us—don't tell! They'd advertise—you know! How dreary to be somebody! How public like a frog To tell one's name the livelong day To an admiring bog!
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“Doing Dishes,” by Lois Parker Edstrom She said she had always wanted to do it; throw away dirty dishes rather than wash them and she did, after breakfast, toss the blue, green, orange, and yellow Fiestaware into the trash. Transferring from New York to Germany with her husband and children, the movers coming that day, she chucked the dishes in among the banana peels, egg shells, coffee grounds, bits of bacon, paper towels and called it good. What she could not know is that a young mother in that very town received a much needed set of tableware when her husband returned home from work that evening. Bright dishes that showed up chipped and grubby like old friends with egg on their faces. “Snow in August,” by Catherine Stearns With a flick of her wrist, she broke the chicken's neck and set it on her lap where my sister's head had just been. Over her bare knees dangled waxy yellow bird feet, while the white feathers she began to pluck fell all around us. 18
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“Milkweed,” by Bradford Tice I tell myself softly, this is how love begins— the air alive with something inconceivable, seeds of every imaginable possibility floating across the wet grasses, under the thin arms of ferns. It drifts like snow or old ash, settling on the dust of the roadways as you and I descend into thickets, flanked by the fragrance of honeysuckle and white primrose. I recall how my grandmother imagined these wanderers were living beings, some tiny phylum yet to be classified as life. She would say they reminded her of maidens decked in white dresses, waltzing through air. Even after I showed her the pods from which they sprang, blossoming like tiny spiders, she refused to believe. Now, standing beside you in the crowded autumn haze, I watch them flock, emerge from brittle stalks, bursting upon the world as young lovers do—trysting in the tall grasses, resting fingers lightly in tousled hair. Listen, and you can hear them whisper in the rushes, gazing out at us, wondering— what lives are these? “Gravestones,” by Asia Calcagno Good gracious. You again. And it is always you asking to borrow cigarettes and time. We are exhaling on the curb. Mouths heating with a debate. Yellow town lights bleed desperate wings against our faces. Testimonies of a good man tonight. The “Jesus Camp” story, stoicism and smoke smiles. My mother shot a man. The ember pinches your fingertips with a desperate kiss. Does that make her a bad woman? We all die. Does it matter? The extinguished filters are expensively buried. We woke with our names on gravestones today. 19
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“Wings,” by John Godfrey I come off a little bit ventilated but you must realize the material world is constantly crumbling under my eyes It's too much for the novel tongue I speak the glitter of pavement in my brainstem, you must accommodate the polytonal grimace of the set lips becoming a smile, and you must accept the thin section of arm advancing across your peripheries to grip you in pleasure, measuring feeling in your restraint We have lived through the most furious little chunk of history for this? that we must unburden ourselves on night roof air, presuming the poise and perks of champ pigeon teams planing the evening winds until, signaled from the roof with a flag we become American birds “Do Other Writers Feel It Too?” by Agnes Aineah Writing isn’t a simple task An art, it puts souls to an arduous dais In search of a standing ovation Or to draw strings from people’s hearts It calls for a spineless heart and a skin as firm As the hardest thing ever Whether or not you feel it too I would not say that I know. A heart as soft as a babe’s buttocks And a skin bereft of mortal touch Who ever heard of that? But a writer burning midnight oil, penning thoughts Yet can’t wager a torn shirt In the face of, one, favor of his piece Or, two, a malodorous heap of hogwash In a reader’s judgment. 20
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“A State Of Mind Death,” by Tamara Booi Troubles and defeat, Lightning and thunder Failures and deceit, Crying and Anger I was dead; long before they pronounced so Death came in the night The consciousness of hollowness That became the constant host That led to my undeclared death I was here before, I thought I knew the road. I’m familiar with the melody, but the lyrics are so new. I’m only hearing the base, the leading vocals are so soft. I was dead; long before they pronounced so Everything is occurring, but nothing is happening. Life is going on, but nothing is moving on. People are carrying on, but I’m still holding on. The years are passing by, but my ages is standing still. I was dead; long before they pronounced so A state of mind death, overwhelming my inner engine Causing it to produce, An overpowering state of fear Lingering at the edge of my success Silently screaming for it to stop but the feeling is so strong Stronger that the desire to win.
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“Harlem Hopscotch,” by Maya Angelou One foot down, then hop! It's hot. Good things for the ones that's got. Another jump, now to the left. Everybody for hisself. In the air, now both feet down. Since you black, don't stick around. Food is gone, the rent is due, Curse and cry and then jump two. All the people out of work, Hold for three, then twist and jerk. Cross the line, they count you out. That's what hopping's all about. Both feet flat, the game is done. They think I lost. I think I won. “Jordan,” by Abigail George Mum’s blue dress is mine now. As if her anxiety, her manna was not enough. Her golden cell has become my prison. Life is like that. Very much a waterfall once you turn your back on it. Making drawings of chairs and toys. From childhood. It starts with a botanical memory. We are not trees. We move on. If you were brought up in church. Her lungs are a signal. Lost to her children. She is the flying sun. Moonlight and Valentino. I think she wants to take a lover. Here comes Jordan. Here comes the River Jordan. Here comes Moses. Here comes Jonah and the Whale. Her flesh is still beautiful. The blue dress when she wears it is still elegant. The words that come out of her mouth are in parrot fashion. There is a waterfall in the pleats of the dress. She sings gospel out of tune. She is an inglorious mother. She goes to spiritual meetings. She speaks to mediums.
Is she in need of a psychiatrist? A loving husband? Children who adore her? On the other hand, a god who will listen to her.
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“Songs of Sorrow,” by Kofi Awoonor I. Dzogbese Lisa has treated me thus It has led me among the sharps of the forest Returning is not possible And going forward is a great difficulty The affairs of this world are like the chameleon feces Into which I have stepped When I clean it cannot go. I am on the world's extreme corner, I am not sitting in the row with the eminent But those who are lucky Sit in the middle and forget I am on the world's extreme corner I can only go beyond and forget. My people, I have been somewhere If I turn here, the rain beats me If I turn there the sun burns me The firewood of this world Is for only those who can take heart That is why not all can gather it. The world is not good for anybody But you are so happy with your fate; Alas! The travelers are back All covered with debt.
II. Something has happened to me The things so great that I cannot weep; I have no sons to fire the gun when I die And no daughters to wail when I close my mouth I have wandered on the wilderness The great wilderness men call life The rain has beaten me, And the sharp stumps cut as keen as knives I shall go beyond and rest. I have no kin and no brother, Death has made war upon our house; 23
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And Kpeti's great household is no more, Only the broken fence stands; And those who dared not look in his face Have come out as men. How well their pride is with them. Let those gone before take note They have treated their offspring badly. What is the wailing for? Somebody is dead. Agosu himself Alas! A snake has bitten me My right arm is broken, And the tree on which I lean is fallen. Agosi if you go tell them, Tell Nyidevu, Kpeti, and Kove That they have done us evil; Tell them their house is falling And the trees in the fence Have been eaten by termites; That the martels curse them. Ask them why they idle there While we suffer, and eat sand. And the crow and the vulture Hover always above our broken fences And strangers walk over our portion.
“In the Middle of Dinner,” by Chris Abani My mother put down her knife and fork, pulled her wedding ring from its groove, placing it contemplatively on her middle finger. So natural was the move, so tender, I almost didn’t notice. Five years, she said, five years, once a week, I wrote a letter to your father. And waited until time was like ash on my tongue. Not one letter back, not a single note. She sighed, smiling, the weight gone. This prime rib is really tender, isn’t it? she asked. 24
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“The Retired Psychiatrist,” by Abigail George He remembers hearing the words we are not couples That fight all the time. He looks at his wife who is not speaking to him. We are who we are. And thinks to himself that the sea is tired. Perhaps as forlorn as he is. He’s a man in the garden. He imagines The sun covering the dark water. Cold to the touch. He wonders what The right language Of love is for winter guests. How To make peace With his wife. He wants to embrace Her. Take her In his arms as if She was a girl Again. Brush her Hair out of her Face with his granadilla Hands. Forget That he is in the Autumn of his Years. He wants To forget that he Used to do this for a living. He wants to know if his unhappy marriage is on The verge of Cracking up. He wants to know If she’s finally going to leave him. 25
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“Human Family,” by Maya Angelou I note the obvious differences in the human family. Some of us are serious, some thrive on comedy. Some declare their lives are lived as true profundity, and others claim they really live the real reality. The variety of our skin tones can confuse, bemuse, delight, brown and pink and beige and purple, tan and blue and white. I've sailed upon the seven seas and stopped in every land, I've seen the wonders of the world not yet one common man. I know ten thousand women called Jane and Mary Jane, but I've not seen any two who really were the same. Mirror twins are different although their features jibe, and lovers think quite different thoughts while lying side by side. We love and lose in China, we weep on England's moors, and laugh and moan in Guinea, and thrive on Spanish shores. We seek success in Finland, are born and die in Maine. In minor ways we differ, in major we're the same. 26
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I note the obvious differences between each sort and type, but we are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike. We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike. We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike.
“War Widow,” by Chris Abani The telephone never rings. Still you pick it up, smile into the static, the breath of those you’ve loved; long dead. The leaf you pick from the fall rises and dips away with every ridge. Fingers stiff from time, you trace. Staring off into a distance limned by cataracts and other collected debris, you have forgotten none of the long-ago joy of an ice-cream truck and its summer song. Between the paving stones; between tea, a cup, and the sound of you pouring; between the time you woke that morning and the time when the letter came, a tired sorrow: like an old flagellant able only to tease with a weak sting. Riding the elevator all day, floor after floor after floor, each stop some small victory whittled from the hard stone of death, you smile. They used to write epics about moments like this.
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“Among the Tranquil Graves,” by Aaron Barth-Martinson You walk among the tranquil graves To take away a piece of their peace, Swirling cheap but colorful wine, Sipping it thoughtfully quaint quite quietly. I know you have songs sleeping deep in your heart, When you were young you wrote beautiful poems; Though I never read one, your steadfast gaze on your goals Says to me, just to me, soon you will slow down. To envelop what you alone can engrave, To be present when you steal by those stone faces, To remove the golden stillness from their houses, To paint windows in the clouds with their silver etchings; View the rain, before it pours—while it is stored. Witness thunder prior to the boom, Can you see the soundless scene within that room? Where everything you’ve done comes back to prove The sequences of this world are not making you. Tell me you have not written a word since your neglected youth, But laugh with a smile stained red with wine, when you learn the truth. You are writing as you walk among the tranquil graves. “Do Not Remember Me,” by Ndukwu Joseph Omoh Do not remember me Listen instead to the tree Nothing can be truer still Look at that malnourished face, with chin on the absent window sill Looking at a vacant sky, on the lookout for tomorrow Take your hands to your face, smell the dust and the ill You have been undone by this journey too Do not remember me I have no balsam or tea
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“A Bird In the Hand,” by H. Rivers A sound was heard at my garden door A feathered smudge found upon it There she lay in frightened trembling dismay A giant knelt ... yet still towering above her He reached out and touched her pounding heart Then cupped her warmth in his hand She stayed awhile until she could smile At the kindly human mystery This love they shared is uncommonly rare She knew she could be freed Before she flew she whispered a song she knew into the gentle giant’s beard:
“I cannot make you happy You're a wounded Bird like me? be Free... you must find the strength to Fly”… “A Bird in your hand is worth two in the bush? Come fly away with me”...
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“Your Slender Neck,” by Abigail George I make the telephone Call even though I don’t really want to. I search for cool words, the right language. I’m searching For you but You’re difficult To find. You’re Not on any map And every road Is covered in darkness I imagine you (the golden breakthrough of you) The golden light Of you that is Only found in a museum. You’re a woman Now. No longer a girl. Of all of you That is so necessary to me for me To live and think of While I live and Work in another city. This is what I want to say. You’re so beautiful. Blood a rock face. Twin flesh making me giddy You make me weak. There’s a music school Inside my head. I think of you sitting Down or washing The dishes. Eating A simple meal Never understanding How much I love
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You. How much I need you in my life. Your voice is Tender and sweet on the other end of the line. Your flame is bright. “In Camp Victoria,” by Ndukwu Joseph Omoh In Victoria we sing hymns We chase flies from our bread and the crusty remains of our fish We do not know how long we will be here The short, balding man is giving numbers: you 1, you 2, you 3… I am 49 I try to say my name, but he shushes me up like a rude interruption Shakes me off like something irritating that has clung to his ankle ‘Ehn-ehn-ehn. Not now, just wear your number tag on your neck,’ he says impatiently, pushing his palm again and again in my face in gestures that say: STOP! KEEP IT TO YOURSELF! He will always know me as 49 I did not know that I would lose even my name in this place But I must be grateful for charities After all, my city is on fire, big fires that tomorrow may never quench
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“Alone In My Grief Stricken Sadness,” by Abigail George Shy daughter, I want her to say I never wanted you To have abandonment issues. I never wanted you To talk about our relationship To a psychotherapist Or write about how I Never wanted you. All I want her to say is three words; I love you. Not even I love you most of all Or I love you best. Just Three simple words; I love you. And two more words You’re mine; and five More words; I have Always wanted you, and three more for The darkness of this open road called life; You were wanted. “To Margaret W—” by Charles Lamb Margaret, in happy hour Christen'd from that humble flower Which we a daisy call! May thy pretty name-sake be In all things a type of thee, And image thee in all. Like it you show a modest face, An unpretending native grace;— The tulip, and the pink, The china and the damask rose, And every flaunting flower that blows, In the comparing shrink. Of lowly fields you think no scorn; Yet gayest gardens would adorn, And grace, wherever set. 32
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Home-seated in your lonely bower, Or wedded—a transplanted flower— I bless you, Margaret!
“Crawling to My Death,” by Levi Cheruo Cheptora It’s been a JUBILEE of eternal waiting, Trudging up the thorny hills, Preparing for the CRAWLING COMPETITION FOR THE CRIPPLED, To commemorate our hard-worn independence, With emptiness in my stomach, A six-month pregnant wife and ten yawning children, Urging, psyching me up, “Don’t give up, Pa’, not just yet!” The sun is especially hot, But ’am almost getting used to its taunting rays, The persecuting glare, And the wicked smile… A dozen miles now to go, A dozen miles to the finishing line, I can see MASTER frantically waving from the window of his Limousine, His healthy face beaming with excitement, I look behind me and there is no sign of any living thing. “Don’t give up, not just yet!” I whisper and take yet another step forward. One meter to the finishing line, I close the doors and windows of my mind, I Ignore the sharp pain in my torn limbs, Wave aside the piercing cry of my one-year little girl scratching her Kwashiorkor tummy, And push my old, frail, emaciated bag of bones forward. “Congratulations!” Master says, “You have made your country proud!” He gives me a national flag, a copy of the constitution, and a photocopy of the National Patriotic Party Manifesto! “Is that all”, I stutter, “Where is the ONE MILLION WINNER’S PRICE?” Master bends, parts my sweat-drenched left shoulder, and whispers, “This is Kenya, son! The organizers ate your prize!”
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“The Road to Seoul” by Kim Chi-ha I must go. Don't cry, I must go On the burdensome road to Seoul, Climbing the white and black thirsting hills To sell my chastity. Without a promise of when I'll return, When I'll come back with brightly blooming smiles, And without the humble promise of untying the ribbon I must go. However hard and miserable life may be, How can I ever forget the hills covered with castor-bean flowers and the smell of wheat growing in the fields surrounding the village where I was born. I'll not forget, but cherish them deeply in my heart. I might come back in tearful dreams; I might return with starlight in the night. I must go. Don't cry, I must go On the burdensome road to Seoul, Climbing the thirsty hills which make even the sky weary, To sell my chastity.
NOTES Korea's harsh and barren hillsides have come to represent the peasants' struggle for survival. The castor bean flower, which grows profusely throughout the Korean countryside, symbolizes the peasants' lowly estate and relative powerlessness. "Untying the ribbon" is a traditional Korean symbol of the marriage vows.
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“On an Infant Dying as Soon as Born,” by Charles Lamb I saw where in the shroud did lurk A curious frame of Nature's work. A flow'ret crushed in the bud, A nameless piece of Babyhood, Was in a cradle-coffin lying; Extinct, with scarce the sense of dying; So soon to exchange the imprisoning womb For darker closets of the tomb! She did but ope an eye, and put A clear beam forth, then strait up shut For the long dark: ne'er more to see Through glasses of mortality. Riddle of destiny, who can show What thy short visit meant, or know What thy errand here below? Shall we say, that Nature blind Check'd her hand, and changed her mind, Just when she had exactly wrought A finish'd pattern without fault? Could she flag, or could she tire, Or lack'd she the Promethean fire (With her nine moons' long workings sicken'd) That should thy little limbs have quicken'd? Limbs so firm, they seem'd to assure Life of health, and days mature: Woman's self in miniature! Limbs so fair, they might supply (Themselves now but cold imagery) The sculptor to make Beauty by. Or did the stern-eyed Fate descry, That babe, or mother, one must die; So in mercy left the stock, And cut the branch; to save the shock Of young years widow'd; and the pain, When Single State comes back again To the lone man who, 'reft of wife, Thenceforward drags a maimed life? The economy of Heaven is dark; 35
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“Once There Was a Country,” by Abigail George I called that country ‘Childhood’. The seashore is just a sugared Waterfall. The blue day a confetti of Wasted sweetness. I have no use for water. No use for tears. Having a beautiful mother, Growing up and then not being beautiful in that way made Me braver. It gave me courage. I know what immortality is. The day’s spirit is made of an autumn chill and rain. The change in the environment a small inheritance. Daylight’s geography is a blood knot. I am lost and found again in the tired sea of That difficult, empty country. Once, I knew what love was, what to call that personal velocity, that speed but now I am at the end of the world.
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“Cleanliness,” by Charles Lamb Come my little Robert near— Fie! what filthy hands are here! Who that e'er could understand The rare structure of a hand, With its branching fingers fine, Work itself of hands divine, Strong, yet delicately knit, For ten thousand uses fit, Overlaid with so clear skin You may see the blood within, And the curious palm, disposed In such lines, some have supposed You may read the fortunes there By the figures that appear— Who this hand would chuse to cover With a crust of dirt all over, Till it look'd in hue and shape Like the fore-foot of an Ape? Man or boy that works or plays In the fields or the highways May, without offence or hurt, From the soil contract a dirt, Which the next clear spring or river Washes out and out for ever— But to cherish stains impure, Soil deliberate to endure, On the skin to fix a stain Till it works into the grain, Argues a degenerate mind, Sordid, slothful, ill inclin'd, Wanting in that self-respect Which does virtue best protect. All-endearing Cleanliness, Virtue next to Godliness, Easiest, cheapest, needful'st duty, To the body health and beauty, Who that's human would refuse it, When a little water does it? 37
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“The Road Not Taken,” by Robert Frost Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.
“To the Moon,” by Percy Bysshe Shelley ART thou pale for weariness Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth Wandering companionless Among the stars that have a different birth And ever-changing like a joyless eye That finds no object worth its constancy?
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“Watching Everything Through a Blur Of Tears,” by Abigail George I never went to my aunt’s funeral. Although I loved her very much. I couldn’t cope with the grief of losing her. Of never seeing her again. All I have is our conversations in the dark. Her fragile life. Her life, her life, her life. Nothing ordinary about her. Her standing in the kitchen barefoot. I think of writing Her name in the Sand every time I go to the beach. It will mean something to me. Like the word ‘spirit’. It will take away The waves of regret I sometimes feel Of not going. Of not saying goodbye properly. She’s ashen, salt, And light. The key To her soul a sword In the same way The pen that I feel in My hand is to me.
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“Lying Eyes,” by Unknown Sometimes at night Memories come rushing in tearing away reality's curtain With recollections of days past gone Staring at her form his chair His eyes cut deeply Peeling away the old skin Of the elderly woman before him Only to reveal the young girl He had come to love Though the years Have buried her youthfulness And time has taken its toll His eyes could never see How this girl changed Into a tired old woman A woman Who just like him Was so very happy When they looked at each other And their eyes Lied.
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“Love Isn't Free” by Dolly Parton The neon lights of a movie marquee Says the show today is Love Is Free And inside a boy and a girl on a date Their folks are gone away they're gonna stay out late A little later on in a lover's lane They park in the dark with their hearts in flames He says oh baby go along with me I need you so and love is free In a simple little room in a Chatanooga home For girls that need a friend and are all alone She waits for a letter that never comes From a boy that won't admit what he's done She had to leave school cause she couldn't stand the shame Her daddy said she ruined the family name Her mama cries herself to sleep at night That's no way to start a young girl's life Love isn't free no it ain't free No matter what they say somebody has to pay for love In an orphanage home a sad little girl Six years old and all alone in the world She knows by now what they never say That she once had a mom but she gave her away People come to visit but don't choose Marie She cries at the door nobody loves me And somewhere a boy doesn't care at all That her tear at night stains her little rag doll Love isn't free no it ain't free No matter what they say somebody has to pay for love No matter what they say look who's paying for love
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“The Vultures,” By David Diop In those days When civilization kicked us in the face When holy water slapped our cringing brows The vultures built in the shadow of their talons The bloodstained monument of tutelage In those days There was painful laughter on the metallic hell of the roads and the monotonous rhythm of the paternoster Drowning the howling on the plantations. On the bitter memories of extorted kisses Of promises broken at the point of a gun Of foreigners who did not seem human Who knew all the books but did not know love. But we whose hands fertilize the womb of the earth In spite of your songs of pride In spite of the desolate villagers of torn Africa Hope was preserved in us as a fortress And from the mines of Swaziland to the factories of Europe Spring will be reborn under our bright steps.
“The Renegade,” by David Diop My brother you flash your teeth in response to every hypocrisy My brother with gold-rimmed glasses You give your master a blue-eyed faithful look My poor brother in immaculate evening dress Screaming and whispering and pleading in the parlours of condenscesion We pity you Your country’s burning sun is nothing but a shadow On your serene ‘civilized’ brow And the thought of your grandmother’s hut Brings blushes to your face that is bleached By years of humiliation and bad conscience And while you trample on the bitter red soil of Africa Let these words of anguish keep with your restless step – Oh I am so lonely here. 42
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“Enugwu,” by Dinachi Ikenna Dike I was somewhere City of the rising sun Land of scrubby ranges Green grass of chameleon culture Brown earth of stony soil I was there. My feet on chocolate stone pieces My eyes on sober west-African faces My breath on dusty air I walked the streets. Colonial cottages Brown buildings One, two, three stories Of diverse hues of brown Stood firm On seams of rich coal As I walked Garriking my way Drawn up to their full heights Like an army of soldiers on parade As I walked Inspecting Moving vehicles, people On asphalt of brown Streets, avenues, roads and highways Woven intricately into Colleges, hospitals, chapels and homes Lying by lawns and shrubs Set on vale and hills Seen from afar Paint the landscape Veiled in mist And lost in perspective On the horizon to the west I looked Houses, hills, hidden habitats Silhouetted Against the tired orange sun 43
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Sinking in the hills of Ngwo As quietness settles the land Like chilling dew on morning grass The whole coal city Exudes now The harmony of hills and welkin Wrapped up in cold tranquil Of its eventide Hastened by the Omnipotent One.
“Incommunicado,” by Emuobome Jemikalajah We cannot speak anymore. We are now two that once were, Because tongues have suddenly Ceased to interpret wordsFor we speak enough with our waning spirits, Our eyes speak of what would have been; What our mouths become too frail to tell. Our bodies tell of a now forgotten memory That maybe, we may want To remember; or forget? It slips away quietly into the alzheimic abyss Where we may reach and find our hands Come up with nothing. We are chalk lines drawn on the wall, And slowly slipping into oblivion.
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“To an Athlete Dying Young,” by A. E. Housman The time you won your town the race We chaired you through the market-place; Man and boy stood cheering by, And home we brought you shoulder-high. Today, the road all runners come, Shoulder-high we bring you home, And set you at your threshold down, Townsman of a stiller town. Smart lad, to slip betimes away From fields where glory does not stay, And early though the laurel grows It withers quicker than the rose. Eyes the shady night has shut Cannot see the record cut, And silence sounds no worse than cheers After earth has stopped the ears. Now you will not swell the rout Of lads that wore their honours out, Runners whom renown outran And the name died before the man. So set, before its echoes fade, The fleet foot on the sill of shade, And hold to the low lintel up The still-defended challenge-cup. And round that early-laurelled head Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead, And find unwithered on its curls The garland briefer than a girl’s.
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“Melancholia,” by Emuobome Jemikalajah The ones who walk silently; they do not speak. The ones who sit pensively; they do not seek To reveal thoughts of a weary mind, Of pain that aches; of hurt left behind. The ones who groan throughout the night, The ones who weep take not delight In hiding their sorrows and anguish. To misery a fair ululation they languish. The ones drained of sense and now are numb; The ones who can’t feel; too deep to plumb The darkness within their grey souls that make The resolve of those whose light still shine break. The ones who bleed; their blood a libation. The ones who look upon decimation Of family beloved, of friends they love; Their pain worse like curse from heaven above.
The ones who have died; have gone to sleep. The ones left behind can only weep. But tears do not bring back the dead; Nor sorrows take the broken out of bed. “Since There’s No Help,” by Michael Drayton Since there’s no help, come let us kiss and part; Nay, I have done, you get no more of me, And I am glad, yea glad with all my heart That thus so cleanly I myself can free; Shake hands forever, cancel all our vows, And when we meet at any time again, Be it not seen in either of our brows That we one jot of former love retain. Now at the last gasp of Love’s latest breath, When, his pulse failing, Passion speechless lies, When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death, And Innocence is closing up his eyes, Now if thou wouldst, when all have given him over, From death to life thou mightst him yet recover. 46
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“The Skylark,” by John Clare The rolls and harrows lie at rest beside The battered road; and spreading far and wide Above the russet clods, the corn is seen Sprouting its spiry points of tender green, Where squats the hare, to terrors wide awake, Like some brown clod the harrows failed to break. Opening their golden caskets to the sun, The buttercups make schoolboys eager run, To see who shall be first to pluck the prize— Up from their hurry, see, the skylark flies, And o'er her half-formed nest, with happy wings Winnows the air, till in the cloud she sings, Then hangs a dust-spot in the sunny skies, And drops, and drops, till in her nest she lies, Which they unheeded passed—not dreaming then That birds which flew so high would drop agen To nests upon the ground, which anything May come at to destroy. Had they the wing Like such a bird, themselves would be too proud, And build on nothing but a passing cloud! As free from danger as the heavens are free From pain and toil, there would they build and be, And sail about the world to scenes unheard Of and unseen—Oh, were they but a bird! So think they, while they listen to its song, And smile and fancy and so pass along; While its low nest, moist with the dews of morn, Lies safely, with the leveret, in the corn.
“Quatrain of Seven Steps,” By Cao Zhi People burn the beanstalk to boil beans, The beans in the pot cry out. We are born of the selfsame root, Why should you torment me so much?
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“Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds,” by William Shakespeare Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove. O no! it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wand’ring bark, Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken. Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle’s compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved. “Whoso List to Hunt,” by Sir Thomas Wyatt Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind, But as for me, alas, I may no more. The vain travail hath wearied me so sore, I am of them that farthest cometh behind. Yet may I by no means my wearied mind Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore, Since in a net I seek to hold the wind. Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt, As well as I may spend his time in vain. And graven with diamonds in letters plain There is written, her fair neck round about: “Noli me tangere, for Caesar’s I am, And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.” Glossary Whoso list: whoever wants Hind: Female deer Noli me tangere: “Don’t touch me” 48
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“The Tune of the Wild Geese’s Tomb,” by Yuan Haowen Among the earthly mortals, I ask: what is Love That engages couples through life and death? This flying pair, travelling from south to north, Had old wings, which survived several summers and winters. Staying paired is happy, But to sever, bitter: a trap in itself where devoted lovers Still long to be trapped. He must have had a thought: For whom shall I trail a forlorn shadow flying over Ten thousand miles of grey clouds And mountains of night snow? On this road by Fen River, the old pipes and drums Are gone. Only bleak smoke and vast woods are left. Vain to evoke the ancient ghosts. The Mountain Spirit Also wails in vain. Heaven envies the geese, Not believing they’ll return to dust like orioles And swallows. There they’ll remain, for a thousand Autumns, awaiting the poets of later generations Who are coming, rhapsodizing and quaffing Just for a view of the wild geese’s tomb.
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“The Grave Of The Slave” by Sarah Louisa Forten The cold storms of winter shall chill him no more, His woes and his sorrows, his pains are all o'er; The sod of the valley now covers his form, He is safe in his last home, he feels not the storm. The poor slave is laid all unheeded and lone. Where the rich and the poor find a permanent home; Not his master can rouse him with voice of command; He knows not and hears not his cruel demand; Not a tear, nor a sigh to embalm his cold tomb, No friend to lament him, no child to bemoan; Not a stone marks the place where he peacefully lies, The earth for the pillow, his curtain the skies. Poor slave, shall we sorrow that death was thy friend, The last and the kindest that heaven could send? The grave of the weary is welcomed and blest; And death to the captive is freedom and rest.
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“More Dangerous Air,” by Margarita Engle Newsmen call it the Cuban Missile Crisis. Teachers say it's the end of the world. At school, they instruct us to look up and watch the Cuban-cursed sky. Search for a streak of light. Listen for a piercing shriek, the whistle that will warn us as poisonous A-bombs zoom close. Hide under a desk. Pretend that furniture is enough to protect us against perilous flames. Radiation. Contamination. Toxic breath. Each air-raid drill is sheer terror, but some of the city kids giggle. They don't believe that death is real. They've never touched a bullet, for seen a vulture, or made music by shaking the jawbone of a mule. When I hide under my frail school desk, my heart grows as rough and brittle as the slab of wood that fails to protect me from reality's gloom.
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“Men,” by Maya Angelou When I was young, I used to Watch behind the curtains As men walked up and down the street. Wino men, old men. Young men sharp as mustard. See them. Men are always Going somewhere. They knew I was there. Fifteen Years old and starving for them. Under my window, they would pauses, Their shoulders high like the Breasts of a young girl, Jacket tails slapping over Those behinds, Men. One day they hold you in the Palms of their hands, gentle, as if you Were the last raw egg in the world. Then They tighten up. Just a little. The First squeeze is nice. A quick hug. Soft into your defenselessness. A little More. The hurt begins. Wrench out a Smile that slides around the fear. When the Air disappears, Your mind pops, exploding fiercely, briefly, Like the head of a kitchen match. Shattered. It is your juice That runs down their legs. Staining their shoes. When the earth rights itself again, And taste tries to return to the tongue, Your body has slammed shut. Forever. No keys exist. Then the window draws full upon Your mind. There, just beyond The sway of curtains, men walk.
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Knowing something. Going someplace. But this time, I will simply Stand and watch. Maybe.
“Our Country’s Form,” by Joseph Omoh Ndukwu Our country began to take form Like a child showing his hands in sunlight And my grandmother is growing old Silent and full of age, a library full of unopened wisdom She saw her country begin to take form, making watermarks in her pages Now these pages are only a few wrinkles old But the watermarks have found permanence in undying seasons Now I wander here, a man in free verse Learning to see the people and how the sun arranges itself between their teeth and smiles Like a photographer arranging an unruly crowd for the photograph of the ages But now, why does it matter that I remember? Her naira notes falling from the knot in her wrapper A monument of our past hunger and future ones Now, I wander here, a man in tired smiles And see a people bend towards the shapes of many things Holding up many things in the air: ballot papers, the imams’ robes, Bibles and bells, work boots, hoes, petrol gallons Our own quivering emblems of pride and nation Now, I wander here and see a people bend towards hope Does it matter that my grandmother is growing old and her watermarks not so much? Our country begins to take form Like a child showing his hand in sunlight
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“The Bitterness of Children,” by Thomas Lux Foreseeing typographical errors on their gravestones, the children from infancy—are bitter. Little clairvoyants, blond, in terror. Foreseeing the black and yellow room behind the eyelids, the children are bitter—from infancy. The blue egg of thirst: say hello. Foreseeing the lower lips of glaciers sliding toward their own lips, the children from infancy—are bitter. Them, rats, snakes: the chased and chasers. Foreseeing a dust-filled matchbox, the heart, the temples’ temples closing, the children are bitter—from infancy. From the marrow in the marrow: the start. “How Do I Love Thee,” by Elizabeth Browning How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of being and ideal grace. I love thee to the level of every day’s Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for right. I love thee purely, as they turn from praise. I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death. 54
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“For All Sad And Beautiful,” by Emuobome Jemikalajah For all sad and beautiful we were born. Cast on the earth like seeds of corn We sprout only for a season To wither mostly without reason On this altar of time we are slain. Why were we born to die again? For all sad and beautiful we strive. For vanities we pray “do not deprive!” Yearning for beauty that dies, Searching for love that lies. True friendship, a thing unknown. How are we loved and left alone? For all sad and beautiful we win. Garlands and laurels we pin On this frailty that is man; With three score and ten of span Heading where his fathers have lain. Why do we rise only to fall again? “Election Day,” by Joseph Omoh Ndukwu A people arrange themselves behind each other The ballot box is first in the queue They are searching for their President Who lost him? A man prays by the street, tears in his eyes: ‘My God O my God It’s been fifty-five years And these my sores would not heal.’ Tomorrow, he would learn to smile with caution When he hears that a president has been found
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“Procession I - Hanging Day,” by Wole Soyinka A hollow earth Echoes footsteps of the grave procession. Walls in sunspots Lean to shadow of the shortening morn. Behind an eyepatch lushly blue. The wall of prayer has taken refuge In a piece of blindness, closed. Its grey recessive deeps. Fretful limbs. And glances that would sometimes Conjure up a drawbridge Raised but never lowered between Their gathering and my sway Withdraw, as all the living world Belie their absence in a feel of eyes Barred and secret in the empty home. Of shuttered windows, I know the heart. Has journeyed far from present. Tread. Drop. Dread Drop. Dead. What may I tell you? What reveal? I who before them peered unseen Who stood one-legged on the untrodden Verge- lest I should not return. That I received them? That I wheeled above and flew beneath them. And brought him on his way. And came to mine, even to the edge Of the unspeakable encirclement? What may I tell you of the five Bell-ringers on the ropes to chimes. Of silence? What tell you of rigours of the law? 56
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From watchtowers on stunned walls. Raised to stay a siege of darkness What whisper to their football thunders. Vanishing to shrouds of sunlight? Let not man speak of justice, guilt Far away, blood-stained in their Tens of thousands, hands that damned. These wretches to the pit triumph But here, alone the solitary deed. “Love’s Philosophy,” by Percy Bysshe Shelley The fountains mingle with the river And the rivers with the ocean, The winds of heaven mix for ever With a sweet emotion; Nothing in the world is single; All things by a law divine In one spirit meet and mingle. Why not I with thine?— See the mountains kiss high heaven And the waves clasp one another; No sister-flower would be forgiven If it disdained its brother; And the sunlight clasps the earth And the moonbeams kiss the sea: What is all this sweet work worth If thou kiss not me? “Bespeak Of Her Wisdom,” by I.J. Kalia My phone went bleak on her call and my heart creaks to the walls of distance towering between my future and now; but in cold absence of humor, the lips grin to the bespeak of her antique wisdom. 57
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“Counting,” by Margarita Engle I came to Panama planning to dig the Eighth Wonder of the World, but I was told that white men should never be seen working with shovels, so I took a police job, and now I've been transferred to the census. I roam the jungle, counting laborers who live in shanties and those who live on the run, fugitives who are too angry to keep working for silver in a system where they know that others earn gold. When islanders see me coming, they're afraid of trouble, even though I can't arrest them anymore—now all I need is a record of their names, ages, homelands, and colors. The rules of this census confound me. I'm expected to count white Jamaicans as dark and every shade of Spaniard as semi-white, so that Americans can pretend there's only one color in each country. How am I supposed to enumerate this kid with the Cuban accent? His skin is medium, but his eyes are green. And what about that Puerto Rican scientist, who speaks like a New York professor, or the girl who says she doesn't know where she was born or who her parents 58
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are—she could be part native, or part French, Jamaican, Chinese ... She could even be part American, from people who passed through here way back in gold rush days. Counting feels just as impossible as turning solid mountains into a ditch.
“Meet Me in the Green Glen,” by John Clare Love, meet me in the green glen, Beside the tall elm-tree, Where the sweetbriar smells so sweet agen; There come with me. Meet me in the green glen. Meet me at the sunset Down in the green glen, Where we’ve often met By hawthorn-tree and foxes’ den, Meet me in the green glen.
Meet me in the green glen, By sweetbriar bushes there; Meet me by your own sen, Where the wild thyme blossoms fair. Meet me in the green glen. Meet me by the sweetbriar, By the mole-hill swelling there; When the west glows like a fire God’s crimson bed is there. Meet me in the green glen.
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“Renunciation,” by H.I E. Dhlomo Why do I sap my powers in singing songs Of Nature’s beauty or of untroubled bloodless things, When I should speak like thunder on the wrongs That bind humanity in chains of maddening stings? Full now I realise there is no beauty Save beauty of a free and healthy, happy Union of men and women free to live Their fullest life. From now till death I give And dedicate my entire life to these Mass struggles of the oppressed. I will not cease To fight for freedom, progress and fair play Until trumpet sounds my closing Day; And never will I sing again unless My songs and deeds chained souls will help redress I know I will be cursed and hated and Misunderstood and scorned; my words be banned; Be called a failure, remain poor, and move Along a path of thorns. That those above, And e’en the oppressed for whom I’ll work Will disappoint and hurt, now and again. Obscurity and tears will be my gain Where life is measured by material gain; But I will sow my pains and tears, and move On, knowing that from these will sprout rich Love; Love of all the people who dwell on this earth Love of that Essence that has promised birth And resurrection and eternal life To those who shine despite earth’s darkening strife. Everywhere I turn I’m haunted By the wailings of the wounded, By the groans of the frustrated, By the people daily hounded By fear and hunger; By man-made danger Of lack of house and peace and pasture; Of their poor children’s life and future; Whose very laughter Tells of their slaughter By Vested Interests of the Powerful Class 60
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Whose greed has landed us to this morass, And closed the eyes and ears of the countless hosts To Beauty and the Truth. Men live as ghosts Where they should live in substance and in Love; Man halts! when he in glory should be on the move!
“Dear Africa,” by Michael Dei –Anang Awake, thou sleeping heart! Awake, and kiss The love-lorn brow Of this ebon lass, Dear Africa, Whose virgin charms Ensnare the love-lit hearts Of venturing youth From other lands. Awake, sweet Africa Demand thy love, Thou sleeping heart! When the all-summer sun Paints the leafy boughs With golden rays, Know then, thou sleeping heart, Dear Africa stands Knocking at thy door
“Sacrifice,” by Ralph Waldo Emerson THOUGH love repine and reason chafe There came a voice without reply ‘T is man’s perdition to be safe, When for the truth he ought to die. 61
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“Fantasy of An African Boy,” by James Berry Such a peculiar lot we are, we people without money, in daylong yearlong sunlight, knowing money is somewhere, somewhere. Everybody says it’s big bigger brain bother now, money. Such millions and millions of us don’t manage at all without it, like war going on. And we can’t eat it. Yet without it our heads alone stay big, as lots and lots do, coming from nowhere joyful, going nowhere happy. We can’t drink it up. Yet without it we shrivel when small and stop forever where we stopped, as lots and lots do. We can’t read money for books. Yet without it we don’t read, don’t write numbers, don’t open gates in other countries, as lots and lots never do. We can’t use money to bandage sores, can’t pound it to powder for sick eyes and sick bellies. Yet without it, flesh melts from our bones. Such walled-round gentlemen overseas minding money! Such bigtime gentlemen, body guarded because of too much respect 62
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and too many wishes on them: too many wishes, everywhere, wanting them to let go magic of money, and let it fly away, everywhere, day and night, just like dropped leaves in wind! “Whoever She Was,” by Carol Ann Duffy They see me always as a flickering figure on a shilling screen. Not real. My hands, still wet, sprout wooden pegs. I smell the apples burning as I hang the washing out. Mummy, say the little voices of the ghosts of children on the telephone. Mummy A row of paper dollies, clean wounds or boiling eggs for soldiers. The chant of magic Words repeatedly. I do not know. Perhaps tomorrow. If we’re very good. The film is on a loop. Six silly ladies torn in half by baby fists. When they think of me, I’m bending over them at night to kiss. Perfume. Rustle of silk. Sleep tight. Where does it hurt? A scrap of echo clings to the bramble bush. My maiden name sounds wrong. This was the playroom. There are the photographs. Making masks from turnips in the candlelight. In case they come. Whoever she was, forever their wide eyes watch her as she shapes a church and steeple in the air. She cannot be myself and yet I have a box of dusty presents to confirm that she was here. You remember the little things. Telling stories or pretending to be strong. Mummy’s never wrong. You open your dead eyes to look in the mirror which they are holding to your mouth. 63
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“Kampala Beggar” by David Rubadiri Dark twisted form Of shreds and cunning Crawling with an inward twinkle At the agonies of Africa. Praying and pricing Passers by As in black and white Jingle pennies past; A hawk’s eye Penetrates to the core On a hot afternoon To pick the victims That with a mission Dare not look at This conflict. A dollar drops, An Indian sulk Passively avoidsI am stabbed to the core; Pride rationally injured. In the orbits of our experience Our beggarness meets With the clang of symbols, Beggarly we understand As naturally we both know The Kampala beggar Is wise-
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“Drum Dream Girl,” by Margarita Engle On an island of music in a city of drumbeats the drum dream girl dreamed of pounding tall conga drums tapping small bongó drums and boom boom booming with long, loud sticks on bit, round, silvery moon-bright timbales. But everyone on the island of music in the city of drumbeats believed that only boys should play drums so the drum dream girl had to keep dreaming quiet secret drumbeat dreams. At outdoor cafés that looked like gardens she heard drums played by men but when she closed her eyes she could also hear her own imaginary music. When she walked under wind-wavy palm trees in a flower-bright park she heard the whir of parrot wings the clack of woodpecker beaks the dancing tap 65
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of her own footsteps and the comforting pat of her own heartbeat. At carnivals, she listened to the rattling beat of towering dancers on stilts and the dragon clang of costumed drummers wearing huge masks. At home, her fingertips rolled out their own dreamy drum rhythm on tables and chairs…
and even though everyone kept reminding her that girls on the island of music have never played drums the brave drum dream girl dared to play tall conga drums small bongó drums and big, round, silvery moon-bright timbales. Her hands seemed to fly as they rippled rapped and pounded all the rhythms of her drum dreams. Her big sisters were so excited that they invited her to join their new all-girl dance band 66
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but their father said only boys should play drums. So the drum dream girl had to keep dreaming and drumming alone until finally her father offered to find a music teacher who could decide if her drums deserved to be heard. The drum dream girl’s teacher was amazed. The girl knew so much but he taught her more and more and more and she practiced and she practiced and she practiced until the teacher agreed that she was ready to play her small bongó drums outdoors at a starlit café that looked like a garden where everyone who heard her dream-bright music sang and danced and decided that girls should always be allowed to play drums and both girls and boys should feel free to dream. 67
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“Unconscious Woman,” By Tamara Booi Dark as the night So I led myself. Quietly on my hospital bed Unconscious I am Warm is my private room As I hesitantly smile at the wind blow, through the window of the mind Unconscious I am I hear no baby cries; I hear no water runs; I hear no wind blows; I hear no people speak Speak of my hectic mind not troubled Speak of my completed work not done Speak of my said words not spoken Speak of my reached journey not traveled. Fell over did the structure, That led me to my loss of sight. Crashed did the mountains, That hid the fields with apple trees. Unconscious I was; so I understood.
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“Glory be to Chingwe’s Hole” by Jack Mapanje Chingwe’s Hole, you devoured the Chief ’s prisoners Once, easy villagers decked in leopard colours Pounding down their energies and their sight. You choked minstrel lovers with wild granadilla Once, rolling under burning flamboyant trees.
Do you remember Frog the carver carving Ebony Beauty? Do you remember Frog’s pin on Ebony Beauty’s head That brought Ebony to Life? And when the Chief Heard of a beauty betrothed to Frog, whose dogs Beat up the bushes to claim Ebony for the chief ? Even when Fly alarmed Frog of the impending hounds Who cracked Fly’s bones? Chingwe’s Hole, woodpeckers
Once poised for vermillion strawberries merely Watched fellow squirrels bundled up in sacks Alive as your jaws gnawed at their brittle bones. Chingwe’s Hole, how dare I praise you knowing whose Marrow still flows in murky Namitembo River below you? You strangled our details boating your plush dishes, Dare I glorify your rope and depth epitomizing horror?
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“A Song Of Colours,” by Afolabi Boluwatife Listen, pay attention to your bones screaming for help because they are weary. You have carried your grandfather’s shame under your skin for too long and your body is tired of living in a room full of shadows of memories that won’t die. Repeat after me: history is not a prison, a name is not a curse, destiny is not a picture of the past hanging on the wall, covered in dust. I think if you wanted it: you could carve a rainbow on the canvas of the future, ride on the wings of hope to a land where dreams come alive, drive a hole through the cocoon of grief life has made you and break into a butterfly of happiness. I think if you wanted it: you could burn silence on the lips of men who ever dared to whisper impossible into your ears, sing a song of colours into the darkness and watch shame dissolve into a volcano. If you wanted it, if you really wanted it. “Dark Knights Buried At Night,” by Adeola Ikuomola The gruesome garments The murderous madness The woeful wrecks of war The lingering lamentation The mourning moonlights The sorrowful soiled-stars The sadness soaked suns The communal confusions The heart-breaking harvest The mourners-tearful mats The saddened sky-wardens Light Knights buried at night 70
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“The Drifter’s Inn,” by Atuhairwe Agrace Mugizi Grab your emotions, bag them. Hold your belt, gather your tears. The kitchen has reached its boiling point. Your boss has cursed through his teeth you can barely say a prayer. Wave to the chef, the heat is on. Wipe your face, blow your nose. This settlement came at great lengths, you cannot have it slide. You will not be tipped because the order is late. And your veil is a weapon. Though your norm is highly placed, forget your dignity. Client first, your booty, last. Throw your emotions, dump them. Adjust your belt; gather your tears. The porcelain is broken, it’s spilled milk. Your boss has cursed you through his brown chipped teeth. When he loses and your services are no longer required, Then you know it’s over.
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“My Uncle’s Red Vest,” by Chika Unigwe There is a red vest Hung out on my laundry line Billowing in the wind That is my uncle Or all that is left of him You never knew him. You should have
He danced like the wind Blowing us all away With his intensity For a life He loved to live But which failed him He was called away Way too soon And I am left With this red vest
“Craving for Change,” by Fr. Remi Okere Craving for change we wept in the moon, And shed the trend of time. What new path we tread! Finding the truth in the arms of the past And breaking a pact with the world afloat. We are now free. We can fly like the crow.
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“Gather Around My Children,” by Sihle Mthembu Gather around my children And let me tell you of the Promise of tomorrow The light is fading outside And most of us will not Make it through the night Listen to the birds as They chirp and talk. They talk Not of light blues And summer evenings No they talk of Massacres that enshrine the whole of Africa they talk of broken homes and generations of lost people that is the norm gather around my children let me tell you that the Africa of yesteryears should be mourned “The Bloody Adversaries,” by Adeola Ikuomola The moon delivered her last beam To the darkness-conquered dome Upbraiding the bloody adversaries In the thickest forests for anxieties Peace processing wary weariness Posted peaceful pallets on the sea Like butterflies blinking on the ires Blazing in the thunderstorm’s bills The seas are open inconsistencies Woe-nursing the sorrowing sailors Transfering aggressiveness on toe Cut out as a peace-resisting storm 73
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“The Unknown,” By Tamara Booi
Who is she; they ask Who am I; you confirm As you battle introducing The unknown A name never heard of A surname with no reference A family with no colorful history A hamlet not found on the map You; the unknown The Unknown shall be known If the unknown allows The unknown shall be heard If the unknown speaks The unknown shall be read of If the unknown writes The unknown shall be seen If the unknown unveils But the unknown shall be If the unknown remains The unknown
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“I Say There Is No Physical Beauty,” by Lucius Furius I say there is no physical beauty. This skin, this flesh, this bone are but the clay of which we make our beauty, the instrument on which we play our beauty. Witness the failure of funeral directors to please true aesthetes: the dead Ingrid Bergman lacks the beauty of a living bag lady. Tennis masters given K-Mart rackets win gracefully, while the high-school violinist playing a Stradivarius fails to delight us. Thus noses, lips, breasts have no beauty in themselves. Perfect features are easily distorted by anger, sloth, irritability, or conceit. But in a rare few energy, grace, composure, and sensitivity are blended in such a quantity that they overflow and color with an exquisite beauty every pore of the body, fill with a subtle music every gesture, every word. I say there is no physical beauty. This skin, this flesh, this bone are but the clay of which we make our beauty, the instrument on which we play our beauty.
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“The Dance Of the Mountain God,” by Charlina Daitouah The claps begin, Slow, petulant, Like tiny drops of rain which then increase, As feet pound the rocks, oblivious of the pain, Higher and higher the tempo goes, As men stand enthralled in worship of the mountain king, Exploding sound, compelling throes, As frenzied claps around the mountain ring. And then the lull, As silence like a cloak falls down; An interlude between booming thunder claps. The only sound a bell, dispelling the suspense. A shuffle here, a sniffle there; intimating us of pain. Then suddenly the claps restart, Accompanied by the boom of drums, Clanging cymbals as all take part, with frenzied steps, exploding sounds. A cacophony berserk; children swaying, women swooning, Ecstatic noises renting the air. Building a crescendo, a climax of exploding sound, Of feet that seem to beat alone, Of sublime steps somehow gone berserk In this dance, the dance of the mountain king.
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“My Comforter,” by Emily Bronte Well hast thou spoken, and yet, not taught A feeling strange or new; Thou hast but roused a latent thought, A cloud-closed beam of sunshine, brought To gleam in open view. Deep down, concealed within my soul, That light lies hid from men; Yet, glows unquenched—though shadows roll, Its gentle ray cannot control, About the sullen den. Was I not vexed, in these gloomy ways To walk alone so long? Around me, wretches uttering praise, Or howling o'er their hopeless days, And each with Frenzy's tongue;— A brotherhood of misery, Their smiles as sad as sighs; Whose madness daily maddened me, Distorting into agony The bliss before my eyes! So stood I, in Heaven's glorious sun, And in the glare of Hell; My spirit drank a mingled tone, Of seraph's song, and demon's moan; What my soul bore, my soul alone Within itself may tell! Like a soft air, above a sea, Tossed by the tempest's stir; A thaw-wind, melting quietly The snow-drift, on some wintry lea; No: what sweet thing resembles thee, My thoughtful Comforter? 77
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And yet a little longer speak, Calm this resentful mood; And while the savage heart grows meek, For other token do not seek, But let the tear upon my cheek Evince my gratitude! “Tales Of Brokenness,” by Gerry Shula Sikazwe These are cries of hearts crushed in pain, They are words of voices slain, Of faces that no longer resemble their original forms, A people, eternities ago, sold to anguish and despair. These are paintings coloured by broken brushes, They are faint shadows of lost dreams, misfortune’s daily lashes, Mere tales of brokenness, completely pitiful, Of a people, long ago, given away to agony and fearsome gloom. These are whispers of stitched smiles unheard They are sketched signs of crippled wishes unread, Ignored, About a people, such as us, years ago, offered to oppression. “Our Communal Grains,” by Adeola Ikuomola The strange birds bomb-enumerated our headquarters with pitched creaking and popping sounds We felt the pangs of sharp migraines like the red embers hissing in cold water alliterating inequalities Our communal grains lodged down their drains sound like drunken trains to our tropicalised brains noted for ruffled refrains 78
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“The Wind, the Sun and the Rain,” by Adeola Ikuomola The wind has the mandate to blow Upon the swiftest oceans that flow With the highest seawaves bowing The wind maintains trump blowing The sun reigns in her silvery sheen To celebrate a beauty-borne scene With her sharp effulgences as seen The paradise so detached from sin When the subtle rain keeps us cold With our heritage in her frozen hold Our healthcare wails out of her fold Like the end of the story poorly told
“The Oyster Shell,” by Kambara Ariake
An oyster in his shell Lives in a boundless sea, Alone, precarious, limited, How miserable his thoughts . . . Unseeing and unhelped, He sleeps behind a sheltering rock. But in his wakeful moments he must sense The ebb and flow of the infinite deep. Though the turning tide at dawn May flood in to its height, The oyster's being, destined to decay, Is tied to a narrow shell. The evening star, so luminous, Turns the waves to crests of corn: Us it reminds of a distant dove – Of what avail to him? How sad a fate! Profound, unbearable, The music of the ocean Still confounds him day and night. He closes tight his narrow home. But on that day of storm When woods along the sea are shattered, How shall it survive—the oyster shell, His shelter, left to die a destined death? 79
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“African Hills,” by Moses Uyang They look alive from afar— the green hills of African descent, each resting on the shoulders of the other. They bear all green. They are beneath a heavy cloud, which wears beautiful sky-blue colour, tinted with white and some patches of gray. My ecstasy lies in the magnificent bonding between the shiny green the shiny green of the hills and the unassuming splendor of the sky. Their friendship makes the world such a beauty, that beauty that gives you another chance, to love and life.
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“Epistle From Inside the Sharknado,” by Fran Lock You might call it God; might witness the weather’s disjointed volition, and figure it biblical payback for all your long decades of self-defeating industry: the gases in the atmosphere, the poison in the water. And you might stand on your lawn in your shorts, running a scream up a flagpole; sniffing catastrophe’s rank surfeit on the bilious air. You might, for all I know. For all I care you could be crouching in rainy basements, debating plague or commies with the cans of beans; courting immortality with forward planning until your lungs fill up with sand like canvass punching bags. It means nothing to me, the human world: humourless delinquencies, the corkscrew politics of plunder and of blame; victims of this or that, rolling a moistened eye to camera. I see you, surrounded by dripping debris, in the local anchor’s sallow limelight, angling and righteous. Nuke the sharks! It will not save you. I will come again. We will come, seismic and genderless, thick sleeves of meat, working the humid air like a grudge. You’d better run. You’d better equip yourself with guns, and chainsaws, consult a TV psychic, burn your money, shave your head, sell your kids, anything at all. I am coming round again. We are coming, driven by insomnia’s deficient logics, our noescape velocity. You will know us by the shine of our endangered Kevlar; my exoskeletal corset rips your fingers into kelp. You might call it God, but it’s not God. The sky is singing with Nature’s maniac gusto. It’s the only game in town. Come, hurtle over the swooning horizon, stare into my flat-screen eye, and tell me, human, it is not so.
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“Never Say Never Say Never,” by Patrick James Errington But here we are, here where the page ends, hidebound, hand-held and welled with sleep. Morning. Little left to say, so sing or let cling words like late leaves, like children. Always, eventually, the last time; all fathers someday set their daughters on their feet to never again pick them up. They flock your skin, nevers, as feathers, slip the water from wing; pale after touch gives up to colour. So what is there to do, then, but keep touching? It’s not too much to ask. To leave just one choice unmade, still warm, a last page unread, a wild wish wild and unwaited for, one small promise kept back. Last night’s rain pearls spruce and milkweed. But don’t wake. Not just yet. I’m glazing our will-not-bes in long, last syllables until they’re all smooth and semiprecious. I’ll set stones along your body. And when you wake, leave lightly. When you leave, come back.
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“The Grey Mirror,” by Laura Scott “I want a poem I can grow old in.” – Eavan Boland Maybe it was there all the time, in the room with the high ceiling and the fireplace and the mirror rimmed in gold above it, and if I went back to that house in Ireland where she took us in out of the rain, I’d find it. If I stood in front of the mirror I’d see how grey and speckled with black its glass was and then I’d see lines spreading around my eyes like rays in a child’s drawing of the sun. And if someone called my name from somewhere else, in another part of the house, I’d turn my head to answer them, and the ligaments in my neck would push against my skin and I’d catch sight of their slanting lines in the mirror.
And my voice would sound different — older, softer, sadder maybe, like the fine rain that blows and falls outside the house. There’d be a lag in it, a space where one sound stretched out to reach the next. And in the slack of that lag the words would start to feel they could go anywhere – out of the window and up to the sky above the sea to watch the mountains forming and collapsing
on the top of the waves, and then, fast as a whippet, they’d turn and rush back to the shore at low tide to pluck a green-lipped mussel off its rope. And I watch them as they pushed into its black hinge to prise it open and draped themselves over the frills of its flesh. And I’d let them because now I’m old I know, they always go back to the sea.
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“Eleven Years of May,” by Marc Brightside I Affidavit A pertains a gherkin. I was cross-legged on the carpet, bordering on five-years-old, back when death was just a thing that grown-ups did, like holidays, or weddings. We ate dinner in Sudoku silence, indulging in the councilhoused delight of fish and chips wrapped in the Metro, and the contents of my father’s plate, those funny green things caked in batter, captivated “You always want what you can’t have,” he said, “you won’t like it.” I whined until he caved, and the acetic fire sent me rolling to the floor, scratching at my tongue, while everybody laughed. No-one could blame them. My performance was forgotten by the morning while my brother and I swung branches together in the garden; almost twenty years apart, yet we still pretended these were swords, that we were gladiators. II Affidavit B pertains a suicide. I was cross-legged on the carpet, bordering on six-years-old, with plastic bricks and model trains to habituate my isolation, the way you let a fish float in its bag for fifteen minutes prior to release. The doorbell rang. My mother rose, her crossword left unfinished on the coffee table as she spoke quietly with strangers in lime-green jackets. The world turned monochrome on her return. “Your brother always loved you,” she said, “he loved all of us, but not himself, because he did drugs.” Colin. Named so because the midwife asked what they were callin’ him. That’s my mother’s sense of humour.
III Affidavit C pertains a haunting. The lights came soon after the funeral, at the foot of Summer’s door. They’d manifest in droves as patchy frames of green and yellow, occasionally red, solid and opaque with clearly defined corners. They outran me when I chased them, slipped away when I tore through the living room, arms outstretched, shouting, “Look, it’s Colin’s ghost!” as my mother wept into her hands. Ghosts exist when you’re a child; they mean that no-one ever has to leave if you don’t want them to. I knew that he was dying when the lights turned seasonal. For a time I could still summon them. It only took a moment’s breakdown
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and they fed like butterflies on bitter honey, because a child’s pain is easier to digest and a single tear is much more tragic than a torrent. I knew Colin was dead when the lights had bled me dry, when they refused to show up on demand, when I was seventeen.
“Soldier,” by Colin Ian Jeffery (Iraq and Afghanistan) Far from home Fighting an enemy wearing civilian dress In sweltering lands of a desert people Fighting shadows Fearing the next suicide bomber. There is no glory only death With snipers on rooftops Landmines on lonely sandy roads Exploding under army vehicles Terrors playing cruel mind games Breaking the mind asunder. There was a promise made Whispered to a weeping mother While held within her farewell embrace Promising to return home safe And not within a flag draped coffin.
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“Claire Climbs Everest,” by Sam Harvey Claire wants to know what it means when everyone leaves her and what am I supposed to tell her? Even when the fuzzy-haired cello kid packs all of his posters into sleek, cardboard tubes and neatly sequesters all the grinning pictures of him and Claire into the corner of an Easy-Bake Oven box and then unmanifests destiny straight to New Haven, CT. When everyone explodes away from you like you are the core of a firework, a chrysanthemum unfurling in grief above small groups of people here and there in pontoon boats, on worn, checkered blankets. I go home some weekends to find Claire’s bedroom covered in little mountains of socks and t-shirts, the range across which she has trekked, wrapped in her fleece throw, everything beating against her from all directions, out her door, around the corner and through the portal of mom’s room, to be close to her source of love; the Sherpa, cheeks flush rose with the cold, that lead her through the eyelet of clouds to the summit, cradled her at the lip of a great cornice and with a sweep of her hand said everything is loss, the horizon forever receding away. We are always being left. I don’t have mom’s eloquence so I tell her, Look girl. Soak for a while in the bubble bath of grief. Loss is rudimentary: it’s Algebra-1. It’s a C major scale. And Claire digs through a scree of tie-dye at the base of one of the mountains to find a shirt that dad left her two years ago. She emerges with it clenched in her fist like a trophy, like a fistful of snow from the white crown of Everest.
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“You Remind Me Of A Bollywood Movie Star,” by Abigail George I long for diary entries. To find you there As if you never Went missing in action After all these years. You’re in the lost and found box or am I in the wrong. I’m in danger of losing you Once again and I have an appetite For this winter light. This feeling that I have Inside of me is fear. Fear that I am in danger of Calling you up again On the telephone, Fear of being alone for The rest of my life. Listening to silence On the other end of The line. You, the butcher Stringing me along as if I was a side of beef. You’re just being you, an actor in a film. I wish I could sink my Teeth into you again Like I once did and taste flesh, Blood, hair, light, salt. I can’t be happy just with me, On my own anymore.
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“Night And Day,” by Abigail George There is love here. A kind Of resurrecting. A life instinct Drowning in the gaseous life Experience of the mother tongue, Lungs, and hands of the stars. The bluesy ‘contribution’ of The song of a woman. The red Pulsing action of the gills of a Fish. The climbing-leaping hands of A man gesticulating through The air. You’re the birth and Death and great life of me. Night and day. Dark night and Daylight. When the dark passes Over me and daylight comes I Think of the person I could have Been. My rightful inheritance. The sun, theories of the moon. And when the sun kisses my Forehead, my shadow, my shoulders, The nape of the neck it heals And strengthens me. I am again reminded of the Tongue of a fish, the eyes of A bird, (an eagle), the hands of a Man and the bluesy song of a Woman. Daylight and dark night. Dark night and daylight. Even roses Have a spirit that dances Within them. The flame inside My heart for you is made Of natural collateral. Down to earth Painters are masters in their Own way. I am through with drunkenness And cowardly behaviour. Once you could do it for me. I was just kissing the sweet dream of you. The earth is suddener. Green and spiteful. Snowed under by roses. 88
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The worship of bombs and in Pink praise of theology. Ingredients of the amazing. You don’t do, you don’t do It for me anymore. I am through Kissing the dream of you. Kissing the epic-epic-epic Sweetness of a media legend.
“Creativity,” by Adeola Ikuomola Your artfulness Exhibits my emptiness Culture me on early rays Like sun rays on your trays Your potent poetry Exhibits my broken pottery Conduct me into your world To pluck the eternal literary word Your purified plays Exhibit my ruinous clays Interpret my innermost dreams To nurse my wounds with creams Your air powers Exhibit my downed towers Let me elope with your wings To reign supreme in the four winds
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“The Silkies,” by David Hart Someone last Autumn put the evil eye on Mrs Kendrick for hanging bright crimson knickers on the line in sight of where the boats come in, and as the word got around the island still the knickers flew there, and they flew through last week’s luminous storms and through the lovely day we had on Sunday when Jock proposed to me. Nobody of us has spoken to Mrs Kendrick all these winter days. My dream last night told me everyone has been cleared out and that in the stolen land Mrs Kendrick alone remains, she is hiding in a cave below the water line diving and gliding and eating blenny and shanny with the seals and whispering to them at the hurt reach of her voice, It’s all you’ve got wear the sea close, then she bleeds all the way home; she is wearing a room where the plaster flaps off the walls revealing pictures of the hosts of hell, dead pelicans queue on the roof, cupboards sag full of uneaten meals. windows have layers of faces into their dew. yet the wrath of roses on the door drips loveliness. Boats fill the harbour, it’s the time of year, Mrs Kendrick makes red hot jam for any captain away from home that wants it on his night toast. I kiss Jock on his rough lips in the shadows.
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“Butterfly,” by Yoonoos Peerbocus Akin in essence to man in the eyes of nature, as are they not always from creation's birth, yet the butterfly-miniature perfection, sooner smells than spring or man the raw smell of the orange flowers that wait till weeks to bloom.as if its childhood wound with wisdom, risen with sun duty, it wantons from succulent vegetations to flower gardens cajoling blossoms and tassels not for a sip for good as drink is, it ends in thirst or for colours which as mere senses nourrish colour bars but for what mirrors not its own worldliness but images of the invisible, unseen by man, as if colour blind both in heart and mind.wondrous back with flaws, those blemished lime green, pink or aubergine small birthmarks on the creamy wings whose flutters alter the panorama of the operation of seasons and exude fresh fragrance from the florescence of time.as a messenger of change, it is a counterforce to the winter of life and a force in itself to metamorphose to migrate for survival to its original self, caterpillar, anonymous, free
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“The Curfew,” by Stephen Sexton The radicals sprung the locks that night, hurrah! and their lovely collarbones were almost moonly. Rhinos shrieked and bellowed, elephants tromboned and the animals nosed into town. Sunrise to sunrise and sunrise we kept indoors. If you can’t count your onions, what can you count my grandfather used to say. He said a lot of things. Among the other miners he was legendary: when no more than the thought of the pink crumple of his infant daughter’s body came to mind a glow would swell in the pit, the men would mayhem bauxite by the light his tenderness emitted. Some of me lived inside her even then. The memorial fountain says nothing of the weeks before the rescue failed but mentions God which, as my grandfather used to say, is just the name of the plateau you view the consequences of your living from. Or something like that. He said a lot of things. He grew wise and weary as an albatross and left for that great kingdom of nevertheless. It would have pleased his handsome shoulders to watch this grizzly scoop for salmon in the fountain of his friends, or the Bengals, or the shakedown squad of chimpanzees 92
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who bang and bang on the grocery window. One by one eleven miners starved to death. In the streets they collar or tranquillise the ocelots and run a spike of ketamine through the plumbing in the fountain. Dromedaries blue-mood around the pub aloof under their reservoirs of fat. I don’t sleep, but oh plateau! these days of violence have been my happiest. Even a cabbage is not without desire my grandfather said one day, and now among the animals, I feel under my wings the words for things I thought I knew departing, and I understand him. “But Still,” by Lucius Furius You will say it was quite unintentional, this leaving the building without saying good-bye. ("Can't I depart, just once, thinking only of daisies and chocolate pudding?...") There are in this world enchanters and enchantees. It's only the latter whose hearts are chained to heavy stones, who could no more leave a room, forgetting you, than they could, for several minutes, forget to breathe. How lightly a goddess walks the earth, evoking smiles in everyone, but, still, you break our hearts-like tigers stepping on sparrows' eggs, like a deer, walking silently through a strand of spiders' silk, taut between trees, you break our hearts. 93
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“Dead Man’s Dump,” by Isaac Rosenberg The plunging limbers over the shattered track Racketed with their rusty freight, Stuck out like many crowns of thorns, And the rusty stakes like sceptres old To stay the flood of brutish men Upon our brothers dear. The wheels lurched over sprawled dead But pained them not, though their bones crunched, Their shut mouths made no moan. They lie there huddled, friend and foeman, Man born of man, and born of woman, And shells go crying over them From night till night and now. Earth has waited for them, All the time of their growth Fretting for their decay: Now she has them at last! In the strength of their strength Suspended—stopped and held. What fierce imaginings their dark souls lit? Earth! have they gone into you! Somewhere they must have gone, And flung on your hard back Is their soul’s sack Emptied of God-ancestralled essences. Who hurled them out? Who hurled? None saw their spirits’ shadow shake the grass, Or stood aside for the half used life to pass Out of those doomed nostrils and the doomed mouth, When the swift iron burning bee Drained the wild honey of their youth. What of us who, flung on the shrieking pyre, Walk, our usual thoughts untouched, 94
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Our lucky limbs as on ichor fed, Immortal seeming ever? Perhaps when the flames beat loud on us, A fear may choke in our veins And the startled blood may stop. The air is loud with death, The dark air spurts with fire, The explosions ceaseless are. Timelessly now, some minutes past, Those dead strode time with vigorous life, Till the shrapnel called ‘An end!’ But not to all. In bleeding pangs Some borne on stretchers dreamed of home, Dear things, war-blotted from their hearts. Maniac Earth! howling and flying, your bowel Seared by the jagged fire, the iron love, The impetuous storm of savage love. Dark Earth! dark Heavens! swinging in chemic smoke, What dead are born when you kiss each soundless soul With lightning and thunder from your mined heart, Which man’s self dug, and his blind fingers loosed? A man’s brains splattered on A stretcher-bearer’s face; His shook shoulders slipped their load, But when they bent to look again The drowning soul was sunk too deep For human tenderness. They left this dead with the older dead, Stretched at the cross roads. Burnt black by strange decay Their sinister faces lie, The lid over each eye, The grass and coloured clay More motion have than they, Joined to the great sunk silences.
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Here is one not long dead; His dark hearing caught our far wheels, And the choked soul stretched weak hands To reach the living word the far wheels said, The blood-dazed intelligence beating for light
“Casablanca,” by Lucius Furius Oh Rick, if only things were so simple. . . . If only there were Nazis shooting children, bullies like Major Strasser waiting to take over, women like Ilsa -so beautiful and passionate that just the memory of their love, just the shadow, is enough. We would sing the Marseillaise and in the air itself, just breathing in that hot, dry air, would find all the meaning we need. But we live in an everyday world, with everyday human beings. And we must start again each morning, with scraps of faith and feeling, to make the world's meaning in the foundry of our heart.
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“Long Distance Relationship With a Mountain,” by David Hawkins We got our hefting up here all right, the wind curling round us visibly, curing us, as if we were stones to be placed and lichen-dappled with glacial deliberation. And now, thinking with these hills, a wandering sentence can be levelled between them, tested against the mean of wilful horizon and capricious sky. Grey-brown green-black lutulent river drawn easily as a snagged thread pulling the best effects of the valley with it. Light hurdles swiftly into huge stands of pines and hides there with great abandon intimate with the windage creaks and groans in the crowns of these self-shredding trees brashed and rusting beneath it. Pulled back the thick curtain of moss and found wheel ruts slanting through the Ordovician, pulled back at the false summit and wandered towards a trig point decentred in the mist, spectral sheep splayed tarsally among the drop-skied moors, while someone else is summiting surely in their own home-made uplands. A snipe whittles up from a cloak of rushes and I try to keep its ember alight with my eye until with perfect clearance it falls off the edge, or edges beyond seeing. A particular breeze tugs its harmonic adjusted to our hearing, we are earmarked,
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as across the Irish sea a shadow range of mountains echoes unsayably. Here the so-called Black Road on its endless ancient traverse over the ridge intersects the local corpse road that looks to another false summit before the tireless sway of the Atlantic. The real inheritance: looking at ravens, waiting for their croak in the welcoming gloom. The names of all the rocks make their own ground.
“Melissa,” by Lucius Furius I loved you from the first.
I loved you when you were innocent and pure and helped us with the silverware. I loved you when you unloosed your hair and showed us all how beautiful you were. I loved you when you chose him because he had failed and he needed you. But most of all I loved you that day when you ran out of Dascomb kitchen because you couldn't stand the thought of what you'd done and you couldn't stand the sight of him. Everyone thought you were crazy.
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“Bees,” by Beverley Nadin I’d only set out that afternoon to scout for bees. Father kept an eye on the cows. With my two jam jars down a bendy trail I tramped through dunes, far from the houses. The broken hive had been empty my twelve years. Waves seemed set to run and run, finding the pools. Rocky upward sprays were let go by, like a blink is. Dozing in a fishing boat was a hush-hush friend of mother’s – he told me: bees need flowers. Kept saying it, flowers, busy bees. Flowers are growing beyond the trees; he pulled me by my wrist. Though there are many ways to tell a thing, I can’t tell, not exactly. Something stirs and words become a swarm – their stingy tails – I took her steps, afraid for her, like me was somewhere else. Black hair framed his big black eyes. Sky was still. The buckles on my scuffed familiar shoes looked new, or strange. I heard a zipper buzz; he called me honey, queen honey bee; I noticed the breeze. Connection felt distorted, wrong, like sighting in shallows the flinching hoods of jellyfish, not meant for us. My knees scratched on shells. I counted the squawks of gulls. I don’t go near the sand, it is billions of hexagons… at home I was sick. Mother’s curt slap hummed in my ears when I said his name. My head is a maze; I wake among walls, black and yellow, sometimes stripes sometimes
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“Push-Bike,” by Elaine Gaston She wrapped a tea-towel around buns or a brack, packed sandwiches into a bread-bag and strapped me into the seat on the back. I pressed against her, arms around her waist, her strong swimmer’s legs pushing us up the brae, (legs that had saved a child from a whirlpool one day in Donegal). Long grasses, cow parsley crowded us as she worked and swayed and sang, ‘then up she goes to Antonio with his ice cream cart’; on evenings in summer we called with neighbours, Annie’s sick brother, Jamesy’s mother. One August evening, daylight almost gone, she clicked the dynamo on, I heard its secret song, ‘up we go, up we go, oh Antonio’, the lamp flickered in time with the pedals when she stood up in the saddle for the hill. Down the other side it was all freewheel, midges, swallows, hedges flitted past till we spun faster, faster, her blowing hair and laughter were all a blur, as the warm air and wheels’ whirr lulled me to sleep against her constant back.
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“Gift of the Sloth,” by Debbie Lim To live like this demands a talent for hanging by toenails curved as a Balinese dancer’s for over a decade. For clinging the soft pendulum of your body to a tree (in wind, hail or heat) because your life depends on it. Even though your muscles are weak as ribbons, your eyes sightless buttons. It means improvising for rain: growing fur backwards so torrents sheer off you like a rock in a stream, then allowing yourself, over time, to green in empathy (for what is there in life, really, to envy?) with algae and photosynthesis. Your coat will provide a travelling luxury for beetles, moths and mites. Let it. You must appear to be a handbag of dripping moss with a face (that someone left behind in the forest). Of course, there will be the skill of forgetting babies whose grip was not enough. Avoiding jaguars during weekly visits to the ground. But most of all, shall be the gift of knowing your one modal tree, leaf by leaf, like the slow lover you are high up in the canopy.
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“Harpy Eagle Father,” by Pascale Petit When I think of my father in the furnace – the gas jets aimed at his chest, fire-wings budding from his shoulders and his mouth opening with its lit interior, his tongue delicate as an icicle – I want to be a harpy eagle mother, feed dainties into his beak, its red gape wide open to the Amazon. I want to guard my precious snowflake unsteady on his talons in the hot nest. I want to guide my chick as he inches onto a branch and shakes the blizzards of his wizard-wings. Oh take your time, I want to say, before the fledge. Perch here to watch the howler monkeys of this forest. Wait before you grow coverts grey as ash, your primaries lifting in violet air. Let the combustion chambers of your under-wings pulse with maelstroms of white down. May the double haloes of your body lift slowly and your head sprout its adult harpy crest. Before you’re off, up and through the trees, trailing a smoky wake.
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“The Goldsmith’s Apprentice,” by Keith Chandler You will change into ‘trashers’, canvas shoes, when you lock yourself in at eight. Collecting your strongbox from the safe it will be weighed. It will be weighed again when you clock off at six. You will sit at a vice with apron attached to funnel the filed off dust. You will blow your nose into newspaper and not put grease in your hair. Similarly, when you swill your hands (your lunch box having been inspected) it will be into this tank of sawdust into which you will also expectorate. All these – shoes, clothes, snot, sawdust – will be burnt off at the end of the month into a rough bar called an ‘elmer’ worth more than you earn all year. In return we will teach you to saw and buff; to solder, blowpipe dangling from your lip like a forgotten cheroot; to cast by ‘lost wax method’ rings and brooches, each mould unique then melted out, weeping fat tears; to hammer flake so fine it will float like a feather above your face; to draw out wire for filigree work shinier than a girl’s hair, stronger than her love; to forge, clinging like slinky fingers to Beauty’s neck, chains so slim no one but yourself may see the links. You will breathe this atmosphere of dust and soft percussion, dying at last stoop backed, purblind, your lungs lit up like a golden branch.
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“To the Lighthouse,” by Allison McVety i The Window It was Virginia’s charcoaled stare that put me off: her disappointment in me, the reader, before I even started. So I walked into the exam without her: without the easel, the skull or the shawl, the well-turned stocking, Minta’s missing brooch. In the hall I watched the future show its pulse and all the girls, the girls who’d read the book, set off together, lined up at desks and rowing. ii Time Passes You need a daubière and too much time – three days’ absence from the plot. Rump bathed overnight in brandy, a stout red brought back from France. The liquor’s boiled once, added back to beef, calf ’s foot, lardons, les legumes. For six hours – or more – it idles. It can’t be over-cooked. It will not spoil. At table, a stream of consciousness breaks out. And it rains. It rains. If not the stew, what was the woman on about. iii The Lighthouse The year I gave the book another go, [the year my mother died], I learned everything big happens in parenthesis – marriage, birth, The War, poetry. Is it the full manuscript or just the bits in the middle that count. Is it the woman at the window, marking the hours, from cover to cover – or these few lines: that as she eased out from the bank and into the water the brackets of it opened and closed about her. 104
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“Ponting,” by Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch In the end we turned him into a verb: to pont meaning to pose in ice and snow until frozen. On the voyage south he’d be tilting plates in the darkroom, in one hand the developing dish, in the other a basin of vomit. One minute he’d arrange us in groups for the cinematograph, then rush to the ship’s side. Once Ponco roped up his JA Prestwich over Terra Nova’s bow, balanced on three planks. He lost the tip of his tongue when it stuck to the camera at thirty below. Corneas can freeze to peep-sight. At one hundred degrees of frost the film’s ribbon will split. To pont would also mean pontificate. He’d insist on reeling the film slowly to prevent sparks. We’d rehearse the Pole Picture: mount the camera on the theodolite tripod, wind twine over the trigger and guide it round a ski stick to get the direction right. He’d instruct us on setting the shutter, how to use a flash in the tent with quarter of an inch of powder and F11. En route to the Pole I sent back negatives with the support teams, a sheet torn from my sledging log detailing exposure data; how composed we were, how cold. 105
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“Joy,” by Ann Gray When I let the chickens out, I hurl mixed corn in a golden arc across the frosted ground. I know it’s junk, they shouldn’t have it, they don’t need it, but everyone deserves joy somewhere. I’ve been looking for something I once had and miss and want again. I meet him in the beach café. He has soup. I sip tea. He has over-wintered vegetables on his allotment. I see it on his hands. I imagine all that soil on my body. Sometimes you know what’s bad for you, might be good. I phone my mother every morning to start her day – the way she knows it’s me, the way she says, hello dear, before I’m speaking. She needs someone to complain to. A mother is a precious thing. I know that now I’m sure to lose her. She’s losing nouns and I have to rummage in my brain to help her find them. I tell her yesterday I thought I’d lost a dog and lost my voice calling. I found her back at home, shaking, not sure if coming home was good or bad, or neither, or both. There’s no reward for coming home if no-one’s there, no one you love, no-one to put out a hand, or smile to see you. My mother knows and tries to hold me in her voice. Mothers do what they can. Sometimes they don’t get much to work with. She knows I’ll chase that golden arc, hoping for the joy in it. I hope so much, hope the wine, the food, will taste as it’s supposed to, hope that friends will stay, Their elbows on the table, The Low Anthem singing To Ohio across the garden, where all those flowers I fell in love with will be just a promised on their packets: night scented stock, musk mallow, lunaria, pale phlox. In this falling dark, when hens shuffle on their perches, I hold my breath, listen to the sound of my loud heart.
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“Boy With a Knife,” by Vicki Feaver He was standing in the middle of the field, throwing a knife from hand to hand: the boy Mr Marshall brought down at weekends – whispered to be let out from a borstal. We heard thumps and squeals coming from their caravan. I was told to keep away from him. But I liked wounded things: a baby rabbit the cat brought in; birds with broken wings. As I got closer, he aimed the knife into a clump of Lady’s Smock, spearing a frog. ‘Present,’ he said, dangling it by the leg. He looked down at my feet: at sandals I’d woven from reeds to look like the Roman sandals in my history book; at bare toes like a row of tiny bald creatures pleading for their lives.
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“The Mermaid Tank,” by Stephen Knight Beneath my weight, the duckboards bow. Two buckets, slopping water, weigh me down. A cold wind howls around the cages now, While rain sweeps in – across the town – Again; and while our rheumy-eyed, Arthritic monsters fall asleep Or vegetate I kneel beside The Songstress of The Deep And wait. All afternoon, the punters pass Her tank in single file; because it’s dark Inside, they press their faces to the glass. I breathe, at night, on every mark. Behind my cloth, the water churns And curls around our fat dugong And when it clears (Like smoke) she turns Away, and any song I hear Is ‘just the wind’ or ‘my mistake’ Outside, discarded handbills catch their wings On tents or in the mud while, in their wake, Paper cups, tickets stubs and things The rain dismantles every night Turn cart-wheels in the foreign air Before they throng The sky, too light To settle anywhere For long.
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“Protestant Windows,” by Sam Gardiner They come at sunset peddling daylight, two Salesmen wearing glasses, through which they view His shabby sliding sashes with disdain. “Wood?” they suppose and feign Dismay. “Yes, comes from trees,” And he raises the drawbridge ten degrees, A hurdle to reservists But child’s play to front line evangelists With news of paradise On earth (at this address to be precise) In whitest white PVC. “Think of all The blessings. And if economical Heavenly comfort isn’t what you need Think of Our Earth,” they plead, And their plastic-rimmed, double, glazed eyes glow With love for generations of window Salesmen as yet unborn. “If I were you, I’d save my CO2 For atheists and papists. I doubt They even know about King Billy.” “Who?” “William III to you, Brought sliding sashes to Britain, fetched in pure air and sanity. Without him we’d still be In the dark.” “Sorry, we must go. It’s late,” They say, and beat a retreat to the gate, And pause. Quick as a flash He raises an effortlessly sliding sash For a parting shot. “Plastic heretics!” He shouts. The window sticks. He tugs, a sash-cord snaps, the window drops On his head, where it stops. Latimer and Ridley know how he feels As bloodied, martyred for his faith, he reels
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Towards eternity, Where planets, the largest novelty, Are looking less and less Like being success.
“In the Fullness Of Time,” by Lucius Furius
. . . go out into the evening, leaving your room, of which you know each bit, your house is the last before the infinite, . . . (from Rainer Maria Rilke's "Eingang", MacIntyre translation) The light which strikes my retina as I look at the Great Galaxy in Andromeda left there two million years ago. (Hominids made tools from stone then, but had not yet
learned the use of fire. Genetic material from certain of these hominids has been passed from one being to another and now is in my own body.) Millennia from now, humans who have colonized the farthest reaches of our galaxy, laboriously creating and maintaining Earth-like atmospheres, will marvel that there once was a place so perfectly suited to human life that such labor was unnecessary. (Just as we marvel that orchids, whose precise temperature and humidity requirements would seem to necessitate a greenhouse, grow wild in the Amazon.) I cannot believe in a personal God, intervening in human affairs, but stand in awe of the terrible force which set the stars and galaxies in motion —strewing them like so much confetti—; the life-force running through each living creature, as straight and true as a ray of light from that galaxy in Andromeda, willing us to live, grow and be fruitful.
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“Deception,” by Adedayo Agarau I bear fractions of yourself; there are ripples on my face and butterflies flap through my palms; you are a window in my heart I open you and I find joy… there are joys that last and there are some that die like candles in the wind—the ones that run from my throat; so I find a joy that breaks me into a punctured half, the joy that writes scars like tattoos on my cheek, you are a joy that tears me into fragments of a broken night, the moon watches me dance in annulled pleasure the night watched me die and you were here to bury my carcass you built me a casket of retorted dreams with woods that reek of lice that burn my head— you were here, like that friend you were, you stood till the end I dug my grave and found your bones; this life is a cloud of deception a shower of lies that bind us into the people we are
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“Icicles Round a Tree In Dumfriesshire,” by Ruth Padel We’re talking different kinds of vulnerability here. These icicles aren’t going to last for ever Suspended in the ultra violet rays of a Dumfries sun. But here they hang, a frozen whirligig of lightning, And the famous American sculptor Who scrambles the world with his tripod For strangeness au naturel, got sunset to fill them. It’s not comfortable, a double helix of opalescent fire Wrapping round you, swishing your bark Down cotton you can’t see, On which a sculptor planned his icicles, Working all day for that Mesopotamian magic Of last light before the dark In a suspended helter-skelter, lit By almost horizontal rays Making a mist-carousel from the House of Diamond, A spiral of Pepsodent darkening to the shadowfrost Of cedars at the Great Gate of Kiev. Why it makes me think of opening the door to you I can’t imagine. No one could be less Of an icicle. But there it is – Having put me down in felt-tip In the mystical appointment book, You shoot that quick Inquiry-glance, head tilted, when I open up, Like coming in’s another country, A country you want but have to get used to, hot From your bal masqué, making sure That what you found before’s Still here: a spiral of touch and go, Lightning licking a tree Imagining itself Aretha Franklin Singing “You make me feel like a natural woman”
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In basso profondo, Firing the bark with its otherworld ice The way you fire, lifting me Off my own floor, legs furled Round your trunk as that tree goes up At an angle inside the lightning, roots in The orange and silver of Dumfries. Now I’m the lightning now you, you are, As you pour yourself round me Entirely. No who’s doing what and to who, Just a tangle of spiral and tree. You might wonder about sculptors who come all this way To make a mad thing that won’t last. You know how it is: you spend a day, a whole life. Then the light’s gone, you walk away To the Galloway Paradise Hotel. Pine-logs, Cutlery, champagne – OK, But the important thing was making it. Hours, and you don’t know how it’ll be. Then something like light Arrives last moment, at speed reckoned Only by horizons: completing, surprising With its three hundred thousand Kilometres per second. Still, even lightning has its moments of panic. You don’t get icicles catching the midwinter sun In a perfect double helix in Dumfriesshire every day. And can they be good for each other, Lightning and tree? It’d make anyone, Wouldn’t it, afraid? That rowan would adore To sleep and wake up in your arms But’s scared of getting burnt. And the lightning might ask, touching wood, “What do you want of me, now we’re in the same Atomic chain?” What can the tree say? “Being the centre of all that you are to yourself – That’d be OK. Being my own body’s fine But it needs yours to stay that way.” No one could live for ever in A suspended gleam-on-the-edge, 113
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As if sky might tear any minute. Or not for ever for long. Those icicles Won’t be surprise any more. The little snapped threads Blew away. Glamour left that hill in Dumfries. The sculptor went off with his black equipment. Adzes, twine, leather gloves. What’s left is a photo of A completely solitary sight In a book anyone might open. But whether our touch at the door gets forgotten Or turned into other sights, light, form, I hope you’ll be truthful To me. At least as truthful as lightning, Skinning a tree.
“Babylon,” by Lucius Furius O Babylon! Your God is a sport-utility vehicle, a VCR, and a two-car garage! You delight in images of killing and artificially-large-breasted women! Your arteries are clogged with Big Macs and a thousand pieces of Kentucky-Fried Chicken! Your God is Technology. Your God is Progress. Your skyscrapers rise to the heavens! Your astronauts fly to the moon! You clone sheep! alter genes! make a mountain into a parking lot! Your fields flower! Your grain-bins groan under the weight of the ripe corn! But the land of your soul is a desolation. O God of Henry Ford, the Wright Brothers, and Bill Gates,... All the nations adore Thee! (Pretty soon they'll be ordering Papa John pizza by cell phone in New Guinea....) Your God is Mammon. After the movies, after the Quarter-pounders-with-cheese, super-size fries, and a large Coke, after the evening news, the Hostess cupcakes, golf, beers, and swimming 20 laps, the hunger will be the same as the day you first felt it, O Babylon! the thirst of the soul, O Babylon! 114
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“Constellations,” by Neil Rollinson Beyond the house, where the woods dwindle to a few stray trees, my father walks on the lake with a hammer. He’s never seen so many stars, and wonders why with all that light in the sky it doesn’t cast a single shadow. He takes a few blows at the ice, and drops a sackful of bricks and kittens into the hole, listens a moment to the stillness of deep winter, the hugeness of the sky, the bubbles of warm oxygen breaking under his feet, like the fizz in a lemonade; the creaking of ice as it settles itself. His father’s at home, coaxing voices out of a crystal set, a concert from London. Ghosts in a stone. My father doesn’t like that, he prefers the magic of landscapes, of icicles growing like fangs from the gutters of houses, the map of the constellations. He turns on the bank and looks at the sky. Orion rising over Bradford, Cassiopeia’s bold W, asking Who, What, When and Why? And down in the lake, the sudden star-burst of four kittens under a lid of ice, heading to the four corners of nowhere.
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“Farewell, Glimmering Night,” by Unknown Those frozen tears soak the quivering lips in the brilliantly glimmering night With childish eyes you look to the moon's guidance answers to questions, questions for answers I'll hold your hand my darling, dearest, sweetest boy until the castle in the sky calls for you I know we're to part, but I cannot still the sadness The frozen tears sting my soul Farewell, and off you go now into the light in the world of night We walk different paths, you and I Even still, I can feel your brilliance, even now I look to the moon for guidance No more questions, no more answers A gentle glow in the glimmering night I will go now to that far off shore Say good-bye to yesterday’s Break the vases of white lilies No more kisses to soft skin We shall never meet again, you and I
Farewell to that glimmering night sky Tomorrow's dawn will never reach me As the carriage treads a path of silver tears Never looking back, I see a new dawn.
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“Believed,” by Simon Rae There’s a missing person in everyone, a draft dodger, truant, man on the run, deserter, defaulter, garden fence vaulter, an into the wide blue yonder absconder, and I found mine, or he found me, and together we sauntered out for a paper or a carton of milk that wasn’t needed to match the one that would turn to cheese while the cheese beside it turned slowly green, leaving the bed unmade and the garden unseeded and a bit of a mystery to explain. The wagging tongues went worrying back to the gap in the hedge and the hole in the fence and to how they’d somehow always suspected there was more to the case than met the eye and if only they’d known as they walked the dog or pushed the buggy round the block that that was the definitive last Good Evening
it would have been easier making sense of what they now saw was a chain of events… Meanwhile smoke rings float to the ceiling prompting this out of body sensation that I’m looking down on a pile of clothing artistically folded there on the shingle and thinking how I’d left my life like a field of snow which a confident witness
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would swear blind he’d seen me cross yet find, when he came to prove his point, no tracks to show in the unblemished whiteness…
“Embrace,” by Rhian Gallagher Unshowered, wrestling with the sea still on our skin when she catches me, mid-room, with a kiss. Not a passing glance of lips, but her intended till I press back against the wall laughing, in a body-search pose as ready as her to forget about dinner. Once, in our first months, we headed down Christopher Street starch wafting from an open laundry, the sound of a press squeezing a line along a sleeve. We slipped across the West Side Highway, out on the pier pressing our faces to the fence to catch an air of sea, distant Liberty. Winter sun pouring its heart out over the Hudson, she stepped into me – the cold became a memory smudged under our winter coats. Two guys stood on the far side of the pier looking baffled, how long they’d been there god knows. Gulping, knees undone, we surfaced like swimmers and almost ran back up Christopher Street laughing. We’d been gone an hour, the night had come there were shelves of lights up and down the tall streets, she was all over me. Everything had turned on.
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“Undressing,” by Beatrice Garland Like slipping stitches or unmaking a bed or rain from tiles, they come tumbling off: green dress, pale stockings, loose silk – like mown grass or blown roses, subsiding in little heaps and holding for a while a faint perfume – soap, warm skin – linking these soft replicas of self. And why stop there? Why not like an animal, a seed, a fruit, go on to shed old layers of moult, snakeskin, seed-husk, pelt or hard green-walnut coat, till all the roughnesses of knocking age are lost and something soft, unshelled, unstained emerges blinking into open ground? And perhaps in time this slow undoing will arrive at some imagined core, some dense and green-white bud, weightless, untouchable. Yes. It will come, that last let-fall of garment, nerve, bright hair and bone – the rest is earth, casements of air, close coverings of rain, the casual sun.
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“Begging Aid” by David Rubadiri Whilst our children Become smaller than guns, Elders become big Circus Lions Away from home.
Whilst the manes age In the Zoos That now our homelands Have become, Markets of leftovers, Guns are taller Than our children. In the beggarhood Of a Circus That now is home, The whip of the Ringmaster Cracks with a snap That eats through The backs of our being. Hands stretching In a prayer Of submission In a beggarhood Of Elders delicately Performing the tightrope To amuse the Gate For Tips That will bring home Toys of death.
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“Breaking the Rule,” by Julia Copus I. The Art of Illumination At times it is a good life, with the evening sun gilding the abbey tower, the brook’s cold waters sliding past and every hour in my Book a blank page, vellum pumice-stoned
to chalky lustres which my inks suffuse: saffron and sandarach and dragon’s blood, azure and verdigris. Monsters and every type of beast curl round the words. Each man here has a past, and each man reasons for his faith. I wronged a woman once and nothing I did after could atone or throw a light upon the blackness of that deed, whose harm lay in the telling, not the doing. My floor is strewn with thyme and rosemary to mask the odours of my craft – fish glue, gum resins, vinegar and oils. With these I shape the hosts of the redeemed, and every face takes on the features of a face I’ve known and every angel’s face beneath the shadow of its many coloured wings is hers alone. II. The Art of Signing There are ways among the stone and shadow of our cloisters to transgress the Rule. We speak in signs: a language with no syntax. For the sign of bread you make a circle with your thumbs and index fingers – like a belt that presses silk against a woman’s waist. 121
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For the sign of an eel squeeze each hand tight as one who grasps a cord of hair to kiss that one mouth only in the frantic din of the ale-house where we used to dance, and later outside with the grainy dusk unloading a sough of foot-falls in my ear, our four feet shuffling together and in time across the quiet earth. The rhythm of my days goes slower now: matins and lauds, vespers and compline. For the sign of silence put a finger to the dry muscle of your mouth, the darkness that’s inside it. Keep it there
“I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You” by Pablo Neruda I do not love you except because I love you; I go from loving to not loving you, From waiting to not waiting for you My heart moves from cold to fire. I love you only because it's you the one I love; I hate you deeply, and hating you Bend to you, and the measure of my changing love for you Is that I do not see you but love you blindly. Maybe January light will consume My heart with its cruel Ray, stealing my key to true calm. In this part of the story I am the one who Dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you, Because I love you, Love, in fire and blood. 122
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“The Yellow Dust Road” by Kim Chi-ha Following the vivid blood, blood on the yellow road, I am going, Father, where you died. Now it's pitch dark, only the sun scorches. Hands are barbed-wired. The hot sun burns sweat and tears and rice-paddies Under the bayonets through the summer heat. I am going, Father, where you died, Where you died wrapped in a rice-sack When the trouts were jumping along the Pujuu brookside, When the blaze rose from Opo Hill every night, On that day when the sun shone brightly on the yellow land, The muddy land resilient as the gorses that grow intrepidly green. Shall we cry out the call of that day? Shall we sing the song of that day? In small Whadang village embraced among the sparse bamboo-bushes, Blood surges up in every well, every ten years. Born in this barren colony, Slain under the bayonets, my Father, How could the dew in the bamboo-buds that spring Forget, ever forget the crystal brightness of May? It was a long and cruel summer, When even the children were starving, That sultry summer of blatant tyranny That knew not of the Heavens Or the yellow road, eternally our motherland, Our hope. Following the muddy beach where the sun burns the old wooden boats to dust, Again through the rice paddies And over the bleached, whitish furrows. It's been ten years since the call of that day That thundered against the ever blue and high firmamentThe flesh, the breath, tightened by barbed-wire. I can hear your voice. I am going now, Father, where you died 123
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When the trouts were jumping along the PuJuu brookside, Where you died Wrapped in a rice-sack. Where you died. NOTES Kim Chi Ha's native Cholla-Do province has for centuries been a hotbed of revolutionary fervor. The Yellow Dust Road commemorates a rising of Cholla-Do villagers in protest against the abject circumstances of the early postwar period. Whadang's bamboo bushes were cut and fashioned into staves to be used against the military forces sent to quell the rebellion by the Synghman Rhee government. The fires ignited on Opo Hill signalled the start of the uprising, in which one-third of the village's six hundred farmers were massacred alongside Pujuu Brook.
“When This Carnival Finally Closes” by Jack Mapanje When this frothful carnival finally closes, brother When your drumming veins dry, these very officers Will burn the scripts of the praises we sang to you And shatter the calabashes you drank from. Your Charms, these drums, and the effigies blazing will Become the accomplices to your lie-achieved world! Your bamboo hut on the beach they'll make a bonfire Under the cover of giving their hero a true traditional Burial, though in truth to rid themselves of another Deadly spirit that might otherwise have haunted them, And at the wake new mask dancers will quickly leap Into the arena dancing to tighter skins, boasting Other clans of calabashes as the undertakers jest: What did he think he would become, a God? The devil!
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“Low Maintenance Roof Garden,” by Matthew Caley We take the air of our low-maintenance roof-garden this austere quad our best line of defence from the smoky street where we hear arteries harden. Honesty seems a new form of pretence for here is hardly either Avalon or Eden. Yet this gravel reach can seem a wild expanse. We splay on deckchairs wilting in the sun, as window-boxes bear the flowering quince, the flowering plum. We live above neon, shop-signs, gargoyles, gorgons. If you leap for joy do not leap over the fence of our low maintenance roof-garden as one did once and some have done so since. The street below. The sky above. The garden inbetween with only barren stones as any sustenance, mica-chips, wave-smoothed glass, obsidian – we lie on these hard stones doing penance for not having a warm shoulder to cry on. A shingle beach half way up the sky has the appearance of the temporary. Yet we mark our territory aeon after aeon and reacquaint ourselves with innocence, lying between the stars and Municipal bins. If there’s anything to take we take it on sufferance. Taking the air of our roof-garden. It’s night. We hear a noise. Pardon? What? The noise is silence or dawn bringing the black hat of the traffic warden to pin the law on the windscreen’s crazy fluorescence below. We sit tight in our low-maintenance roof-garden.
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“What Is Held Here,” by Jane Draycott What is held here, weighing so little, keeps close to the floor and where linoleum gives way to wilderness, gathers in the shadows of stones. The days pass like thieves, in the disinfection of letters, the collective study of quarantine law and the microscopic recitation of sand. At the doors experts assemble for discussion of germ theory and scum, and all the while night like a ship at bay waits to present itself ashore to pitch its tent of stars, the dome of its hammam on which are printed all the ancient maps of the lazaretto and the echo of your name in writing. Beyond the window the world looks like a dream where other men row their boats freely, turn stones into bread, walk to the shops. Welcome. “Songster,” by S.J. Litherland She was a small singing bird, a young wren you caught in your hand and felt her heartbeat. You chose two rings, one for her foot and then one for your hand. She fluttered like green wheat beginning to sense the wind, not ready for ploughing. She flew into the bush and when you came for me, I saw your greedy eyes still alighting and smelt the ring band on your finger. While we were arguing the two rings fell from your pocket like crows at a wedding, the giving and wearing intentional as double knots, zeros, the two rings plural and not singular, irreducible in kind and number.
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“Soft Parts,” by Julia Copus Paleontologists treasure the rare geological circumstances that permit an occasional preservation of soft parts. – Stephen Jay Gould Perhaps there is some transcendental place, some cove or niche somewhere in which the pouches, lobes and gills, suckers, lips and tentacles of countless ancient animals endure. For bones are not much more than relics really. They are not the whole story: a carpal or talus – what can it tell us of the monk-seal’s passion for sunbathing on sandbars, the muntjac deer’s fondness for tea-leaved willow? So little of a fellow can be surmised when only the brittle parts survive, when all that was supple has gone from a creature. You see this with people of a certain nature: even in life the softness of their mouths, their eyes and hearts stiffen and harden till nothing remains to show us what they were, that they were human.
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“The Full Indian Rope Trick,” by Colette Bryce There was no secret murmured down through a long line of elect; no dark fakir, no flutter of notes from a pipe, no proof, no footage of it – but I did it, Guildhall Square, noon, in front of everyone. There were walls, bells, passers-by; then a rope, thrown, caught by the sky and me, young, up and away, goodbye. Goodbye, goodbye. Thin air. First try. A crowd hushed, squinting eyes at a full sun. There on the stones the slack weight of a rope coiled in a crate, a braid eighteen summers long, and me I’m long gone, my one-off trick unique, unequalled since. And what would I tell them given the chance? It was painful; it took years. I’m my own witness, guardian of the fact that I’m still here.
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“Eighteenth,” by Kate Bingham There was a craze for fountain pens. Fat lacquered ones, walnut-effect, gold-nibbed, unlocked and lifted, two-handed, from spot-lit glass cabinets and carried over plush by silent nail-varnished assistants to the desk where you and your mum or dad would have been waiting almost eighteen years, not talking much, you worrying because the pen you liked best was also the most expensive. We kept their pass-the-parcel packaging, treasured for months the slippery, important plastic bag, the velvety plump moulded to fit our pen alone, room underneath for two free cartridges and an instruction manual in 14 languages, ours first, the 12-month guarantee, as if a pen could break down, when what we liked best was its low-tech simplicity, that we could want a thing invented centuries before, that it could symbolise our coming of age. We scribbled in sepia, wrote everyone cheques for a million hazelnuts. On birthdays we’d crowd into the library at lunch and watch the tip of a new pen touch its first white sheet, the hand behind solemn and quivering, unsure whether to doodle or draw or let the nib try for itself, licking the page in thirsty blue-black stripes as if it knew this was the end of freedom and that soon it would have twisted to accommodate each hesitation, dot and loop, its every molecule straining with something like love as I leaned in, imagining a future shaped by neat italics where whatever I wanted I need only write it down.
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“The Hills,” by David Swann If they were boats, the rain had tipped them the wrong way up, put their hulls in the sky. If they were walls, the walls worked. They kept strange things out. They put us in our place. Their loneliness scared us. If they were prone lions, they were old and under the weather. If dogs, dogs that had gone off their back legs, that lay around all day on the town’s edge in loveless packs, the wind shivering in furs of grass. Curs maybe. Unwardened. Unlicensed. You could beat them any way you liked: stick in needles to make ‘phones work. gouge them for slate. Their owners never came. Sometimes they were less even than dogs, sometimes they looked more like bodies under sheets, in the rain. And finally I knew them as trains, fleets of prows pointing west, that restless folk rode away on.
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“Bud Fields and His World,” by David Grubb i.m. James Agee What are you going to tell us, Bud; about the days that keep coming and rain and wind and the sour smell of shacks and empty fields and the silence of women? How do you look your children in the eye and what stories can there possibly be to hide the intimidation, the neglect that nails you and the stench of what you wear inside? Let us now praise insects that survive and winter grass and the ways the bed travels and the boy with a broken head who keeps singing and how the moon seems to care in occasional dreams.
Let us praise the locust and some birds and those who know how a book works and the man who sits in a field with some children and says it is a special place where the light can become song. What is song, Bud; what is its persistence when some yell it from a distance and some hide inside a hymn and even your own children listen to its sway and how it rocks the soul if you let it in? What is it, Bud; keeping you here between days and the nights that are useless and the junk that you hear some other men speaking and the solace that every so often appears when your wife lets you in? Let us praise the far distance and the biggest star and the river that lives forever and the way a child makes a game with some rope and the way that you can some days see your mother inspecting her hands.
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In the photograph you stare straight ahead, Bud; what do you think this is all about? Are they going to pay you? Are they going to ask you to say? Anything. Anything they might possibly understand. What words are you going to use, to tell, to share, to cut out an image that they can take to others? Talk of what and to make what happen when nothing will? Wind. Rain. Dead dogs. Tell us about dead dogs and how you keep hearing them. Tell us about earth and the hot nights and the no sleeping and the scream of the father who returns to swear at you and the way you cannot ever remember him whistling and how he never ever praised a thing. Never ever did praise.
“Reflection, July 1938,” by Sue Butler All day and night you tread water in a well, hear soldiers shooting, burying groaning bodies on the mountain. When the bucket rattles down, you dive. Near dawn an exhausted conscript shines a torch. He’s drunk. Hello, he calls in posh Moscow Russian. Hello, you mouth. Disappointed there’s no echo, he frowns, shakes his head. You frown, shake yours. He smiles. You smile, wave back until he gets bored.
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“The Biting Point,” by Catherine Smith Thirty years dead and still curmudgeonly, my grandfather is driving me through the fog-numbed streets of Crystal Palace at five a.m. He’s in the plaid dressing gown he wore to die in, and he’s shaved, badly, flecks of dark blood stippling his chin. We’re the only Austin 1100 on the road; he tuts, crunching through the gears, he blames the damp, the bad oil, the years it sat cobwebbed in a garage. My grandfather slows for the lights, not best pleased when the engine stalls – it’s no part of his plan, I know, to crank the key three time before the damned thing fires – the times he’s told me a good driver knows his car’s temperament like the back of his hand. As a milk float toots behind us, he mutters, frowns, eases one foot off the clutch as the other trembles over the accelerator. Listen to that! He’s triumphant as the engine warbles its surprise – as though it’s found a new voice, a different register, like a woman suddenly discovering a talent for opera. That’s known as the biting point, he says, I’m just telling you so’s when you get A husband, you’ll know what’s what. We coast down Fountain Drive, the car sighs and dreams, a purring baby now. My grandfather’s bolt upright, sliding the wheel under calloused palms as the BBC transmitter winks in the distance – the last thing he mentioned, the last fixed light.
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“Through the Square Window,” by Sinead Morrissey In my dream the dead have arrived to wash the windows of my house. There are no blinds to shut them out with. the clouds above the Lough are stacked like the clouds are stacked above Delft. They have the glutted look of clouds over water. The heads of the dead are huge. I wonder if it’s my son they’re after, his effortless breath, his ribbon of yearsbut he sleeps on unregarded in his cot, inured, it would seem, quite naturally to the sluicing and battering and parting back of glass that delivers this shining exterior One blue boy holds a rag in his teeth between panes like a conjuror. And then, as suddenly as they came, they go. And there is a horizon from which only the clouds stare in, the massed canopies of Hazelbank, the severed tip of the Strangford Peninsula, and a density in the room I find it difficult to breathe in until I wake, flat on my back with a cork in my mouth, stopper-bottled, in fact, like a herbalist’s cure for dropsy.
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“The Hairdresser From Beirut,” by Rosemary Norman He’s been here two years. I wonder if the others ask as I do not, why he left, or of all places, why he chose our well-meaning suburb. We sit before his mirrors, him behind, or to one side. He’s still young, and slim with a little belly. His hair curls where it will. I ask stupidly if he did this job before he left, then answer for him, of course, he’s not had time to learn it here.
And that’s enough, surely. If they were willing in Beirut to leave their hair untended they would have done so more than once in his life, career. But they are not. A friend or enemy will see to how you look, dead. Merely endangered as you are, it’s up to you. So Anne Frank writes: should she bleach the hair on her upper lip? Once a woman, and I knew her, killed herself, her eyebrows still sore from plucking.
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“Encore, Mr fox!” by David Kennedy monsoon oolong spoon … Reynard lies along the garden wall smoking. ‘I thought you were a cat,’ I say. Reynard takes off his I-Pod, sits up, arranges his brush: ‘Sorry, would you like one?’ And he takes out an egg-shaped case and opens it. It’s full of feathers and chicken skin twisted into the shape of cheroots. He reads my mind: ‘Not as gross as they look. Once you get the taste, no going back.’ And he flicks away the but and fits a fresh one into a chicken’s beak holder. And he parts his fur and shows me his tattoos. Each one’s an episode of cunning starring him.
He says, ‘I really must get round to writing my life story.’ He says, ‘I’ve had the title for years: With One Bound Our Hero Broke Free.’ And he takes down his red guitar, wattle axe, rufous banjo, and he starts to sing: ‘Do You Remember Love?’ and ‘Even this City Reminds Me of Another City Under The Moon.’ He has me singing along. Then he gets up and turns up the night like an astrakhan collar and there’s just me; backs of houses, some lit, others not, fragments of code; and, on the garden wall, a jar of white jam full of luminous fruits, luminous wishbone fruits. … sound of smoke rings in the night
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“Body Sonnets VIII: The Magdalen,” by Rachel A. Dilworth Cresting the gradual stairs in the Museo Del Duomo, you come to the Magdalena, who is nearly a river of hair. Here clothes, if they be clothes, Donatello has ragged to tresses that leave her only more bare snaking the bight of her thigh’s line, giving rib into hip in their tumbling watery upset. How it engulfs her, how it falls and falls, this living hair this impression of restraint unkept. How right, you think, knowing she simply caved to abandon in that moment when she knelt and wept. Standing, she looks not beautiful or saved but tender, wretched, aching with all she has felt. Supplication is want. Is this, you wonder, what we feel before the devils go, or after? “Powerpoint,” by Ruth Valentine I have circled the planet. Above the tawny land of my ancestors, the Arc of the Covenant on its holy mountain, I saw the inside of a cotton bag yanked down over my head; at my wrists and ankles percussion of steel, blood and the links’ negation. Oh my grandfather in the Emperor’s palaces! I have been freighted between the continents like roses from Columbia, packed half-frozen, secret above the cloud-layer. Calculate the weight of my soul in food-miles, airfields, stars. Wherever I was unloaded, it was the same in tropical heat or frost, in the hood-blurred light off whitewashed walls, in hangars; the warders trained by the same chalk-stripe men, in lecture rooms I try to imagine: Powerpoint images, role-play perhaps, with laughter, or simulation on a mannequin sewn in India or Taiwan, its hessian skin my colouring, my scars. 137
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“The Writer,” by Anne Pierson Wiese People in the neighborhood called him The Writer because he loitered on certain corners for hours at a stretch, making notations in pocket-sized spiral notebooks. At all times of year he wore a dark dirty overcoat. At no time did he interact with passersby. The rumor went that he was a Lebanese man who, either here in Brooklyn or back in Lebanon, had lost his wife and children to a house fire, which had driven him mad. He was tall, thin and furtive. Nobody could glean what he ate or where he slept. I thought perhaps he did neither, having been transformed by grief into a surly exempt essence needing nothing but an infinite series of pages no larger than his palm on which to record a repeating pattern of dots and dashes – some morse of misery or misery of remorse. One year, similar rows of dots and dashes began to appear in fluorescent marker on the front steps of people’s houses. Anxious homeowner conversations ensued. It was the view of some that the spooky but benign scribbling had become a recognizable language – that of revenge. The Writer was marking his targets. He would arrive in the night with gasoline and matches to take from others what had been taken from him. But it was no such thing. There were no fires, no raging explanations of what it was all about, no confirmations or translations, just the dull simmer of his continued solitary assessment, as if he were the last man on earth – or the first.
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“In My Black Hat,” by Christopher Southgate Thora Dardel sees her portrait by Modigliani for the first time in forty-six years. I am not the woman you see sitting in the corner at the private view. My name is Dardel. In nineteen nineteen, in Montparnasse, I was painted by the dying Modigliani. He sketched me in a café. He devoured me with his eyes. He took me to Rue de la Grande Chaumiére, number eight. I see you hesitate. Yes, how faded I have become. You ask whether he was good to be with, this Amedeo? Ah no. He drank continually, and spat blood, and still if Jeanne had not been there, and the child, he would have consumed me. When he was dead Jeanne walked backwards out of their window. There was nothing left of her, without him. I could see her in a small painting behind his head – a long oval face with almond eyes, heart-stopping, lovely, cursed eyes that cursed you as you looked at them. The flat smelled of coal dust. As you see I wore my black hat and kept my hands in my lap.
I have lived in Paris, and Stokholm, and Montevideo. I have family who love me. But tonight at last it is clear. I am not the woman you see sitting in the corner stiffly, slow-speaking, preferring her own company. I am that young student, head on one side, in a black hat, in love with Nils Dardel, devoured in an instant in a café by a sad-eyed Italian who died soon after, and I always shall be.
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“Brighton,” by Helen Oswald In the end, we never made it to the Pavilion but preferred instead to imagine the gauche chinoiserie of Regency folly, a camp flourish of minarets standing out against the bitter English rain. We closed our eyes and conjured faux Indian domes knocked out from a nation’s first concrete casts – brown and smooth and looking, for all they’re worth, like cardboard. We paused to recall the mudslinging of hoi polloi, their descendants now baying for Gehry’s blood, his daring to aspire on the seafront. This crowd would throw up Tescos for a Kubla Khan. We meant to come in praise of whatever it is that insists against the odds upon gilding a dolphin on a lamp stand, that craves primrose rooms and chandeliers shaped like fuchsia blooms hung upside down. But most of all, we liked to picture a garden inspired by a glutton whose devotion transported peonies, erected hollyhocks. We see ourselves drowsing among his poppies, inhaling the cheap scent of those blousy stocks.
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“The Wild Cattle of Swona Island, Orkney,” by Kate Newmann They’ve lived there for years, the aurox, Since the last inhabitants left them With the island, casting off Into the fierce conflicting tides. Two bulls, four calves and six cows Roam the boggy fields, Hoof-prints like runes Across abandoned acres. Once a year, a vet makes the journey. He watches them from a distance, The way a cow rests the bulk Of her ribcage on the soggy earth. The way the last boat, Bleached on the rucked shore, Arcs its empty ballast, Holes worn through by scratching hides. The days fall away like rust flakes Off the useless gates. Their breath Meets the mizzled air in currents As unreadable as the ocean’s drowning pull; Wind rough-tongues their eyes and ears Like a calf being cleaned. They are the part of us – warm-breathing – That will always return, that never left.
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“The Minister As a Horse,” by Christopher Horton No one can quite remember whether it was during the Select Committee or a cabinet meeting that he first whinnied, then flared his nostrils in the direction of the Secretary for Culture, Media and Sport. Certainly this wasn’t minuted and either way such things are often overlooked in Whitehall. You might have thought the formal opposition would have raised an objection when, before a cross-party vote, he bolted through the central lobby and headed out towards St James’s Park to chew the cud, or that a conscientious constituent would have written a letter expressing deep concern when at the opening of a hospital he tried to eat the ribbon. But this is not what transpired and, miraculously, he survived the reshuffle, proudly strutting out of Number Ten in newly fitted hooves. Only after he had been put out to graze in the House of Lords, did someone enquire as to whether, in polite society such as this, it was really the done thing to toss one’s mane. “Oblivion,” by Adedayo Agarau Tonight shall bear the bruises of yesterday We shall walk these streets of illusions Searching for the secrets of fathers kept in the palms of time So when the moon creeps into our dreams, —we will wake from slumber Tonight, we have the name of forebears They were words that lived on our tongues So we will hold touches searching for the bones Of cadavers that have no face— Who remembers the name of the man who mounted the sun? That’s the man we are looking for, tonight… 142
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“Feeling Trapped (A True Story),” by Mary Courtney Jonathan Trappe had a dream, sitting in his office swivel chair, gazing vacantly out of the window. He imagined taking to the air. Just taking off; buying fifty-five huge helium balloons; a fantasia of reds, whites, greens, yellows and blues. And he saw himself in slow motion frames, inflating each one, tying each with string, hefting a huge clod of a stone to put on the swivel seat, so that the balloons wouldn’t lift it away, not yet, at any rate; not until all fifty-five were tied in place. A cacophony on the arms of his chair, a bored filing cabinet grey. And then he imagined easing the stone off, right down to the date. He could see it now. Raleigh, North Carolina, June 7th, 2008. Early morning, commute time to work, half past eight. And that was it. He decided this dream could not be late. And so he left for a coffee break and walked at brisk pace to a shop in the town centre, staring at his reflection facing him in the window, beyond to the bright glare of party games; striding in, he picked fifty-five huge helium balloons; matter of factly paying for them, with no fuss, like it was an everyday activity. The next day, he left work , and took to the air, in his office chair.
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“The Malarkey,” by Helen Dunmore Why did you tell them to be quiet and sit up straight until you came back? The malarkey would have led you to them. You go from one parked car to another and peer through the misted windows before checking the registration.
Your pocket bulges. You’ve bought them sweets but the mist is on the inside of the windows. How many children are breathing? The malarkey’s over in the back of the car. The day is over outside the windows. No streetlight has come on. You fed them cockles soused in vinegar, you took them on the machines. You looked away just once. You looked away just once as you leaned on the chip-shop counter, and forty years were gone. You have been telling them for ever Stop that malarkey in the back there! Now they have gone and done it. Is that mist, or water with breath in it? “To My Son,” by Lucius Furius I would have given you a perfect faith, belief, unassailable and absolute; joy's well-spring. I offer only a substitute -- these poems, disparate, contradictory, tempered in truest love and despair. Use them. 144
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“Mr Punch In Soho,” by John Stammers You would recognise that hook nose anywhere, his hump and paunch, the shiny pink erection of his chin. Withered, crossed legs on the barstool dangle like transplants from a much smaller body. He could have found his ideal slot in the Gestapo, been a dab hand with a blinding iron. And the scold’s bridal would have been right up his Strasse. He has, they say, killed seven police: old-time rozzers on the beat more deserving of a saucy come-on from the street girls than the last rites down a back alley. And two wives. Poor old Mrs Punch finally copped it one night after he’d done a few dozen barley wines and as many double gins. She fought fiercely against an assailant or assailants unknown the Pall Mall Gazette reported. Never caught. Never charged. And pretty little Mrs Punch number two won’t be taking a bath in those bubbles again. That’s the way to do it! Just picture him afterwards, cock in hand like an old chimp with a hard, green-tipped banana. And the baby, where’s the baby? It’s something to make the Devil into the good guy: how children cry out for him to drag Punch down to hell for eternal punishment. But he’d throttle Lucifer when his back was turned and be back on that stool for closing time. Or maybe that’s where he’s been all these years of grown-up sleep, peaceful and free of nightmare. It’s what you can’t see in the stare of his wooden yellow eye. Don’t look, there’s his stick, the awful stick!
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“Lifting the Lid,” by Valerie Laws (Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm) Full fathom five in A&E, my father Lies white as a cuttlefish blade, suddenly granted The sailor’s death war denied him. Water runs Clear from his mouth and the puncture wounds Where they pumped in saline to keep his heart afloat Too late. Holed below the water line, he’s drowned, Awash, beached, bleached, my pale hand red raw beef Beside his dead man’s fingers. Our nails, I see For the first and last time, are exactly the same shape. Lividity branches up his sides like coral, As the corpuscles see-saw and sink, Silt in the veins. The nurse has battened down The long-sighted eyes that made him a pilot, too young For the navy in a war he couldn’t wait to join, After a fisherman’s childhood, the curve of cobles At Cullercoats like the sweep of an eyelid Over the North Sea’s blue. I think of him sinking, in his sweat-damp bed, The paramedics baling in vain, his drowning, Puzzled voice, ‘I think I might be dying,’ The aneurysm, an unseen fist in the gut, An anti-heart, leaking into his belly, blood pressure going down, ‘I can’t breathe,’ down, ‘can’t breathe’, down for the last time. Swollen as a stranded seal, as if he’d swallowed the sea, his keel of a chest – his blanked face – I lift one eyelid, see his eye true blue, Like those of our Viking ancestors, fierce as the harsh views He and I fought over, now rinsed clean of blood and rage, Truly an iris, afloat in its bowl of wet, white china, Blue as the bruised top of limpet shells Sanded by tides, the slaty violet of mussels, the white Like crusts of barnacles, sea-scoured bone.
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“On the Pulse of Morning,” by Maya Angelou A Rock, A River, A Tree Hosts to species long since departed, Marked the mastodon, The dinosaur, who left dried tokens Of their sojourn here On our planet floor, Any broad alarm of their hastening doom Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages. But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully, Come, you may stand upon my Back and face your distant destiny, But seek no haven in my shadow, I will give you no hiding place down here. You, created only a little lower than The angels, have crouched too long in The bruising darkness Have lain too long Facedown in ignorance, Your mouths spilling words Armed for slaughter. The Rock cries out to us today, You may stand upon me,
But do not hide your face. “Passing Time,” by Maya Angelou Your skin like dawn Mine like musk One paints the beginning of a certain end. The other, the end of a sure beginning. 147
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“Praise Song for the Day,” by Elizabeth Alexander Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each other’s eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues. Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair. Someone is trying to make music somewhere, with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum, with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice. A woman and her son wait for the bus. A farmer considers the changing sky. A teacher says, Take out your pencils. Begin. We encounter each other in words, words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed, words to consider, reconsider. We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of some one and then others, who said I need to see what’s on the other side. I know there’s something better down the road. We need to find a place where we are safe. We walk into that which we cannot yet see. Say it plain: that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of. 148
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Praise song for struggle, praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign, the figuring-it-out at kitchen tables. Some live by love thy neighbor as thyself, others by first do no harm or take no more than you need. What if the mightiest word is love? Love beyond marital, filial, national, love that casts a widening pool of light, love with no need to pre-empt grievance. In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air, any thing can be made, any sentence begun. On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp, praise song for walking forward in that light. “A Dream,” by Edgar Allan Poe In visions of the dark night I have dreamed of joy departed— But a waking dream of life and light Hath left me broken-hearted. Ah! what is not a dream by day To him whose eyes are cast On things around him with a ray Turned back upon the past? That holy dream—that holy dream, While all the world were chiding, Hath cheered me as a lovely beam A lonely spirit guiding. What though that light, thro' storm and night, So trembled from afar— What could there be more purely bright In Truth's day-star? 149
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“First Saturday In June,” by Eileen Spinelli Fifty-nine days to go. I can't find my purple beach towel. I can't even get to my closet without walking across a sea of dirty socks. Mom pokes her head into my doorway, says: “Time to clean your room, Sophie.” And I have to admit she's right. And it's not that cleaning my room is the worst thing to do. It's just that there are so many other better things to do, like— painting my toenails Strawberry Pink, eating a huge stack of Uncle Joe's pancakes, dreaming of riding the Ferris wheel, thinking up a story to tell around the campfire on Scary Story Night, painting shells, riding waves . . . all the fun, wonderful, sandy, sunny things we do at Summerhouse Time.
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“Carousel,” By Rebecca Kai Dotlich On thin golden poles gliding up, sliding down, a kingdom of horses goes spinning around. Jumper, Brown Beauty, Dark Thunder, Sir Snow, a medley of ponies parade in a row. Settled in saddles, their riders hold on to reins of soft leather while circling along on chestnut or charcoal, on sleek Arctic white, on silver they gallop in place day and night. Such spinning is magic, (to dream as you sail) with lavender saddle and ebony tail, whirling to music in moonlight, spellbound, galloping, galloping, merrily go round.
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“The Impossible Replication of Desire,” by Lee Herrick How much delight before we collapse How much earth in the lungs How much wine When we want more When the weeds sprawl It is not what you think Think how fast some landscapes change the lover, the gardener's grand idea, the failing Maple the boat about to capsize the correction the hand's reflection the impossibile replication of weight versus time how it will never mean what you want
“A Conceit,” by Maya Angelou Give me your hand Make room for me to lead and follow you beyond this rage of poetry. Let others have the privacy of touching words and love of loss of love. For me Give me your hand.
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“Mosquito,” by J. Patrick Lewis I was climbing up the sliding board When suddenly I felt A mosquito bite my bottom And it raised a big red welt. So I said to that mosquito, “I'm sure you wouldn't mind If I took a pair of tweezers And I tweezered your behind!” He shriveled up his body And he shuffled to his feet, And he said, “I'm awfully sorry But a skeeter's got to eat! Still, there are mosquito manners, And I must have just forgot 'em. And I swear I'll never never never Bite another bottom.” But a minute later Archie Hill And Buck and Theo Brown Were horsing on the monkey bars, Hanging upside down. They must have looked delicious From a skeeter's point of view 'Cause he bit 'em on the bottoms, Archie, Buck and Theo too! You could hear 'em goin' HOLY! You could hear 'em goin' WHACK! You could hear 'em cuss and holler, Goin' smack, smack, smack. A mosquito's awful sneaky, A mosquito's mighty sly, But I never never never Thought a skeeter'd tell a lie.
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“When Great Trees Fall,” by Maya Angelou When great trees fall, rocks on distant hills shudder, lions hunker down in tall grasses, and even elephants lumber after safety. When great trees fall in forests, small things recoil into silence, their senses eroded beyond fear. When great souls die, the air around us becomes light, rare, sterile. We breathe, briefly. Our eyes, briefly, see with a hurtful clarity. Our memory, suddenly sharpened, examines, gnaws on kind words unsaid, promised walks never taken. Great souls die and our reality, bound to them, takes leave of us. Our souls, dependent upon their nurture, now shrink, wizened. Our minds, formed and informed by their radiance, fall away. 154
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We are not so much maddened as reduced to the unutterable ignorance of dark, cold caves. And when great souls die, after a period peace blooms, slowly and always irregularly. Spaces fill with a kind of soothing electric vibration. Our senses, restored, never to be the same, whisper to us. They existed. They existed. We can be. Be and be better. For they existed.
“A March,” by Ishion Hutchinson Lesson of the day: Syria and Styria. For Syria, read: His conquering banner shook from Syria. And for Styria: Look at this harp of blood, mapping. Now I am tuned. I am going to go above my voice for the sake of the forest shaken on the bitumen. You can see stars in the skulls, winking, synapses, intermittent, on edge of shriek—perhaps a cluster of fir, birches— Anyways. Don’t get too hung up on the terms; they have entropy in common, bad for the public weal, those obtuse centurions in the flare of the bougainvillea, their patent-seeking gift kindled. Divers speech. Cruelty. Justice. Never mind, but do pay attention to the skirmish— the white panther that flitters up the pole— its shade grows large on the ground.
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“The Raven,” by Edgar Allan Poe Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore— While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. “’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door— Only this and nothing more.” Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December; And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore— For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore— Nameless here for evermore. And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before; So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating “’Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door— Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;— This it is and nothing more.” Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer, “Sir,” said I, “or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore; But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping, And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door, That I scarce was sure I heard you”—here I opened wide the door;— Darkness there and nothing more. Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before; But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token, And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore?” This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!”— Merely this and nothing more. Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning, Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before. “Surely,” said I, “surely that is something at my window lattice; 156
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Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore— Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;— ’Tis the wind and nothing more!” Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter, In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore; Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he; But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door— Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door— Perched, and sat, and nothing more. Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore, “Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no craven, Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore— Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!” Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.” Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly, Though its answer little meaning—little relevancy bore; For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door— Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door, With such name as “Nevermore.” But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour. Nothing farther then he uttered—not a feather then he fluttered— Till I scarcely more than muttered “Other friends have flown before— On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before.” Then the bird said “Nevermore.” Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken, “Doubtless,” said I, “what it utters is its only stock and store Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore— Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore Of ‘Never—nevermore’.” But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling, Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door; 157
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Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore— What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore Meant in croaking “Nevermore.” This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom’s core; This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining On the cushion’s velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o’er, But whose velvet-violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o’er, She shall press, ah, nevermore! Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor. “Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee—by these angels he hath sent thee Respite—respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore; Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!” Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.” “Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!— Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore, Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted— On this home by Horror haunted—tell me truly, I implore— Is there—is there balm in Gilead?—tell me—tell me, I implore!” Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.” “Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil! By that Heaven that bends above us—by that God we both adore— Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn, It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore— Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.” Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.” “Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting— “Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore! Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken! Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the bust above my door! Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!” Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.” And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door; 158
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And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming, And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor; And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor Shall be lifted—nevermore! “Chastened Brown,” by Bettina M. Walker My daddy understood the richness of color and shunned my oldest sister’s whitewashed birth. Who the white child belong to? He asked in the delivery ward shaming himself as the source. Shadism colored my siblings’ perception. An ideal hierarchy with light skin the pinnacle after the paper bag test proved me cocoa dark and of less value. Burned biscuit defined what I could not erase. When they tired of sidewalk chalk and strike ’em out their feigned indignation made my smile give and give unsuccessfully, reaching eyes where ducts emptied silently. Turned my cheek on juvenile acceptance and sibling rivalry reminding myself that After all, I’m the real thing and it comforted me. “Torch Song,” by Lucy Tunstall Anoint your dead poems. Put them in a little boat called She Who Must Be Obeyed— our little joke. Invite the Molotovs for cocktails on deck. Tell them to wear all their gold. 159
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“Socratic,” by Jacqueline Jones LaMon The students know the agenda. When I step inside our classroom, the PowerPoint is loaded, the student presenting her report stands poised to begin. And so she does. This day is her second try, the first a wash due to our failed technology. I ask, Do you think you will earn another chance each time error is out of your hands? This day, a new day, she stands confident, prepared for questions from her peers, the one question she’s noted that I ask of them all— What is it that this artist has allowed you to achieve? This day, I forget the other questions I always wait to ask. This day, they ask no others, just stare outside at the lot of parked cars, play with the ends of their hair. They want to hear voices that give them reason to listen. They want the blare of car horn, tires screeching without a final thud. They want a lecture, a formula that does it all, a recitation of the method that always gets things done. And one woman says it, that she is sad, and all of them nod, and another says that she is angry, too. And how could they not indict. And why won’t justice ever be served. And why won’t anyone do anything to change the America in which we live. And I look at my classroom—the brown, the black, and the white of my room—and I ask who it is that must make the change we need. And they talk about the Government. They 160
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talk about the System. They talk about our Economics. And our Judges. And our Juries. They. And they tell me of their lives, their fears, their boyfriends and their fathers, our illness and our poverty, their rights and their desires, how none of us are ever safe. And the room becomes their last surrender while they wait for me to teach. I say, This is the part where you wait for me to synthesize your words then tell you what to do. And every face grows hopeful, just as we all did the night before, before we knew what we’ve always known, that knowing the truth doesn’t save us. And I take a sip of water and tell them every true thing that I know—that they are
the power who will save what needs saving, then answer their next questions with more and more questions, asking until time is up.
“The Fist,” by Derek Walcott
The fist clenched round my heart loosens a little, and I gasp brightness; but it tightens again. When have I ever not loved the pain of love? But this has moved past love to mania. This has the strong clench of the madman, this is gripping the ledge of unreason, before plunging howling into the abyss. Hold hard then, heart. This way at least you live.
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“All Kinds of Fires Inside Our Heads,” by Nikki Wallschlaeger The number of bodies I have is equal to the number of gurney transfers that are televised. If we’re all “just human” then who is responsible? A fire station drying out from addiction. Outside the drizzling of firepower, lowballing suns It’s like a sauna in here. the strain of a charred bladder. Bottled water bad wiring, that spark is no good come sit with me for a minute. My feet full of diluted axe fluid thought I heard you say everything is medicine but that’s just hearin what you wanna hear
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“Love Lost Not Forgotten,” By Tamara Booi Good friendship we had Amazing companions we were Beautiful love we shared Great history we made Sadly there’s nothing more for us So, what do you want lover? You receive letters I never sent You hear words I never said You read messages I never wrote You imagine things I can never give You creating life you’ll never live But, what do you want lover? So long to the feelings we had Goodbye to the dreams we had Farewell to the values we shared Next time to the chances we had I have let go of the history we had So, what do you want lover? You are no longer the sunshine in my life, Let me go You are no longer the heart beat in my heart, Let me go You are no longer the queen in my castle, Let me go You are no longer the treasure in my desires, Let me go You are no longer the angel in my heaven, Let me go
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I am not the truth you deserve, Let go I am not the keeper you need, Let go I am not the dream you hope for, Let go I am not the pleasure you desire, Let go I am not the man you are looking for. So, what do you want lover?
“Honeysuckle,” by Karla K. Morton It sprang up wild along the chain link fence—thick, with glorious white and yellow summer blooms, and green tips that we pinched and pulled for one perfect drop of gold honey. But Dad hated it—hated its lack of rows and containment, its disorder. Each year, he dug, bulldozed,
and set fire to those determined vines. But each year, they just grew back stronger. Maybe that's why I felt the urge to plant it that one day in May, when cancer stepped onto my front porch and rang the doorbell, loose matches spilling out of its ugly fists.
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“I Eat Breakfast to Begin the Day,” by Zubair Ahmed I create time I cannot create time I’m frozen in place I cannot be frozen I’m moving but don’t notice I notice me moving, I pay attention To the small yet immense yet Small movements that guide My limbs, my hair growth, my joint oils I don’t think about it I don’t feel it either I don’t have emotions right now I see films of divine quality I don’t see any films This black This not black To me I am I am not to me not I walk with this hollowness I walk with this blooming I’m moving outward forever Onward eternally inward I create all objects like shampoos And cats, I create nothing Like space and antimatter I resign to the clocks that keep time I surrender to the clocks that don’t keep time I’m sure about it, the color white I’m not sure about it, what is word? Oh, the loops and unloops Destiny unfolds in my knees I eat breakfast to begin the day.
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“Still I Rise,” by Maya Angelou You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may tread me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I'll rise. Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? 'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells Pumping in my living room. Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I'll rise. Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops. Weakened by my soulful cries. Does my haughtiness offend you? Don't you take it awful hard 'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines Diggin' in my own back yard. You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I'll rise. Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise That I dance like I've got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs? Out of the huts of history's shame I rise
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Up from a past that's rooted in pain I rise I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide. Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise.
“Sea Grapes,” by Derek Walcott That sail which leans on light, tired of islands, a schooner beating up the Caribbean for home, could be Odysseus, home-bound on the Aegean; that father and husband's longing, under gnarled sour grapes, is like the adulterer hearing Nausicaa's name in every gull's outcry. This brings nobody peace. The ancient war between obsession and responsibility will never finish and has been the same for the sea-wanderer or the one on shore now wriggling on his sandals to walk home, since Troy sighed its last flame, and the blind giant's boulder heaved the trough from whose groundswell the great hexameters come to the conclusions of exhausted surf. The classics can console. But not enough.
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“Visiting the Neighborhood,” by P. Ivan Young The entrance at the back of the complex led onto a road, where an upended couch tilted into a ditch and a washing machine gleamed avocado beneath pine needles. From the end, you turned left and left again, then cut a trail to find the cul-de-sac of bright brick houses. We'd walk as far as we dared before a man pushing a mower might stop to ask, "whadda you boys need?" That was a question we could never answer. I loved the name of the place, White Hall, imagined that each interior was a stretch of marble perfect wall adorned by smiling photos of the family. Our own halls were brailled with nail holes of former tenants, the spackled rounds of fists. But doesn't longing clarify the body? The boys I left behind: Tommy, wearing the World War II trenching tool; Danny, whose father, so much older than the other parents, died in his recliner one sunny afternoon while watching baseball; Duke, who stole his mother's car and crashed into a wall. Boys who knew when you were posing, waiting for someone to say, "smile." Boys who, on those latch-key days, held themselves in narrow passages when no one was there to show them what to do.
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“Postpartum,” by Hiromi Itō Childbirth was not dying nor defecating Childbirth was just a very painful period For the thirty-seven hours from beginning to end I kept on bleeding just as if I were having my period . . . the pain was unpleasant, nothing more The pain was unpleasant The pain was unpleasant Dying is unpleasant Unpleasant April 30, 9:47 am, a baby girl 3,650 grams, 51 centimeters After twenty-four hours have passed, the newborn is brought from the nursery and allowed to be with the mother. A bed for the newborn is placed to the side of the mother's bed, but everyone puts their baby in the bed with them and sleeps next to it. The bed for the newborn is so high that unless the mother lifts herself up, she cannot see it. My baby kept vomiting amniotic fluid in the nursery May 1, 9:47 am, twenty-four hours had gone by, but there she stayed May 1, the afternoon goes by and still no baby May 2, the whole day goes by and still no baby May 3, the whole morning and still no baby There is no baby Anywhere I haven't started lactating, of course May 3, 1 pm, the baby arrived And has existed ever since.
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“The Beauty Shell,” by Lynne Thompson Belle as beast Eel as style Bats testy Best lastly Bluely astute— as bull as beetle as Bey as butte Beauty as lute thus beauty as lush Late lethal Lust salty She’ll eye She’ll tally Yes stately yet stealth Yes steely yet sly Hey lathe— [she taut] Hey sleuth— [she tale]
He heel He that She bluesy She ballsy She byte She shall
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“Wheel of Fire,” by Ishion Hutchinson They flared on the sea green of the Subaru that seemed netted under the unleafing maple, a limestone moulage cut from a quarry and cast in immemorial arrest behind Pete’s Absolute Asphalt truck, throttling still when I alighted and said, besides, in Aleppo once— to nothing but the wind photographed in sunlight; the pavement’s watery brier and children and their ghosts and the air-raid screams of mothers, once, in Aleppo, altered that moment in history when titihihihihi titihihihihi those white houses, stiffened with silence, broke the private change, the public good to dive into pits of leaves.
“Tonight,” by Ladan Osman Tonight is a drunk man, his dirty shirt. There is no couple chatting by the recycling bins, offering to help me unload my plastics. There is not even the black and white cat that balances elegantly on the lip of the dumpster. There is only the smell of sour breath. Sweat on the collar of my shirt. A water bottle rolling under a car. Me in my too-small pajama pants stacking juice jugs on neighbors’ juice jugs. I look to see if there is someone drinking on their balcony. I tell myself I will wave.
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Can make it out here alone. Alone, all alone Nobody, but nobody Can make it out here alone. “Dream-Land,” by Edgar Allan Poe By a route obscure and lonely, Haunted by ill angels only, Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT, On a black throne reigns upright, I have reached these lands but newly From an ultimate dim Thule— From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime, Out of SPACE—Out of TIME. Bottomless vales and boundless floods, And chasms, and caves, and Titan woods, With forms that no man can discover For the tears that drip all over; Mountains toppling evermore Into seas without a shore; Seas that restlessly aspire, Surging, unto skies of fire; Lakes that endlessly outspread Their lone waters—lone and dead,— Their still waters—still and chilly With the snows of the lolling lily. By the lakes that thus outspread Their lone waters, lone and dead,— Their sad waters, sad and chilly With the snows of the lolling lily,— By the mountains—near the river Murmuring lowly, murmuring ever,— By the grey woods,—by the swamp Where the toad and the newt encamp,— By the dismal tarns and pools Where dwell the Ghouls,— 172
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By each spot the most unholy— In each nook most melancholy,— There the traveller meets, aghast, Sheeted Memories of the Past— Shrouded forms that start and sigh As they pass the wanderer by— White-robed forms of friends long given, In agony, to the Earth—and Heaven. For the heart whose woes are legion ’T is a peaceful, soothing region— For the spirit that walks in shadow ’T is—oh, ’t is an Eldorado! But the traveller, travelling through it, May not—dare not openly view it; Never its mysteries are exposed To the weak human eye unclosed; So wills its King, who hath forbid The uplifting of the fring'd lid; And thus the sad Soul that here passes Beholds it but through darkened glasses. By a route obscure and lonely, Haunted by ill angels only, Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT, On a black throne reigns upright, I have wandered home but newly From this ultimate dim Thule.
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“Developers,” by Alice Lyons Greed got in the way. We built a fake estate. Levinas said to see ourselves we need each other yet doorbells, rows of them, glow in the night village a string of lit invitations no elbow has leaned into (both arms embracing messages). Unanswered the doors are rotting from the bottom up. It’s another perplexing pothole in our road, loves. Hard core from the quarry might make it level, hard core and cunning speculation into matters concerning love and doubt, concerning want and plenty. O the places where pavement runs out and ragwort springs up, where Lindenwood ends but doesn’t abut anywhere neatly, a petered-out plot of Tayto tumbleweeds, bin bags, rebar, roof slates, offcuts, guttering, drain grilles, doodads, infill, gravel! A not-as-yet nice establishment, possessing potential where we have no authorized voice but are oddly fitted out for the pain it takes to build bit by bit. When the last contractions brought us to the brink of our new predicament, we became developers.
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“The Boom and After the Boom,” by Alice Lyons The Shannon when it washes the shoreline in the wake of a cruiser susurruses exactly like the Polish language you hear in lidl on Friday evenings, 7 pm payday. That’s what Gerry says. The river surface offers space to the song: hammer taps of Latvians and Poles nailing planks of a deck. The place between water and sky holding sound. It is underloved and an amphitheater. Latvians and Lithuanians are nailing planks of grooved decking. It will be a nice feature of that riverside property. Their tap-tapping underscores the distance between this side and that. Winter gales have made swift work of the billboard proclaiming 42 luxury bungalows only two Remaining. Crumpled up on the roadside now two-by-four legs akimbo— a circus-horse curtsy or steeplechase mishap.
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“Driving West Through Somerset County,” by Kevin Casey The sun climbed the rigging of a mackerel sky, with me and my daughter following west, and then the sudden, thick lashed, chestnut eye of that poor deer, flashed as we collided. Busted bumper, her bounding toward the pines— clean-limbed, light, and sapling-sound, she vanished. Stopping on the shoulder, I dreaded what damage my own poor dear and her thick-lashed, chestnut eyes had suffered, struck by their shared innocence and that awful force; but her beaming face, sunflower-broad, was filled by this thrill, with her eager as the deer that the day might move along, and the sun—without looking down—should keep to its climbing. “Lines For An Epic,” by Sotère Torregian Pagano, the arc of night fallen Ice on the underhanded lilies cakewalk Underground, in the garage caverns of Galatian eocene gift of the man in the panther-skin trailed by detectives of the fanfare aboveworld hewer or warrior of the blue muscles in the saga-like Cranial canopy of the newscast's morning December All are gone and connect him with the language of light and darkness refusal out of the flowers of the staff came a dove by that time the apple will be old and forgotten in telecast streams of your eyes wife in symphony of blue porcelain your symphony in blue. 176
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“Taking Apart My Childhood Piano,” by Rebecca Macijeski My mother and I sit on the back porch, bare feet in summer grass as we take the upright down to pieces, breeze humming through its strings. I extract each melodic tooth and sort them in octaves for rinsing, tidy enclosure in boxes, remembering in each how my young fingers rioted over them searching for sound and the way it grows like its own unruly animal. The old piano lies open to Sunday morning sun, swallowing blossoms that drift over like stars from the apple tree I climbed as a girl. My mother and I sit here in a quiet usually reserved for churches, hands moving slowly over what we gather —piles of soft hammers, odd coils of wire. We take up wet rags and wash each wooden key down its surface, wet music pooling onto our skin.
“Now the Seasons Turns,” by Ōtomo No Yakamochi translated from Japanese by Sam Hamill Now the seasons turns— Autumn breezes become Winter’s bitter winds. To a man alone, the nights will grow sleeplessly long.
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“So as Not to Distort,” by Hiromi Itō I make shiratama And take them to my man I heat the sugar and form syrup Put in the boiled dumplings And cool them I seal them tight And take them All the shiratama stick to the bottom The surfaces of the shiratama are torn Their round Shapes are distorted I scoop them up with a spoon Hey! Look! Scoop them out So they don't get distorted I love shiratama best of all Says my man, carrying the shiratama to his mouth He closes his eyes and shows me how good they are I love them more than you I watch my man Swallowing the shiratama And lapping up the lukewarm syrup I shake the sealed container and wrap it in cloth Then the two of us Bring together our syrupy mouths Slide the palms of our hands Moving them in the shape of love But You know I don't want to distort I don't want to be left distorted This is what I think, oh man, my man I roll them up Boil the shiratama, heat the syrup, then cool them I roll into them
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Heartrending hopes Thick syrup Smooth shiratama My man swallows them down Thick like saliva Smooth like buttocks How do they taste? I don't want to distort you He also thought in his heartrending way I have reached him The food I secrete Secreted deep, deep Into the man I love
“At Nights Birds Hammered My Unborn” by Ishion Hutchinson
At nights birds hammered my unborn child’s heart to strength, each strike bringing bones and spine to glow, her lungs pestled loud as the sea I was raised a sea anemone among women who cursed their hearts out, soured themselves, never-brides, into veranda shades, talcum and tea moistened their quivering jaws, prophetic without prophecy. Anvil-black, gleaming garlic nubs, the pageant arrived with sails unfurled from Colchis and I rejoiced like a broken asylum to see burning sand grains, skittering ice; shekels clapped in my chest, I smashed my head against a lightbulb and light sprinkled my hair; I rejoiced, a poui tree hit by the sun in the room, a man, a man.
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“The Season of Phantasmal Peace,” by Derek Walcott Then all the nations of birds lifted together the huge net of the shadows of this earth in multitudinous dialects, twittering tongues, stitching and crossing it. They lifted up the shadows of long pines down trackless slopes, the shadows of glass-faced towers down evening streets, the shadow of a frail plant on a city sill— the net rising soundless as night, the birds' cries soundless, until there was no longer dusk, or season, decline, or weather, only this passage of phantasmal light that not the narrowest shadow dared to sever. And men could not see, looking up, what the wild geese drew, what the ospreys trailed behind them in silvery ropes that flashed in the icy sunlight; they could not hear battalions of starlings waging peaceful cries, bearing the net higher, covering this world like the vines of an orchard, or a mother drawing the trembling gauze over the trembling eyes of a child fluttering to sleep; it was the light that you will see at evening on the side of a hill in yellow October, and no one hearing knew what change had brought into the raven's cawing, the killdeer's screech, the ember-circling chough such an immense, soundless, and high concern for the fields and cities where the birds belong, except it was their seasonal passing, Love, made seasonless, or, from the high privilege of their birth, something brighter than pity for the wingless ones below them who shared dark holes in windows and in houses, and higher they lifted the net with soundless voices above all change, betrayals of falling suns, and this season lasted one moment, like the pause between dusk and darkness, between fury and peace, but, for such as our earth is now, it lasted long.
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“Decorated Obstacles,” by Moses Uyang I thought I knew them! No – I didn’t. They wear things made of wool, things made of gold, things made of sweat and blood. I can’t really figure out who they are. On that day they came calling, calling out in sheepish looks, but with ‘wolfish’ hearts. They called until their voices seized. One by one you all will pay for this seizure. This they said yet no one in the crowd heard. These decorated obstacles have gone and seen; how time is handled, how knowledge bears transformation… yet they came back and became blind suddenly. Who will see for them? Who has the guts to raise an alarm? Or have they not been obstacles long enough? Can we strike a deal for a complete revolution? Will you be faithful to the cause? Can I count on you? But in case you become afraid or lose interest- Wait! Let me assure you sisters and brothers of Africa. Our style of revolution will be different. There will be no shedding of blood. There will be no arms to hands, no weapons of the nuclear lineage, no tanks of armour, no knives or axes. All I’m saying is, there will be no bloodshed. When we meet, we shall discuss more, more for us, more for generations to come. If this gets to you first, Kwame, please inform Lumumba and Walter. 181
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And I’m sure they would make this known to Fanon. As for Dedan, I’ve already told him. “Fool Moon,” by Adedayo Michael Babatunde The astrologer had seen the future and had predicted that there would be a moon, a full moon, on a day when the children gather under a dark sky. There would be a moon, he predicted, half of it dark like a cloud of acidic rain. The other half would be bright like a splash of fire from a candle stick. Its brightness would die at noon. We are children from a cursed womb. We are children from an aborted promise, we flirt with common-sense, we dine with high-handed stupidity, we sing war songs in peaceful time while we lay peacefully in war time. We sacrifice to gods defiled by watery sacrifices, our sacrileges are recorded in the book of doom. The prophet had said there would be an abortion a division of the land when the children grow. He had seen the works of the herdsmen killing farmers, he had predicted that the brothers from the dry deserts would kill the ones from the flowing coastline. The prophet had said, with excitement, that there would be bloodshed to water the land. And there has always been bloodshed. The moon is coming out at dawn since the night was too dark for it to glow. The children sleep under cracking roofs, their tomorrow buried in dangerous serenity. The land is no longer at ease the leaves are withering, the rivers are flowing with black blood, yet the elders play the blame game, they are creating scenes of rib-cracking cackles in the months of nightmares… These elders will leave no antecedents but a history of deeds of madness, they joyously add to the sacrileges of the saintly gods, paving way for a blurred future, a glorious end awaits at the end of the fool moon. 182
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“The Sadness of a Dog,” by Vivek Narayanan Somehow pesters the sadness of a dog—that ungiven guardedness at first report of day in a slyly chosen alley; not the cat hidden in the bougainvillaea blossom, not the bull barefaced into the lissome highway, it’s a madness less to do with mordant Englishness in a glum phototropic teat, more a perky realpolitik in over-familiar mottled skin. That hoarse howl at the garden’s shrub-ridden edge, that shawl a woman knits, waiting for a man who’s not her man—not a man at all—then crouching by the bedpost mewling. * When to be tame is at most a disavowal in proxy to the master’s unacknowledged fear: knowing fear as part of privilege, knowing privilege a state infeasible, the amenable innate animal to whom we assign the affectionate name —Bango, Napoleon, Spot—bounding resolutely into the black-red greenness of the middle sea— believes itself to be human in dogly garb, a non-veg incarnation of mortal virtue, no less than a wife, child, comrade in armless charms. We nurture this notion, lure it to the rug. * So even if it steal to the street trailing a fog-dust deliberate, choosing mange over matter to be free—deranged, sheltering in a truck’s dappled shade, but dreading the hunger-dusk or charity at noon—if it claim its independence among curs, dodging some dog-chief, teeth clenched, 183
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lurking in building societies— it still will count the hand that carries the house in a fist, or follow, for a glance, a humanist. Paused between doorstep and forest, both gone; kept in equilibrium, the sadness of a dog. “In My Sights, Sister,” by Rachel Galvin My eyes are polished smooth by sight, they clot like crystals in storm glass, like my sister brewing beakers of toxin. If we had seen what had been done, what the helicopter pilot did in our name, what the special ops team did in our name, what they did with their hands in our name. What if it were my sister, what if it were her, what? If we had seen with our own smooth eyes. Mark the diacritical, my lovely: we’re all wearing our knee-high boots, every last one of us, we live in a booted nation. A nation girded and gunning. This moment, this is precisely all, watching takes work, sight takes hours, takes my eyeglasses, every last one of them, as if they were yours. You can see there’s a sigh in our sight. What if it were my sister? What if it were, what? What we saw ground into our eyes with the photos, with the newspaper reports. What would I say, what can I say if, what would I say if it were my sister, my own? With my own beakers of toxin, my own boots, my own hands in my own name? “Cry To Me,” by John L. Stanizzi We walked through some heartache in '62. Gary liked Teresa but Teresa asked Elizabeth to tell Peter that she really wanted to go out with him but Peter had been making out with Jane in the theater, celebrating their one month anniversary, so that was out, and even though Jane broke up with Peter, Peter kept asking Gail to talk with Jane which Gail wouldn't do because she'd told Brenda that she thought that Peter was cute but Brenda wasn't listening to a word, wrapped up in lonely teardrops shed for Greg. The waters of 8th grade were never still. 184
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“Can You Tell,” by John Godfrey Happens this time in answer to indecency Lit by the yellow shop windows cast Unkind to you, that light You say, Sit, Ubu, sit, or Hey, I like your weave This avenue for instance Gateway to escapade You can see from the beginning to its end All-embracing greed Distracting appliqués of altruism Small pomme de terre Can you tell whose hand on the basinet and that does what for you Warmth all in the light Sight all in garage park hallway Morning's dusk on pause You stand body in profile What you don't fill in the doorway stays empty More than overcome I know you're there and unseal my lips
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“Blue,” by Chris Abani I Africans in the hold fold themselves to make room for hope. In the afternoon’s ferocity, tar, grouting the planks like the glue of family, melts to the run of a child’s licorice stick. Wet decks crack, testing the wood’s mettle. Distilled from evaporating brine, salt dusts the floor, tickling with the measure into time and the thirst trapped below. II The captain’s new cargo of Igbos disturbs him. They stand, computing the swim back to land. Haitians still say: Igbo pend’c or’ a ya! But we do not hang ourselves in cowardice. III Sold six times on the journey to the coast, once for a gun, then cloth, then iron manilas, her pride was masticated like husks of chewing sticks, spat from morning-rank mouths. Breaking loose, edge of handcuffs held high like the blade of a vengeful axe, she runs across the salt scratch of deck, pain deeper than the blue inside a flame. IV The sound, like the break of bone could have been the Captain’s skull or the musket shot dropping her over the side, her chains wrapped around his neck in dance.
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“Woman Work,” by Maya Angelou I've got the children to tend The clothes to mend The floor to mop The food to shop Then the chicken to fry The baby to dry I got company to feed The garden to weed I've got shirts to press The tots to dress The can to be cut I gotta clean up this hut Then see about the sick And the cotton to pick. Shine on me, sunshine Rain on me, rain Fall softly, dewdrops And cool my brow again. Storm, blow me from here With your fiercest wind Let me float across the sky 'Til I can rest again. Fall gently, snowflakes Cover me with white Cold icy kisses and Let me rest tonight. Sun, rain, curving sky Mountain, oceans, leaf and stone Star shine, moon glow You're all that I can call my own.
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“Chant,” by Chris Abani It was the hornbill that spoke it. In the nothing, becoming nothing, begetting nothing; this is everything. The world is old, the world is new How does the darkness hide? In the nothing, becoming nothing, begetting nothing; this is everything. The world is old, the world is new The sun is no bigger than a crab. In the nothing, becoming nothing, begetting nothing; this is everything. The world is old, the world is new Hot soup is devoured from the edges. In the nothing, becoming nothing, begetting nothing; this is everything. The world is old, the world is new The blood sign is red; burning like fire. In the nothing, becoming nothing, begetting nothing; this is everything. The world is old, the world is new It has no name; silence is its name. In the nothing, becoming nothing, begetting nothing; this is everything. The world is old, the world is new.
“A Poet To His Beloved,” by William Butler Yeats I BRING you with reverent hands The books of my numberless dreams, White woman that passion has worn As the tide wears the dove-grey sands, And with heart more old than the horn That is brimmed from the pale fire of time: White woman with numberless dreams, I bring you my passionate rhyme. 188
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“Coyote,” by Hiromi Itō My grandmother was a medium My mother was a magician My mother's older sister was a geisha My mother's younger sister had tuberculosis My mother's other younger sister was barren All were wonderfully beautiful The spells mother taught me All required saké, rice, and salt We were afraid of snakes, water, and the east My daughter began speaking baby talk at two months When the coyote speaks to her She smiles and always responds The coyote: A dry plain, plain, plain My daughter: Plain, plain, plain The coyote: No lying My daughter: No lying, no lying, no lying The coyote: Hungry, hungry My daughter: Hungry too Coyote: Hah, hah, hah My daughter: Haaaaaaaa-ohh My daughter's father, my father: I wanted to concentrate just on the coyote. I wanted to isolate myself, insulate myself, see nothing other than the coyote And I wanted to trade places with him The milk flows from my breast bountifully To fatten my daughter it flows in overabundance, much too much My grandmother's milk also flowed bountifully With it she fattened her four girls and two boys My mother's older sister's milk also flowed bountifully With it she fattened her three boys My mother's milk also flowed bountifully With it she fattened just me, and the leftover milk flowed out My mother's younger sister's milk also flowed bountifully With it she fattened her two boys My mother's other younger sister nursed and nursed her adopted child With her milkless breasts until eventually The milk began to flow from her body 189
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There is so much rain Everything and anything gets soaked Inside a damp frame, grandmother's beautiful smiling face with no eyebrows or teeth My mother's older sister's beautiful face with no chin, teeth, or hair but with large lips My mother's younger sister's beautiful face with fleshy, hairless lashes and no teeth My mother's younger sister's beautiful face with spots and no teeth My mother's beautiful face with sagging cheeks, crow's feet, and no armpit hair nor teeth But all of them do have breasts that sag The women all enjoy fondling the babies in the family My daughter Is the only female grandchild Is the only female niece The words of the women who fondle the babies in the family Slowly turn to baby talk before our eyes The women from age ninety to fifty gather (The ninety-year-old has been dead for a decade) The women sit together and Begin to speak in baby talk Gyaaatei Gyaaatei Haaraagyaatei Harasoogyaatei My grandmother was a medium My mother was a magician My mother's older sister was a geisha My mother's younger sister had tuberculosis My mother's other younger sister was barren My grandfather was a paralytic My mother's older brother died young My mother's younger brother did not speak at all My father was related to none of them My mother's husband and my husband Vanished right before I gave birth to my daughter
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Coyote: Gyaatei My daughter: Gyaatei Coyote: Haaraagyaatei My daughter: Haraharagyaatei Coyote: Gyaagyaagyaatei My daughter: Haragyaatei The precipitation and humidity this time of year My mother chants her magical spells Cursing the humidity Saké and rain Rice and rain Salt and rain Ordering the water To flow to the east Forgive us, oh honorable snake Saké and rain Rice and rain Salt and rain
“A Girl,” by Ezra Pound The tree has entered my hands, The sap has ascended my arms, The tree has grown in my breast downward, The branches grow out of me, like arms. Tree you are, Moss you are, You are violets with wind above them. A child - so high - you are, And all this is folly to the world.
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I have come so long, to a distant place so far But my eyes are too blind to see, My strength is too weak to carry on My faith is too thin to believe My heart is too fragile to bear and my fears are too strong to ignore I was dead; long before they pronounced so.
“Death,” by Collins Okpala Nothing is as sure as death, Its haunting threat hunts man forever from Earth What are we then but sojourners from Birth, The world is a stage, Uncertainty is Set…
“Mountain,” by Clifton Gachagua On the day I set out on the climb, grief saddled in my back like a bag of marbles, my breath like clouds hanging on the low peaks of a mountain, on the day I set out leaving nothing behind, nothing on the bed, no version of myself, just my voice through the night, the voice I use to ward off nightmares. (My voice is a still life in itself, a shroud green and ultramarine deep blue, a bowl of apples and tangerines on a table.) On the day I set out, the mountain is high in front of me, the unreliable god of mist and fog. I have no voice to say how high my fingers must lift as if on a lover's upper lip, to take in the breath of how high my mountain is—white teeth behind a snow cap, numberless springs, cold like the enzymes in spit— a version of me is still asleep: the moving of a limb in sleep. Everything becomes lucid. 192
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“Sonnet I,” by Robert Southey Hold your mad hands! for ever on your plain Must the gorged vulture clog his beak with blood? For ever must your Nigers tainted flood Roll to the ravenous shark his banquet slain? Hold your mad hands! what daemon prompts to rear The arm of Slaughter? on your savage shore Can hell-sprung Glory claim the feast of gore, With laurels water'd by the widow's tear Wreathing his helmet crown? lift high the spear! And like the desolating whirlwinds sweep, Plunge ye yon bark of anguish in the deep; For the pale fiend, cold-hearted Commerce there Breathes his gold-gender'd pestilence afar, And calls to share the prey his kindred Daemon War.
“Sonnet II,” by Robert Southey Why dost thou beat thy breast and rend thine hair, And to the deaf sea pour thy frantic cries? Before the gale the laden vessel flies; The Heavens all-favoring smile, the breeze is fair; Hark to the clamors of the exulting crew! Hark how their thunders mock the patient skies! Why dost thou shriek and strain thy red-swoln eyes As the white sail dim lessens from thy view? Go pine in want and anguish and despair, There is no mercy found in human-kind— Go Widow to thy grave and rest thee there! But may the God of Justice bid the wind Whelm that curst bark beneath the mountain wave, And bless with Liberty and Death the Slave!
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“Sonnet III,” by Robert Southey Oh he is worn with toil! the big drops run Down his dark cheek; hold—hold thy merciless hand, Pale tyrant! for beneath thy hard command O'erwearied Nature sinks. The scorching Sun, As pityless as proud Prosperity, Darts on him his full beams; gasping he lies Arraigning with his looks the patient skies, While that inhuman trader lifts on high The mangling scourge. Oh ye who at your ease Sip the blood-sweeten'd beverage! thoughts like these Haply ye scorn: I thank thee Gracious God! That I do feel upon my cheek the glow Of indignation, when beneath the rod A sable brother writhes in silent woe.
“Sonnet IV,” by Robert Southey 'Tis night; the mercenary tyrants sleep As undisturb'd as Justice! but no more The wretched Slave, as on his native shore, Rests on his reedy couch: he wakes to weep! Tho' thro' the toil and anguish of the day No tear escap'd him, not one suffering groan Beneath the twisted thong, he weeps alone In bitterness; thinking that far away Tho' the gay negroes join the midnight song, Tho' merriment resounds on Niger's shore, She whom he loves far from the chearful throng Stands sad, and gazes from her lowly door With dim grown eye, silent and woe-begone, And weeps for him who will return no more.
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“Sonnet V,” by Robert Southey Did then the bold Slave rear at last the Sword Of Vengeance? drench'd he deep its thirsty blade In the cold bosom of his tyrant lord? Oh! who shall blame him? thro' the midnight shade Still o'er his tortur'd memory rush'd the thought Of every past delight; his native grove, Friendship's best joys, and Liberty and Love, All lost for ever! then Remembrance wrought His soul to madness; round his restless bed Freedom's pale spectre stalk'd, with a stern smile Pointing the wounds of slavery, the while She shook her chains and hung her sullen head: No more on Heaven he calls with fruitless breath, But sweetens with revenge, the draught of death. “Sonnet VI,” by Robert Southey High in the air expos'd the Slave is hung To all the birds of Heaven, their living food! He groans not, tho' awaked by that fierce Sun New torturers live to drink their parent blood! He groans not, tho' the gorging Vulture tear The quivering fibre! hither gaze O ye Who tore this Man from Peace and Liberty! Gaze hither ye who weigh with scrupulous care The right and prudent; for beyond the grave There is another world! and call to mind, Ere your decrees proclaim to all mankind Murder is legalized, that there the Slave Before the Eternal, "thunder-tongued shall plead "Against the deep damnation of your deed."
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From Charity, (1782) by William Cowper Again—the band of commerce was design’d To associate all the branches of mankind; And if a boundless plenty be the robe, Trade is the golden girdle of the globe. Wise to promote whatever end he means, God opens fruitful Nature’s various scenes: Each climate needs what other climes produce, And offers something to the general use; No land but listens to the common call, And in return receives supply from all. This genial intercourse, and mutual aid, Cheers what were else a universal shade, Calls nature from her ivy-mantled den, And softens human rock-work into men. Ingenious Art, with her expressive face, Steps forth to fashion and refine the race; Not only fills necessity’s demand, But overcharges her capacious hand: Capricious taste itself can crave no more Than she supplies from her abounding store: She strikes out all that luxury can ask, And gains new vigour at her endless task. Hers is the spacious arch, the shapely spire, The painter’s pencil, and the poet’s lyre; From her the canvas borrows light and shade, And verse, more lasting, hues that never fade. She guides the finger o’er the dancing keys, Gives difficulty all the grace of ease, And pours a torrent of sweet notes around Fast as the thirsting ear can drink the sound. These are the gifts of art; and art thrives most Where Commerce has enrich’d the busy coast; He catches all improvements in his flight, Spreads foreign wonders in his country’s sight, Imports what others have invented well, And stirs his own to match them, or excel. ‘Tis thus, reciprocating each with each,
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Alternately the nations learn and teach; While Providence enjoins to ev’ry soul A union with the vast terraqueous whole. Heaven speed the canvas gallantly unfurl’d To furnish and accommodate a world, To give the pole the produce of the sun, And knit the unsocial climates into one. Soft airs and gentle heavings of the wave Impel the fleet, whose errand is to save, To succour wasted regions, and replace The smile of opulence in sorrow’s face. Let nothing adverse, nothing unforeseen, Impede the bark that ploughs the deep serene, Charged with a freight transcending in its worth The gems of India, Nature’s rarest birth, That flies, like Gabriel on his Lord’s commands, A herald of God’s love to pagan lands! But ah! what wish can prosper, or what prayer, For merchants rich in cargoes of despair, Who drive a loathsome traffic, gauge, and span, And buy the muscles and the bones of man? The tender ties of father, husband, friend, All bonds of nature in that moment end; And each endures, while yet he draws his breath, A stroke as fatal as the scythe of death. The sable warrior, frantic with regret Of her he loves, and never can forget, Loses in tears the far-receding shore, But not the thought that they must meet no more; Deprived of her and freedom at a blow, What has he left that he can yet forego? Yes, to deep sadness sullenly resign’d, He feels his body’s bondage in his mind; Puts off his generous nature, and to suit His manners with his fate, puts on the brute. Oh most degrading of all ills that wait On man, a mourner in his best estate! All other sorrows virtue may endure, And find submission more than half a cure; Grief is itself a medicine, and bestow’d To improve the fortitude that bears the load; 197
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To teach the wanderer, as his woes increase, The path of wisdom, all whose paths are peace; But slavery!—Virtue dreads it as her grave: Patience itself is meanness in a slave; Or, if the will and sovereignty of God Bid suffer it a while, and kiss the rod, Wait for the dawning of a brighter day, And snap the chain the moment when you may. Nature imprints upon whate’er we see, That has a heart and life in it, Be free! The beasts are charter’d—neither age nor force Can quell the love of freedom in a horse: He breaks the cord that held him at the rack; And, conscious of an unencumber’d back, Snuffs up the morning air, forgets the rein; Loose fly his forelock and his ample mane; Responsive to the distant neigh, he neighs; Nor stops, till, overleaping all delays, He finds the pasture where his fellows graze. Canst thou, and honour’d with a Christian name, Buy what is woman-born, and feel no shame? Trade in the blood of innocence, and plead Expedience as a warrant for the deed? So may the wolf, whom famine has made bold To quit the forest and invade the fold: So may the ruffian, who with ghostly glide, Dagger in hand, steals close to your bedside; Not he, but his emergence forced the door, He found it inconvenient to be poor. Has God then given its sweetness to the cane, Unless his laws be trampled on—in vain? Built a brave world, which cannot yet subsist, Unless his right to rule it be dismiss’d? Impudent blasphemy! So folly pleads, And, avarice being judge, with ease succeeds. But grant the plea, and let it stand for just, That man make man his prey, because he must; Still there is room for pity to abate And soothe the sorrows of so sad a state. A Briton knows, or if he knows it not, The Scripture placed within his reach, he ought, That souls have no discriminating hue, 198
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Alike important in their Maker’s view; That none are free from blemish since the fall, And love divine has paid one price for all. The wretch that works and weeps without relief Has One that notices his silent grief. He, from whose hand alone all power proceeds, Ranks its abuse among the foulest deeds, Considers all injustice with a frown; But marks the man that treads his fellow down. Begone!—the whip and bell in that hard hand Are hateful ensigns of usurp’d command. Not Mexico could purchase kings a claim To scourge him, weariness his only blame. Remember, Heaven has an avenging rod, To smite the poor is treason against God! Trouble is grudgingly and hardly brook’d, While life’s sublimest joys are overlook’d: We wander o’er a sunburnt thirsty soil, Murmuring and weary of our daily toil, Forget to enjoy the palm-tree’s offer’d shade, Or taste the fountain in the neighbouring glade: Else who would lose, that had the power to improve The occasion of transmuting fear to love? Oh, ‘tis a godlike privilege to save! And he that scorns it is himself a slave. Inform his mind; one flash of heavenly day Would heal his heart, and melt his chains away. 'Beauty for ashes' is a gift indeed, And slaves, by truth enlarged, are doubly freed. Then would he say, submissive at thy feet, While gratitude and love made service sweet, My dear deliverer out of hopeless night, Whose bounty bought me but to give me light, I was a bondman on my native plain, Sin forged, and ignorance made fast, the chain; Thy lips have shed instruction as the dew, Taught me what path to shun, and what pursue; Farewell my former joys! I sigh no more For Africa’s once loved, benighted shore; Serving a benefactor, I am free; At my best home, if not exiled from thee. 199
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William Cowper From The Task, Book II (1784) Oh for a lodge in some vast wilderness, Some boundless contiguity of shade, Where rumour of oppression and deceit, Of unsuccessful or successful war, Might never reach me more! My ear is pained, My soul is sick with every day's report Of wrong and outrage with which earth is filled. There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart, It does not feel for man. The natural bond Of brotherhood is severed as the flax That falls asunder at the touch of fire. He finds his fellow guilty of a skin Not coloured like his own, and having power To enforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause Dooms and devotes him as his lawful prey. Lands intersected by a narrow frith Abhor each other. Mountains interposed Make enemies of nations, who had else Like kindred drops been mingled into one. Thus man devotes his brother, and destroys; And worse than all, and most to be deplored, As human nature's broadest, foulest blot, Chains him, and tasks him, and exacts his sweat With stripes, that mercy, with a bleeding heart, Weeps when she sees inflicted on a beast. Then what is man? And what man, seeing this, And having human feelings, does not blush And hang his head, to think himself a man? I would not have a slave to till my ground, To carry me, to fan me while I sleep, And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth That sinews bought and sold have ever earned. No: dear as freedom is, and in my heart's Just estimation prized above all price, I had much rather be myself the slave And wear the bonds, than fasten them on him. We have no slaves at home - then why abroad? And they themselves, once ferried o'er the wave That parts us, are emancipate and loosed. Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs 200
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Receive our air, that moment they are free, They touch our country and their shackles fall. That's noble, and bespeaks a nation proud And jealous of the blessing. Spread it then, And let it circulate through every vein Of all your empire; that where Britain's power Is felt, mankind may feel her mercy too. “From The Prelude (1805 Text) Book X, lines 203-228,” by William Wordsworth When to my native land, After a whole year’s absence, I returned, I found the air yet busy with the stir Of a contention which had been raised up Against the traffickers in Negro blood, An effort which, though baffled, nevertheless Had called back old forgotten principles Dismissed from service, had diffused some truths, And more of virtuous feeling, through the heart Of the English people. And no few of those, So numerous—little less in verity Than a whole nation crying with one voice— Who had been crossed in this their just intent And righteous hope, thereby were well prepared To let that journey sleep awhile, and join Whatever other caravan appeared To travel forward towards Liberty With more success. For me that strife had ne’er Fastened on my affections, nor did now Its unsuccessful issue much excite My sorrow, having laid this faith to heart, That if France prospered good men would not long Pay fruitless worship to humanity, And this most rotten branch of human shame (Object, as seemed, of superfluous pains) Would fall together with its parent tree.
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“The Ocean’s Children,” by Ndukwu Joseph Omoh The ocean is born like a calf, tender and milk-white Lapping rain in first sips of life Growing towards heaven and earth and man With wild horns Goring legislative decisions, ripping flags Turning borders to fake laughters The ocean is an incomprehensible riddle Like a book of broken pages scattered on stone The ocean holds us with gnarled hands And sings to us wandering children About the distant stars and dreams ferried on rotten decks We do not understand the melodies of the seas The rivulets that are the ink with which we sign our griefs Tiny signed cheques with which we pay the price of blood and nostalgic places of wrongbirth This hulk of water bears us on, buries our conceit Sings to us on this ferry to new homes “Atta Girl: Taste,” by Atuhairwe Agrace Mugizi You will speak of troubled words, enter the Corridors of the Learned but your body belongs to me, your Manthe only reason your papers will endure my reigns; and when your honour meets my desires, you will bow lesser, cringe a little because you ought to. When you query this, one bit, like a pea in a pod, like a puppy on a bone, like a corpse in a grave- you will surely fail. Unless, you tang the hood of honour as you must, being woman, unfettered. 202
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“The Sea” by Kim Chi-ha Brimming Pooling sea In the hollow faces, In the hollow scars left by the whip, In the shadow of peasants' hollow eyes ... sea. In the unopened parched lips, And unopened prisons ... sea, Pooling sea. Small, silent sea of anger. Brimming; while waves gather Candle-light permeates the torn body; I writhe and struggle: Oh, oppression! Sometimes dancing sea, glistening but Not moonlit, not burning. Small. Oh, oppression! Silent sea of anger Someday suddenly overflowing, Someday mercilessly surging forth, Ceaselessly, silently, flowing In the forearm digging the soil. In the eyes, lips and breast, Pools the sea, little by little ... The Sea of Storm, not yet risen.
“Goodbye to the Sun,” by Crystal Sherriff Out the sky it came Darkened my sun, crippling my light Eclipsed my day, created my night Black holes swallow everything in sight My heart included.
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“In Memoriam,” by Léopold Sédar Senghor (Translated by Melvin Dixon) Today is Sunday. I fear the crowd of my fellows with such faces of stone. From my glass tower filled with headaches and impatient Ancestors, I contemplate the roofs and hilltops in the mist. In the stillness—somber, naked chimneys. Below them my dead are asleep and my dreams turn to ashes. All my dreams, blood running freely down the streets And mixing with blood from the butcher shops. From this observatory like the outskirts of town I contemplate my dreams lost along the streets, Crouched at the foot of the hills like the guides of my race On the rivers of the Gambia and the Saloum And now on the Seine at the foot of these hills. Let me remember my dead! Yesterday was All Saints’ Day, the solemn anniversary of the Sun, And I had no dead to honor in any cemetery. O Forefathers! You who have always refused to die, Who knew how to resist Death from the Sine to the Seine, And now in the fragile veins of my indomitable blood, Guard my dreams as you did your thin-legged migrant sons! O Ancestors! Defend the roofs of Paris in this dominical fog, The roofs that protect my dead. Let me leave this tower so dangerously secure And descend to the streets, joining my brothers Who have blue eyes and hard hands.
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“Winter,” by Sudeep Sen Couched on crimson cushions, pink bleeds gold and red spills into one’s heart. Broad leather keeps time, calibrating different hours in different zones unaware of the grammar that makes sense. Only random woofs and snores of two distant dogs on a very cold night clears fog that is unresolved. New plants wait for new heat — to grow, to mature. An old cane recliner contains poetry for peace — woven text keeping comfort in place. But it is the impatience of want that keeps equations unsolved. Heavy, translucent, vaporous, split red by mother tongues — winter’s breath is pink. “Regatta,” by Collins Okpala I have dreams of Regatta; The synergy amazes me; A contrast fleet rides as one; It is like a waiting man, Who saddles on his head; The canoe wanders heavily on scanty waters; It paddles like it knows; I conjure faint ripples fall on my skin…Oh Regatta! “Who will take me there?”
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“Mistress of Spring,” by Rose Ketoma She is moonbeams And dappled sunlight Renewal and New beginnings Gracing the land With fragrant blossoms Buzzing bees And dandelion flurries As children play In Spring’s garden Blowing happy bubbles And laughter floats Touching the heart and soul She is Mistress of Spring
“Warning ‘Don’t Put Up Shelves’,” by Unknown The wise one said “Do not put up a shelf ” “What kind of riddle is that?” The ego venomously spat Without taking heed, I assembled my shelf Discarding the guidance from the Higher Self In a trice I had put up another four Before I knew it there was a thousand or more! Shelves of lust, gluttony, greed and pride Shelves of sloth, envy and wrath Shelves of arrogance, vanity and fear Shelves of concepts galore! Each concept attracting more If only I hadn't put up that first shelf If only I had listened to the Higher Self.
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“The Race,” by Efeduma Eseoghene Quick it seems as the dew cleared on the charred road of nowhere breathing deeply though weary of the dawn that seems ready his fast pace seem scary. The smoke from a burnt house filled his lungs as he passed pushing the limits of time behind as focus becomes a worry women filled the streets gently as they file to the stream nearby to fill their kegs with water for the day. he passed gently by the stream tempted to have a taste of it but the pace of burden is strong as the distance seems long he continues of the race that has to other chase but a race to finish or diminish. “Parental Recollections,” by Charles Lamb A child's a plaything for an hour; Its pretty tricks we try For that or for a longer space; Then tire, and lay it by. But I knew one, that to itself All seasons could controul; That would have mock'd the sense of pain Out of a grieved soul. Thou, straggler into loving arms, Young climber up of knees, When I forget thy thousand ways, Then life and all shall cease. 207
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“The Maltreatment Of Meaning,” by Hiromi Itō Can you speak Japanese? No, I cannot speak Yes, I can speak Yes, I can speak but cannot read Yes, I can speak and read but cannot write Yes, I can speak and write but cannot understand I was a good child You were a good child We were good children That is good I was a bad child You were a bad child We were bad children That is bad To learn a language you must replace and repeat I was an ugly child You were an ugly child We were ugly children That is ugly I am bored You are bored We are bored That is boring I am hateful You are hateful We are hateful That is hatred I will eat You will eat We will eat That is a good appetite I won't eat You won't eat We won't eat That is a bad appetite I will make meaning You will make meaning We will make meaning 208
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That is conveying language I will use Japanese You will use Japanese We will use Japanese That is Japanese I want to rip off meaning You want to rip off meaning We want to rip off meaning That is the desire to rip off meaning I want to show contempt for language as nothing more than raw material You want to show contempt for language as nothing more than raw material We want to show contempt for language as nothing more than raw material That is, language is nothing more than raw material I will replace words mechanically and make sentences impossible in real life You will replace words mechanically and make sentences impossible in real life We will replace words mechanically and make sentences impossible in real life That is replacing words mechanically and making sentences impossible in real life Rip off meaning Sound remains Even so we search for meaning. The primitive reflection of a newborn sucking a finger if one sticks one out It is the primitive reflection of a newborn sucking a finger if I stick one out It is the primitive reflection of a newborn sucking a finger if you stick one out It is the primitive reflection of a newborn sucking a finger if we stick one out It is the primitive reflection of sucking if a newborn's that sticks out a finger As for me, meaning As for you, meaning As for us, meaning Is meaning, that is Do not convey As for me, do not convey As for you, do not convey As for us, do not convey Do not do it, that is conveyance Meaning ripped apart and covered in blood is surely miserable, that is happiness I am happy meaning covered in blood is miserable You are happy meaning covered in blood is miserable We are happy meaning covered in blood is miserable The blood-covered meaning of that is blood-covered misery, that is happiness
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“The Moon Sonnet,” by Emuobome Jemikalajah The sky does not wear The moon well tonight; For it looks strangely an ear Of frail waning light. The moon has not its charm Tonight; for its silvery light Paints not the shadowy farm Where squirrels meet to quibble and fight. The moon does not tell Tonight, of lovers’ beach hikes Nor of the sea tides that swell And fall on damp-coloured rocks and dykes. The moon mourns the loss of love, And of the stars leaving the sky above.
“Pietistic Passage,” by Adetuyi Adetola The transition is sudden Begotten from a previous stratum Unto another; known or unknown Up or below or sideways Destined to make a difference The leader shall step up And another shall take his place Begotten from a tribe Collectively accepted And his ways shall be scanned His methods seem testy Thirsty for blood; bad or good Ordinated to serve With confused schematics Searching for a blind way forward Non sentimental and separatist Sombre and drunk Perceptive to stimulations 210
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His immunity for a life All that matters is being sanctimonious
“Sloth,” by Emuobome Jemikalajah They sit on their dusty behinds And grace passing skirts with eyes Bespectacled with glaze of palm wine. They see only where to reap but not sow; These landlords that never built a house. Local spirits for mouthwash in the mornings, They ply their trade of doing nothing. A hopeless generation, these! They walk the streets half naked In search of manna, not from heaven. They get instead a copy of the men Who choose to plant what they will not harvest. The land can grow no more fetuses, Nor refuse dumps, manure abandoned babies A wasted generation, these! They run after drivers who labour And hassle crumbs that fall off their tables. These agberos who reap where they do not sow. Indolent additions to a bleeding landscape Of the poor and homeless clawing at passers-by With a belligerent sense of entitlement. A lazy generation, these! They sit in buses or huddle among crowds. These ones with shifty eyes and prowling hands; Executors of perfect legerdemain Scourge of the city, harvester of petty articles. A step below the ones who pilfer with Silver-coated tongues in the hierarchy of thieves. A greedy generation, these!
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“Insomniac,” by Maya Angelou There are some nights when sleep plays coy, aloof and disdainful. And all the wiles that I employ to win its service to my side are useless as wounded pride, and much more painful. “Binoculars,” by Ndukwu Joseph Omoh An event from long ago And the stars are in my eyes It’s been many nights now, But the stars are in my eyes I am sitting across his shoulders My father’s old friend who always wears a hat And his binoculars are in my hands And his words in my heart: “Look at the moon,” he says, “see how beautiful it is.” I do not see the moon I look hard and hard, but I do not see a thing There are just the stars in my eyes And a night so tender many nights ago “Within Us,” by Ndukwu Joseph Omoh Soon, like rainclouds we happen to the earth Bursting corn stalks from the hard earth Within us are unwritten pages
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“‘The Negro’s Complaint’ (1788)” by William Cowper To the tune of 'Hosier's Ghost' or 'As near Porto Bello lying'. FORCED from home and all its pleasures Afric's coast I left forlorn, To increase a stranger's treasures O'er the raging billows borne. Men from England bought and sold me, Paid my price in paltry gold; But, though slave they have enrolled me, Minds are never to be sold. Still in thought as free as ever, What are England's rights, I ask, Me from my delights to sever, Me to torture, me to task ? Fleecy locks and black complexion Cannot forfeit nature's claim; Skins may differ, but affection Dwells in white and black the same. Why did all-creating nature Make the plant for which we toil? Sighs must fan it, tears must water, Sweat of ours must dress the soil. Think, ye masters iron-hearted, Lolling at your jovial boards, Think how many backs have smarted For the sweets your cane affords.
Is there, as ye sometimes tell us, Is there One who reigns on high? Has He bid you buy and sell us, Speaking from his throne, the sky? Ask him, if your knotted scourges, Matches, blood-extorting screws, Are the means that duty urges Agents of his will to use? Hark! He answers!—Wild tornadoes Strewing yonder sea with wrecks, Wasting towns, plantations, meadows, Are the voice with which he speaks. 213
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He, foreseeing what vexations Afric's sons should undergo, Fixed their tyrants' habitations Where his whirlwinds answer—"No." By our blood in Afric wasted Ere our necks received the chain; By the miseries that we tasted, Crossing in your barks the main; By our sufferings, since ye brought us To the man-degrading mart, All sustained by patience, taught us Only by a broken heart; Deem our nation brutes no longer, Till some reason ye shall find Worthier of regard and stronger Than the colour of our kind. Slaves of gold, whose sordid dealings Tarnish all your boasted powers, Prove that you have human feelings, Ere you proudly question ours! “‘To Toussaint L’Overture’ (1807)” by William Wordsworth TOUSSAINT, the most unhappy man of men! Whether the whistling Rustic tend his plough Within thy hearing, or thy head be now Pillowed in some deep dungeon’s earless den;— O miserable Chieftain! where and when Wilt thou find patience? Yet die not; do thou Wear rather in thy bonds a cheerful brow: Though fallen thyself, never to rise again, Live, and take comfort. Thou hast left behind Powers that will work for thee; air, earth, and skies; There’s not a breathing of the common wind That will forget thee; thou hast great allies; Thy friends are exultations, agonies, And love, and man's unconquerable mind.
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“‘The Morning Dream’ (1788)” by William Cowper To the tune of 'Tweedside' 'Twas in the glad season of Spring, Asleep at the dawn of the day I dream'd what I cannot but sing, So pleasant it seem'd as I lay. I dream'd that on Ocean afloat Far hence to the westward I sail'd, While the billows high-lifted the boat, And the fresh-blowing breeze never fail'd. In the steerage a woman I saw, (Such at least was the form that she wore) Whose beauty impress'd me with awe Ne'er taught me by woman before. She sat, and a shield at her side Shed light like a sun on the waves, And smiling divinely, she cried, I go to make Freemen of Slaves— Then raising her voice to a strain The sweetest that ear ever heard, She sung of the Slave's broken chain Wherever her glory appear'd. Some clouds which had over us hung Fled chased by her melody clear, And methought while she Liberty sung 'Twas Liberty only to hear. Thus swiftly dividing the flood To a slave-cultur'd island we came, Where a daemon, her enemy, stood, Oppression his terrible name. In his hand, as the sign of his sway, A scourge hung with lashes he bore, And stood looking out for his prey, From Africa's sorrowful shore. But soon as approaching the land That goddess-like Woman he view'd, The scourge he let fall from his hand With blood of his subjects imbrued; 215
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I saw him both sicken and die, And the moment the monster expired Heard shouts that ascended the sky From thousands with rapture inspired. Awaking, how could I but muse On what such a Dream might betide? But soon my ear caught the glad news Which serv'd my weak thought for a guide— That Britannia, renown'd o'er the waves For the hatred she ever has shown To the black-sceptred rulers of Slaves— Resolves to have none of her own.
“Sobriety,” by Collins Okpala Sobriety beckons like a stranger; It feeds the heart with bitterness; It strangles the marina from its sleep; And squeezes breath out of our nostrils; The pain they say is good; It strengthens our understanding. Tensed friction produces heat; Inventions are embers of charred desires… “I didn’t intend to write but my soul burgeons with worry My gifts won’t crawl to the grave.” …The solemn protests of a Bard
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“‘Sweet Meat has Sour Sauce: or, the Slave Trader in the Dumps’ (1788)” by William Cowper A trader I am to the African shore, But since that my trading is like to be o'er, I'll sing you a song that you ne'er heard before, Which nobody can deny, deny, Which nobody can deny. When I first heard the news it gave me a shock, Much like what they call an electrical knock, And now I am going to sell off my stock, Which nobody, &c. Tis a curious assortment of dainty regales, To tickle the Negroes with when the ship sails, Fine chains for the neck, and a cat with nine tails, Which nobody, &c. Here's supple-jack plenty and store of rat-tan, That will wind itself round the sides of a man, As close as a hoop round a bucket or can, Which nobody, &c. Here's padlocks and bolts, and screws for the thumbs, That squeeze them so lovingly till the blood comes, They sweeten the temper like comfits or plums, Which nobody, &c. When a Negro his head from his victuals withdraws, And clenches his teeth and thrusts out his paws, Here's a notable engine to open his jaws, Which nobody, &c. Thus going to market, we kindly prepare A pretty black cargo of African ware, For what they must meet with when they get there, Which nobody, &c. 'Twould do your heart good to see 'em below, Lie flat on their backs all the way as we go, Like sprats on a gridiron, scores in a row, Which nobody, &c. But ah! if in vain I have studied an art So gainful to me, all boasting apart, 217
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I think it will break my compassionate heart, Which nobody, &c. For oh! how it enters my soul like an awl! This pity, which some people self-pity call, Is sure the most heart-piercing pity of all, Which nobody, &c. So this is my song, as I told you before; Come, buy off my stock, for I must no more Carry Caesars and Pompeys to Sugar-cane shore, Which nobody can deny, deny, Which nobody can deny.
“‘To Thomas Clarkson. On the Final Passing of the Bill for the Abolition of the Slave Trade’ (1807)” by William Wordsworth CLARKSON! it was an obstinate hill to climb: How toilsome—nay, how dire—it was, by thee Is known; by none, perhaps, so feelingly: But thou, who, starting in thy fervent prime, Didst first lead forth that enterprise sublime, Hast heard the constant Voice its charge repeat, Which, out of thy young heart’s oracular seat, First roused thee.—O true yoke-fellow of Time, Duty’s intrepid liegeman, see, the palm Is won, and by all Nations shall be worn! The blood-stained Writing is for ever torn; And thou henceforth wilt have a good man’s calm, A great man's happiness; thy zeal shall find Repose at length, firm friend of human kind!
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“Moving In Circles,” by Victor Chukwuemeka Azubike From suburb to curb Like a giant orb I moved in circles Short-circuiting The rental uncertainty Of each passing year. I moved nonetheless The stride was strident I hoped for the pushcart The promise The blurb Of your vanity press Failed to advertise my looks. Seeking redress, I have regressed, Dropped out of Dilapidated District courts That gave wasps The right of Ingress and egress, Beside the highway I have now settled My roof is corrugated My famous bronze Color like an artifact Is faded My face is dark With sprouts of acnes And your skin is bleached. The heat of March is searing Without the supply of kilowatts I cannot sleep, how precarious? Where is my gentility? The hallmark of my personality? My self-erodes Anger explodes Ricochets and hits me like a thunderbolt 219
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“Your Creation,” by Naipanoi Lepapa In your head, you have answers I should give you You forget I’m not part of your head You twist me into flowers, Pink, red, violet Roses, lilies You create a frame and set me in it I’m in your arms singing lullabies to your sick heart I leave a bitter taste in the tongue of your soul You take yourself into a journey and pace me with you These roles you act me in These dreams you dream me in They haven’t burnt away the pain of yesterday Earlier today, You took me under construction, Built me in halves of I These pieces that form your illusions They are just piles of running roads, Dry poisoned wells See here, there is no place you can build me from
“A Queenless Throne,” by Wazani Ijarafu & Faith Tallam Here I am in this palace The king sits on a queenless throne I asked: “has love fled the palace?” Only the wind gave me a reply The king does not laugh The king does not smile The king does not sing The king does not dance The king does not love And his gentle queen has fled the palace 220
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“The Striven Path,” by Adetuyi Adetola The shouts of aworo at night The shrieking sound of the king’s gong The mixed cries of a starved goat The repressed smiles of a new mother Established into the same circle of existence Like the strings of a cushion chair Slaved into ways that scare the ding dong We still have a long way to go Of reverence and prayers to the gods of silence As we are opposed to the struts; the bane of hard marks And blood that invokes the Avesta The journey is rugged and naked The thirstiness of Awusa is like a preparatory room The morphology of a peppered meat with bad salt For the ascension of holy maggots that bewilder the holder Of what shall we ask ourselves? What journey we partake; what part we take in its homecoming The pretense of our children shall accost us to the grave Where what will our destinies end In the hands of the leader or the chain man? Our hearts lie in the window of hopelessness That the widowed pawpaw tree be pacified Let us not dream of better things Without concealing the fate of the unborn and the un-birthed
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“Death At Mulago” by David Rubadiri Towers of strength Granite Enduring Like life itself. Up they rise Tall and slender And around them White coats flit. Like the magic they spell. New Mulago Hospital —the name shakes— she stood firmly on that cool afternoon giving names, tribes and sex, a woman clad in Busuti. As the fullstop was entered On a white sheet of paper A white-coat gave a nod. Her hands cross her chest And the message unsaid Crushing granite and concrete In gushing tears of pain And a lonely sorrow.
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“Winds of May,” by Radip Chattopadhyay On a distant summer a girl walked four miles to sell fruits at the haat and mowed by the May heat fell asleep on a patch of concrete. The noon dusts played around her sleep little girl rest your feet the winds will play you a song refresh you with dreams so sweet the walk back home won't be long. The sun had slid the shadows grown when opened her dream dazed eyes there she was at the haat all alone her fruits in the basket had dried.
She had dreamed a round dime clutched in her palm colored gold with her wish she had slept through the time and when the winds calmed held nothing to buy home a fish. Time has flown those dusts far away years have grown her wise yet when the winds blow lonely in May her tears she cannot disguise.
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“Atmosphere,” by Mary Winslow Our human weight is but a carbon trinket milk-dipped smocks turned to smoke our gloaming goes to ash in the mackerel net fireworks sending our coal that returns in storms of acid rain From this core it began volcanic basalt pushed through the crest molten eels running to sea hardened black and classically shaped beneath wooly clouds oyster shelled grey storms in cumulus fell to earth in daydreams shedding their imaginary esplanades in frosted flakes Atmosphere bestows breath on the fiery skin of our jealous earth shimmering wink and nod at the beginning suffocating when smoke sponges the light right out of us there is nothing we won’t owe this breath in the end this basket that holds the tilth of hours
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“Can You Feel It?” by Just Melz Can you feel the ache in my chest? Can you touch the cracks in my heart? Can you tell where my soul begins, And where it's been torn all apart? I'm made of sharp edges and pieces fit with super glue Can you feel it? I'm a heartless enigma and a soulless slice of truth Can you feel it? Enemies make the best friends and now I hate you Can you feel it? Lies are like a bullet to my heart, filling me with holes A feeling of emptiness overwhelms me, a space too bold Trying to hold on tight to a tangle too tied to unfold Lost in a web of pain too damaged to be controlled
I'm made of broken glass, chipped and shattered Can you feel it? I'm an empty shell of something that once mattered Can you feel it? Pieces are falling, a love now bruised and battered Can you feel it? The harmony of injustice is ringing in my ears A lullaby of sweet nothings and my childhood fears A common trend unfolds, a chorus of chants and tears A pain ripples through my body and the monster finally appears Can you feel it?
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“Once Upon a Rhyme,” by Rob Rutledge We were poets Once Hearts etched upon our sleeve The lords of our intent Words bloomed for all to see. Each branch of thought considered, Chiseled, Whittled to express. Carving the forest in our likeness We pave the landscape with our breath. Woods would sway in idle days Sunkissed glades lay bathed in gold. Nights waylaid by dancing maids Cheap ale and tales of old. Fires burn and flames unfold. Though Embers remember Tender clutch of the cold. We tend to forget the bargained, The sold. Up rivers and creeks Paddles, disowned by the meek, Cast away to distant shores. Glades decay, Fade to grey. We become poets once more.
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“Diamonds Cutting Glass,” by Sirwca It's a terrible feeling the first time you recognize your place upon the pyramid That first time you truly grasp how big the world is, how small and insignificantly your heart beats when standing beside the infinity of the universe Like the prom queen or king of a school in the sticks moving to the big city, realizing they aren't excretement Like the kid with a basketball and head full of fame, going off to college to have his dream go up in flames So small and full of holes, our expectations smashed with the weight of everything we thought we could be But in that smallness lies potential, a butterfly effect A simple hello or a pleasant smile could change the course of another's lifetime of hate Everything is contagious, we're just diamonds cutting glass The world is yours to manage, your gift to neatly wrap
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Give or take, smile or hate It's so much easier to love than to be a waste of space
“Grey,” by Aazzy It was the decay of long-ago spoken words that had hardened around her heart. It was the blood of past loves that turned the whites of her eyes to crimson. She dragged herself through the day wearing loneliness on her feet. Shielded by solitude, Clothed in dust. Dried up tears grew as stale As conversations she continually had with herself She found her reflection in the most sombre of things: Empty antique stores Humdrum of steady rain, A child's prayers that fell On empty ears. At night she went to bed With eyelids made heavy by prescription pills and avoided eye-contact Love was a shadow, An echo heard only through intrusive thought. A pitiful stare which consumed her dreams And had her soul Endlessly on its knees.
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And wisest clerks have miss'd the mark, Why Human Buds, like this, should fall, More brief than fly ephemeral, That has his day; while shrivel'd crones Stiffen with age to stocks and stones; And crabbed use the conscience sears In sinners of an hundred years. Mother's prattle, mother's kiss, Baby fond, thou ne'er wilt miss. Rites, which custom does impose, Silver bells and baby clothes; Coral redder than those lips, Which pale death did late eclipse; Music framed for infants' glee, Whistle never tuned for thee; Though thou want'st not, thou shalt have them, Loving hearts were they which gave them. Let not one be missing; nurse, See them laid upon the hearse Of infant slain by doom perverse. Why should kings and nobles have Pictured trophies to their grave; And we, churls, to thee deny Thy pretty toys with thee to lie, A more harmless vanity? “Attempt to Silence,” by Patty M
Divine intervention extensions of grace kiss the doubt from the blind man's face. Yet all are blind and deaf so few left who truly believe when tricksters smile and cunningly deceive. Where is the lamb who died for man How cold are the carpenter's hands. 229
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“Ode on a Grecian Urn,” by John Keats Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness, Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, Sylvan historian, who canst thus express A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: What leaf-fring’d legend haunts about thy shape Of deities or mortals, or of both, In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy? Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d, Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone: Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss, Though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve; She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair! Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu; And, happy melodist, unwearied, For ever piping songs for ever new; More happy love! more happy, happy love! For ever warm and still to be enjoy’d, For ever panting, and for ever young; All breathing human passion far above, That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d, A burning forehead, and a parching tongue. Who are these coming to the sacrifice? To what green altar, O mysterious priest, Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
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What little town by river or sea shore, Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn? And, little town, thy streets for evermore Will silent be; and not a soul to tell Why thou art desolate, can e’er return. O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede Of marble men and maidens overwrought, With forest branches and the trodden weed; Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st, “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”
“Ozymandias,” by Percy Bysshe Shelley I met a traveler from an antique land Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed: And on the pedestal these words appear: ‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’ Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
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“Empty Pitchforks,” by Thomas Lux “There was poverty before money.” There was debtors’ prison before inmates, there was hunger prefossil, there was pain before a nervous system to convey it to the brain, there existed poverty before intelligence, or accountants, before narration; there was bankruptcy aswirl in nowhere, it was palpable where nothing was palpable, there was repossession in the gasses forming so many billion ... ; there was poverty—it had a tongue—in cooling ash, in marl, and coming loam, thirst in the few strands of hay slipping between a pitchfork’s wide tines, in the reptile and the first birds, poverty aloof and no mystery like God its maker; there was surely want in one steamed and sagging onion, there was poverty in the shard of bread sopped in the final drop of gravy you snatched from your brother’s mouth.
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“The Owner of the Umbilical-Cord,” By Tamara Booi (Inspired by a true story of a Mother found after 30yrs!) They told me my illness brought us apart They told me your problems got in the way They told me a little I longed for a little more Happy was a little girl you gave birth to Peaceful was the reflection she portrayed Wondering; were the people concerned Longing was the spirit in her soul Would charismas be any different? Would Sundays be mellower? Would education be much better? Would food be tastier? Would life be meaningful? So many years went by So many dreams were shuttered So many hopes faded away Amongst the stars is where you may be Life took away the owner I knew Deep was the hole in my heart Hunger for the misty search arose As I died a slow internal death The city of Gold was where I was heading With so much hope; yet so much fear
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Burning was the desire in my heart Fear; could stop me no more Complete was the puzzle of my life As the foreign; yet important piece was found Alive in the city of gold The owner of the umbilical-cord
“Eternal Cycles,” by Ndukwu Joseph Omoh There is water on the underside of us Like waters of the firmament in Genesis We become a lake Tasting stones in recurring lifecycles With a strained decay constant, an endless half-life There is something about the life of rivers There is something about the journey of the seas There is something about the heartbeat of an elephant We continue, we continue Leaving repositories in other lives… Creating life in endless cycles and dances
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“The Poet,” by Unknown he won’t shut up when he’s around he wants to write everything keeps on formulating phrases hallucinating couches into flying carpets swearing that he’s seen the ground from the sky The Poet we never know what he’s doing turning black sheep into heaven he's stuck on the inside looking out The Poet he won’t shut up but when I really need him He’s nowhere to be found when he wants what he wants in these poems of his I know I’ll wind up embarrassed humiliated and forlorn The Poet when he’s around he won’t shut up he keeps going on and on And when he’s gone Silence.
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“Fairy-Land,” by Edgar Allan Poe Dim vales—and shadowy floods— And cloudy-looking woods, Whose forms we can’t discover For the tears that drip all over: Huge moons there wax and wane— Again—again—again— Every moment of the night— Forever changing places— And they put out the star-light With the breath from their pale faces. About twelve by the moon-dial, One more filmy than the rest (A kind which, upon trial, They have found to be the best) Comes down—still down—and down With its centre on the crown Of a mountain’s eminence, While its wide circumference In easy drapery falls Over hamlets, over halls, Wherever they may be— O’er the strange woods—o’er the sea— Over spirits on the wing— Over every drowsy thing— And buries them up quite In a labyrinth of light— And then, how, deep! —O, deep, Is the passion of their sleep. In the morning they arise, And their moony covering Is soaring in the skies, With the tempests as they toss, Like—almost anything— Or a yellow Albatross. They use that moon no more For the same end as before, Videlicet, a tent— Which I think extravagant: Its atomies, however, 236
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Into a shower dissever, Of which those butterflies Of Earth, who seek the skies, And so come down again (Never-contented things!) Have brought a specimen Upon their quivering wings.
“The End Of Forever Undone,” by Unknown I deleted every line That said I ever loved you Regretted every song That I had ever wrote you I can't possibly erase them They're all a part of me Reminders of a bad decision Yeah, that sounds like me My heart just full of stupid My head just full of dumb My works just full of love And now it's all undone.
“Light One,” by Adeola Ikuomola The sky in her peaceful disposition Is like the bride with a full mane Riding upon the bridal trains To boost her bare beauty Upon the call of duty Celebrating purity Like moonlight Party night Knight Light One 237
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“Girl of the Tzabarim Dance,” by Lucius Furius Jerusalem of gold, of copper, of light ... to all your songs, I am the harp. If only I could do with my words what you, with your arms and legs and hands, do, girl of the Tzabarim dance. You let your body go. You let the music and God flow through you. No false smile; only the subtle bliss of one possessed by the dance. The feeling threatens to overwhelm you; you master it into a graceful gesture, a delicate turn. You let the music of God possess you. You dance like the women danced when David slew the Philistine, girl of the Tzabarim dance. If only I could do with my words what you, with your arms and legs and hands, do, girl of the Tzabarim dance.
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“Singer: For Yanni And The Voices That Sang,” by Emuobome Jemikalajah Your mouth cups the shape Of the cock about to sing its morning song; But the sounds you spit are ethereal – They leave me cold-turkey. Goose bumps are but understatements to The bundle of hysterics I have become. A pinch of heaven this is – oh the angels! For I see the aureole around your head; And your wings beat the beat of honeyed tones To my drums – I am dripping the tasty jelly! I am jelly; plain jelly! Spread me on the bread of your tongue. Let me feel the instrument of your voice; For I am resolved to mere sobs and whimpers, And suddenly back to amnion and placenta. Oh may I be born anew Through the slopes of vocal pangs.
“Sapele Water,” by Emuobome Jemikalajah Spirit of our fathers, purest vintage. Drawn deep from ancestral roots. That sacred milk from nature’s breasts That blesses the tongues of wise men To say sooth and inebriates fools. Ambrosia of the gods; oasis of men. Life water of clans known and obscure. White draught of fresh frothy seas. Balm to minds aching; Doom to the weak and faint of heart. Water flowing in the veins of primeval roots Of palms milked by our fathers. Come bless us; come bless our tongues! 239
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“Kin,” by Maya Angelou We were entwined in red rings Of blood and loneliness before The first snows fell Before muddy rivers seeded clouds Above a virgin forest, and Men ran naked, blue and black Skinned into the warm embraces Of Sheba, Eve and Lilith. I was your sister. You left me to force strangers Into brother molds, exacting Taxations they never Owed or could ever pay. You fought to die, thinking In destruction lies the seed Of birth. You may be right. I will remember silent walks in Southern woods and long talks In low voices Shielding meaning from the big ears Of overcurious adults. You may be right. Your slow return from Regions of terror and bloody Screams, races my heart. I hear again the laughter Of children and see fireflies Bursting tiny explosions in An Arkansas twilight.
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“Little Sailor Boy,” by Omale Allen Silence envelopes my ship of dreams My kit of songs… Little sailor boy sitting on the masthead In this dust-haze and solemn cadence Of a dreamy Harmattan night Distant horizon… moonlight glittering on the face of the sea Does the sea have an end? Nomad floating from scene to séance on the runway Of self- discovery, searching for meaning Tonight I bear the wrapped body of my mother To the gate of the after-life I, whose duty it is to usher her benevolent soul With salaams, kind words that opens the gate of the after-life Help me; help me, kind merciful Gabriel Help me, little sailor boy, a cold chill numbs my heart And my blood boils in my veins Silence envelopes my ship of dreams My kit of songs, bard devoid of words I muster all the wind in my lungs, here at this majestic gate Of the after-life, this terribly cold-windy night And utter the salaams to open the gate of Heaven Kind merciful Gabriel, please receive the soul of Ajumayi Woman who believed ultimately in God
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“The Harmattan,” by Emuobome Jemikalajah The rains are long gone; Leaves like raindrops. Dry winds crawling, Squeaking the roof tops. Mist in the mornings, A shroud of cold air. The hands of harmattan Roaming everywhere. The world has taken A deadish hue. The colour of brown Covered in dew. The sun has risen To its peak, To scorch any lip That dares to speak. Dryness has swallowed Earthly sheen; Harvested it has All that’s green. No life in the Wilted petal. Eerie landscape Dull as metal. Brown hazy smoke, A blanket above. The rain is gone; And so’s your love.
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“When We Met Again,” by Levi Cheruo Cheptora It was yesterday, When I saw her again, Her stare seemed unfriendly, Far removed, maybe from fanciful ideas, The scary pair of her eyes, Moved with what I thought “faked uncertainty”, Unsure in its horns of dilemma, Only I heard the echo of silence; That she was not herself… For long I pondered, Liked all the same, For hours that I wondered, Where exactly laid the game, For the way she would say, Like the proverbial maid: “It isn’t the sweet smell of a fresh rose, Not an overnight adventure, Into the untamed innocence of the other…” Inwardly, I added: “It isn’t the huge words, painted with abstract desires, Filthy aspirations, hidden in the claws of admirations, Indeed, it is more than a wide smile, Deep from the heart, And the faint pulse that is bound, To be committed in a cruel game, It knows not its unfair rules!” I watched her leave in silence, I feared as she stepped forward, That she might be blindfolded, So, she will settle for the very path, Papa had warned her many years back. I feared she might be armed with female chauvinism, An enormous anger, And learn the lessons meant for her survival. Here comes a mushrooming, Undiscovered planet, Whose sweet girls are freedom-thirsty? Yet, the sole avenue of a handsome tomorrow, 243
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Is the epicentre of their faked allegiance? Blindfolded, She might lead the way, Well-armed with shattered tenets, Debris of her inner-self, And wholesome filth of her huge following, Hungry and freedom-thirsty, Perhaps submissive, unwavering… To dig deep inside their bitter ambitions, Of sliming their minutes, hours, days That is the few years, Our good God has given them, Far and wide she might sail, Sidestepping the counsel, Of those she will regard as enemies, Pieces of rotten cabbages, Cheap bananas, successful failures, Poor millionaires; Maybe she will hardly play it safely, Blindfolded, She will stagger along the joyous way, Embrace the beautiful, awesome, red roses So, they will call her “Sweet Rosy”. Every hour, every minute, They will sing her wonderful name, And make her ware a golden ring, Perched with obscenities, And maybe, blindfolded, She might succumb to the dirt, The filth of those icy nails, And sadly, she might enter the devoid-null and empty abyss, Coated with darkness so dark, I will never see her again! “The Lunatic” by Caitlin Johnstone Buried under an Everest of leather straps Fastened tightly and bolted to steel the madman grins and sings of peace. 244
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“Where We Were Born,” by Madu Chisom Kingdavid I. Still a clayey Canaan on the claws of crossroads, Housing the broken thorns of the forest, Long imprisoned in the prison of penury Under the rusted roofs of a shattered sky. There are stretch marks of drought Hanging on the lame laughter of Fleshless faces sprawling like a snail Without shell on our port-holed roads Pregnant with rains and abandoned corpses. Our neighbours’ children are dreams Aborted from the womb of tomorrow. For they sell their God’s temples to wealthy Don Juans and Gomers. They also play Prodigal on Cards and Nairabet, drink And smoke their lives into unripe funerals.
Here, some women are vandalized villages, Hiding their tears and fears in the laments Of bombs, holding cobwebbed portraits Of their displaced kinsmen and missing girls, Fetching fortitude from the gory images Of their bombed husbands and soldiers, Breaking the breast of midnight with long Groans and tears that will never run dry. Nights, we hear the dumb moans of bleeding Hymens in isolated houses and brothels. The cold cries of bare babies by the Roadsides whose Mothers were RIP-ed By bullets of the highway robbers. Listen, there were loud silences that Drowned jobless poets in this house Of hunger whose haunting tropes were The Millions stifled by the Breath of Fresh Air.
Today, their verses weep for Change Snailing into chameleon of moonlight tales.
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II.
We’re back nude, full of skeletons and storms. O! The world is now a sleepless night Carrying the hearts of Jezebel and Alexander. From chaos-torn Middle East to America where we dodged bullets In the streets, houses and churches. From the sunset living in Latin America To the dying by firing squad in (Indo)Asia… O! We’re back to where we sprang from the Coffin of dearth bearing the scars of death. To fetch water again from taps lying in state. To watch countless children return shoeless From a distant school under a shrivelled tree… To wake up in mornings from sweaty dryness of overcrowded floors, bearing Tattoos of blood and pain sketched by Mosquitoes, bedbugs, witches and wizards.
To watch our shacks with watery eyes stolen Away by flood and swallowed by eroded earth. To listen to the dumb roars of growing bellies Of children licking phlegm in their fathers’ frail arms. To breathe the sweet scent of gutters, Garbage-dumps, oil spillages, bomb blasts, Faeces-filled swamps, crude flare… Peeling the echoing walls of our systems. To listen to the threnodies of the ghosts Of our shamed past and present over The fattened Yams eaten and barfed by Potbellied goats in the cleavages of power. To pray and count beads of tears all night, That “Let there be night forever”, For here tomorrow is always a raped virgin. III. Though we’ve long been in this labour Of pain and the delivery seems forever…
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Someday, the sun shall rise from the hidden loins of a barren cloud, Light shall sprout from the mass vault of our skeletal past… And new rain fraught with renascent Songs shall break from our parched Throats in triumph over our ageless undergrowths.
“The Veil Of Night,” by Emuobome Jemikalajah And when from fitful sleep I rouse, Buoyed and stewing in cold sweat; A bird of night – I know not which, Sings me the dreariest of psalms – A telling of something coming. Outside, the moon hides behind the veil of darkness; Hidden in the tattered drapes Of the gathering clouds, I think. The wind Morse-coding the imminence Of something coming on the rooftops With the dendritic claws of the leafless cashew tree. It is about time – the rain that breaks the heat! Clouds gather in skyward ensemble To grace a heavenly orchestra As trees in lee-ward slant conduct A chorus of cosmic magnitude. Jagged flashes form ethereal lighting for This celestial stage; tearing the veil of night Into shards of eerie shapes collaged against the ashen sky. The wind made a choir of singing pines and palms With a thousand cymbals clashing in thunder clap As wind-torn leaves drop like confetti to usher in rain.
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“A Moonlight Poem,” by Wazani Ijarafu & Faith Tallam POETESS: love is my medication. Be my pills POET: I will be your pills, take me and get relief POETESS: love is the music I adore POET: I will be the music, play me and be filled with melody POETESS: when I play you, play me too all through the night Play me like a guitar to the silence of your soul POET: I will play you like a guitar to the silence of my soul POETESS: To the sounds of my beating heart Dance for the night is here POET: To the sounds of your beating heart I will dance, together with the moon and stars POETESS: I will be your sugar-coated woman The honeycomb that drizzles honey At the meeting of our lips This is where the hills meet the mountains POET: When the hills meet the mountains Your lips gets entwined in mine Forming a confluence of kisses POETESS: Oh! Your love engulfs me Like the ocean engulfs turbulent waters POET: I am your river of love, drink me POETESS: Drinking will span a millennium to feel better Let me drown and get lost in your waters POET: You’re my empress and I your emperor POETESS: Your voice proclaims sweetened love They’re in the creeks of the Delta In the roaring of Simba In the jungles of the Kalahari POET: Yours too proclaims sweetened love They’re in the clanging of cymbals In the sweet melodies of songbirds In the scentedness of flowers POETESS: Love me like Waters kissing oceans Wind chasing air Music echoing melodies POET: If love was in the waters I will be your ocean 248
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If love was in the wind I will be your air If love was in the music I will be your melody POETESS: you’re my medication POET: You’ve taken me Now sleep in the coolness of the night POETESS: Goodnight “The Tiger,” by William Blake Tiger Tiger, burning bright, In the forests of the night; What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies. Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand, dare seize the fire? And what shoulder, and what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand? and what dread feet? What the hammer? what the chain, In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp, Dare its deadly terrors clasp! When the stars threw down their spears And water’d heaven with their tears: Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee? Tiger Tiger burning bright, In the forests of the night: What immortal hand or eye, Dare frame thy fearful symmetry? 249
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“A Psalm of Life,” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow What the heart of the young man said to the Psalmist Tell me not, in mournful numbers, Life is but an empty dream! For the soul is dead that slumbers, And things are not what they seem. Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; Dust thou art, to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul. Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, Is our destined end or way; But to act, that each tomorrow Find us farther than today.
Art is long, and Time is fleeting, And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating Funeral marches to the grave. In the world’s broad field of battle, In the bivouac of Life, Be not like dumb, driven cattle! Be a hero in the strife! Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant! Let the dead Past bury its dead! Act,—act in the living Present! Heart within, and God o’erhead! Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time;— Footprints, that perhaps another, 250
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Sailing o’er life’s solemn main, A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, Seeing, shall take heart again. Let us, then, be up and doing, With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labor and to wait.
“On His Blindness,” by John Milton When I consider how my light is spent Ere half my days in this dark world and wide, And that one talent which is death to hide Lodg’d with me useless, though my soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, lest he returning chide, “Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?” I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent That murmur, soon replies: “God doth not need Either man’s work or his own gifts: who best Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed And post o’er land and ocean without rest: They also serve who only stand and wait.”
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“Daffodils,” by William Wordsworth I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o’er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. The waves beside them danced; but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company: I gazed—and gazed—but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought: For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.
“Friendship,” by Alexander Pushkin What's friendship? The hangover's faction, The gratis talk of outrage, Exchange by vanity, inaction, Or bitter shame of patronage.
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“Sonnet 18,” by William Shakespeare Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm’d; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimm’d; But thy eternal summer shall not fade Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st; Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st; So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
“Death, Be Not Proud,” by John Donne Death, be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so; For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me. From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be, Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow, And soonest our best men with thee do go, Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery. Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell, And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well And better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then? One short sleep past, we wake eternally And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.
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“Isamuni,” by Emuobome Jemikalajah ISAMUNI I (The climb) We braced ourselves Looking up the humongous Monument Eledumare dropped On Ayete, town of ancient Oyo. Dwarfed by its dimensions, Soar did our spirits still, as we set forth On our arduous task to reach its peak. Legs aching, thighs burning As we edged on. Adventure soothed our thirst; Adrenaline, salved aching muscles. We ran, we walked, we crawled. And when we thought we could go no further, Isamuni surrendered. ISAMUNI II (On this hill) On this hill, I stand. Towards the vastness Of earth beneath me I gaze. The wind soothing my breast; Rivulets of sweat adorn The massive igneous ball of earth On which I stand. And down on Ayete I look. I see the rust-brown roofs That paint the landscape; The green sponge of trees Clothing the nakedness Of yonder mountains. And I stand, arms apart And bask in the Rhapsodic moment that is Isamuni!
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“The Moon Sonnet,” by Emuobome Jemikalajah The sky does not wear The moon well tonight; For it looks strangely, an ear Of frail waning light. The moon has not its charm Tonight; for its silvery light Paints not the shadowy farm Where squirrels meet to quibble and fight. The moon does not tell Tonight, of lovers’ beach hikes Nor of the sea tides that swell And fall on damp-coloured rocks and dykes. The moon weeps for the loss of love And of the stars leaving the sky above.
“For My Beauty And My Love,” by Dinachi Ikenna Dike The spread of your smile Pushes tender affection Into my heart, my love. Your beauty is sublime Not in the beholder’s eyes Doth it rests But on your hypnotic smile And on your glittering eyes And on your succulent skin, soft and mild The colour of brown earth and the colour of beauty It does not reflect the sun. No. It absorbs it – light and heat Raw materials for an awesome productThe quiet glow on your skin at twilight. I am mesmerized. 255
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“Life Doesn't Frighten Me,” by Maya Angelou Shadows on the wall Noises down the hall Life doesn't frighten me at all Bad dogs barking loud Big ghosts in a cloud Life doesn't frighten me at all Mean old Mother Goose Lions on the loose They don't frighten me at all Dragons breathing flame On my counterpane That doesn't frighten me at all. I go boo Make them shoo I make fun Way they run I won't cry So they fly I just smile They go wild Life doesn't frighten me at all. Tough guys fight All alone at night Life doesn't frighten me at all. Panthers in the park Strangers in the dark No, they don't frighten me at all. That new classroom where Boys all pull my hair (Kissy little girls With their hair in curls) 256
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They don't frighten me at all. Don't show me frogs and snakes And listen for my scream, If I'm afraid at all It's only in my dreams. I've got a magic charm That I keep up my sleeve I can walk the ocean floor And never have to breathe. Life doesn't frighten me at all Not at all Not at all. Life doesn't frighten me at all.
“The Madness Of This Rivalry,” by Dinachi Ikenna Dike Caught Amid the madness of this rivalry Towards the prize we throng along Like a pack of fleeing gazelles On sighting a lurking beast. Possessed. Everyman scurries in the frenzy Trampling his partner for gold Caring less. A loser must emerge And such title is served in bitterness As the other man purrs in satisfaction Enamoured at his neighbour’s fall That purchase for him orthodox victory And watches as a casual experience Raises a bitter foe From the embrace of a beloved friend.
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“It’s the Little Towns I Like,” by Thomas Lux It’s the little towns I like with their little mills making ratchets and stanchions, elastic web, spindles, you name it. I like them in New England, America, particularly-providing bad jobs good enough to live on, to live in families even: kindergarten, church suppers, beach umbrellas ... The towns are real, so fragile in their loneliness a flood could come along (and floods have) and cut them in two, in half. There is no mayor, the town council’s not prepared for this, three of the four policemen are stranded on their roofs ... and it doesn’t stop raining. The mountain is so thick with water parts of it just slide down on the heifers—soggy, suicidal— in the pastures below. It rains, it rains in these towns and, because there’s no other way, your father gets in a rowboat so he can go to work. “The Body's Machinery,” by Lucius Furius Marco! One minute you seemed perfectly healthy, the next you were sprawled on the floor by the drinking fountain like a sack of potatoes. (How reliable our machinery is usually-just think if your car ran 60 years nonstop!....) But, Marco, seeing you there on the floor, I knew we live at the mercy of neurons and corpuscles (our own little wires and pistons) and when they stop, we stop. 258
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“Answers,” by Traveler I will always feel your presence Through these quantum Ethereal waves These strings they bind Through our time lines Beyond the conscious states Countless questions Reasoning why Staggeringly suspect Those subtle lies It seems quite complicated Yet it's as simplistic as can be Along came a wind of change And blew two spirits free ... wordvango but nothing more have you heard the wind the trees rustle the wings fly by the sea roar watched the mountain and wonder sink down on your knees knowing this is life the end the beginning we are no more than a bird a mountain a tree a leaf a wave crash on the shore a shell maybe a sunrise or a moon on the horizon but nothing more
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“For Annie,” by Edgar Allan Poe Thank Heaven! the crisis, The danger, is past, And the lingering illness Is over at last— And the fever called "Living" Is conquered at last. Sadly, I know I am shorn of my strength, And no muscle I move As I lie at full length— But no matter!—I feel I am better at length. And I rest so composedly, Now, in my bed, That any beholder Might fancy me dead— Might start at beholding me, Thinking me dead. The moaning and groaning, The sighing and sobbing, Are quieted now, With that horrible throbbing At heart:—ah, that horrible, Horrible throbbing! The sickness—the nausea— The pitiless pain— Have ceased, with the fever That maddened my brain— With the fever called "Living" That burned in my brain. And oh! of all tortures That torture the worst
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Has abated—the terrible Torture of thirst For the naphthaline river Of Passion accurst:— I have drank of a water That quenches all thirst:— Of a water that flows, With a lullaby sound, From a spring but a very few Feet under ground— From a cavern not very far Down under ground. And ah! let it never Be foolishly said That my room it is gloomy And narrow my bed; For man never slept In a different bed— And, to sleep, you must slumber In just such a bed. My tantalized spirit Here blandly reposes, Forgetting, or never Regretting, its roses— Its old agitations Of myrtles and roses: For now, while so quietly Lying, it fancies A holier odor About it, of pansies— A rosemary odor, Commingled with pansies— With rue and the beautiful Puritan pansies. And so it lies happily, Bathing in many A dream of the truth 261
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And the beauty of Annie— Drowned in a bath Of the tresses of Annie. She tenderly kissed me, She fondly caressed, And then I fell gently To sleep on her breast— Deeply to sleep From the heaven of her breast. When the light was extinguished, She covered me warm, And she prayed to the angels To keep me from harm— To the queen of the angels To shield me from harm. And I lie so composedly, Now, in my bed, (Knowing her love) That you fancy me dead— And I rest so contentedly, Now in my bed (With her love at my breast). That you fancy me dead— That you shudder to look at me, Thinking me dead:—
But my heart it is brighter Than all of the many Stars in the sky, For it sparkles with Annie— It glows with the light Of the love of my Annie— With the thought of the light Of the eyes of my Annie.
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“Pacific Drift,” by Denel Kessler Eroding brick wall all that remains refracted, fading fishermen shadow red dawn’s early light brackish still water shocked violent green seeps from the desert to be subsumed by an unrelenting sea restless dreamers rise muscle sturdy pangas into the churning tide seeking quicksilver at the continental edges returning boats ride low the shrinking horizon race to safe harbor cold beer on ice under palm palapas in the restaurant a young man shows off tuna half as tall as he is to admiring tourists like me, seeking the deep, slow burn salt, jalapeno, lime a fitting end to this unraveling dream Pueblo Mágico of “no bad days” 263
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walls of contention in a fractured land will never separate us one margarita, two another raised in defiance of those who would try to confine and define free-range spirits the Pacific touches this contiguous shore from equator to pole we could catch a clockwise current follow Polaris up North arrive transformed magnetically charged disparate souls fused together bound.
“Effervescence,” by Atuhairwe Agrace Mugizi They were not allowed to speak in their mothers’ wombs; and the syringes boiled their genes. They hoarded instincts, Pressed bloodlines So crude that they relieved past prime: begot other brood and liberally offered the etiquette- resilience, serenity in the land of their people where colour mattered least and merit hallowed their unions, in purity, on The Continent.
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“Far Beyond Bones,” by Jamadhi Verse I feel you as a ghost—deeply close, wed somewhere far within. I feel you living, shimmering along the static edge of my enduring spirit in electric phosphorescence. Where tender muscle and flesh tether and mesh, latch and connect with bone to construct a home— create a fleeting vehicle for my soul to navigate this immense cathedral of life. To filter in perceptions and feel the power of the physical light that pierces through the colorful windows of the mandala of my mind. It blooms into ceaseless fractals— repetitive, reactive patterns built upon the complex fragments of both you and I combined, slicing through time, reverberating outwards through expansive space. We are an exalted eternity of opening and collapsing gates to the never-ending center of this unfathomable plane. I feel you as a ghost—so deeply close. Where all philosophy fails to breach. Resting secretly where neither brain nor name could ever truly reach. Where heart and instinct ultimately meet and give their gifts blissfully to the soft sheets of nothingness. It is there that we rest as bated, staggered breath. That holy jewel in hidden chest— so lustrous in its loveliness it completely outshines the beautiful, dividing, shapeless outlines of each other. Unified, we become a godly, static shudder— a vibration that contracts, begets like mother— 265
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delivering dreaming worlds that spin away, asunder, blinded with joy as they find themselves born.
“If I Could, I Would!,” by Lady RF If I could vacuum-clean all of the dark clouds from the sky above your head, I would. If I could make the sun shine after stopping the rain, I would. If I could send you an everlasting rainbow to brighten-up all of your days, I would. If I could shoot a wishfilled falling star your way, I would.
For you, if I could, I would!
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“Expiration Date,” by Jonathan Witte Nine years and still we cradle our grief carefully close, like groceries in paper bags. Eventually the milk will make its way into the refrigerator; the canned goods will find their home on pantry shelves. Most things find their proper place. Eventually the hummingbirds will ricochet against scorched air, their delicate beaks stabbing like needles into the feeder filled with red nectar on the back porch. Eventually our child will make her way back to us. Perhaps.
But I’ve heard that shooting heroin feels like being buried under an avalanche of cotton balls. For now it’s another week, another month, another trip to Safeway.
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We drive home and wonder why it is always snowing. Behind a curtain of snow, brake lights pulse, turning the color of cotton candy, dissolving into ghosts. And with each turn, the groceries shift in the seat behind us. From the spot where our daughter used to sit, there is a rustling sound— a murmur of words crossed off yet another list, a language we’ve budgeted for but cannot afford to hear.
“Between Trapezes,” by David Noonan One fleeting chance to catch you between trapezes Yet my head was bowed, my thoughts immersed In another dream of another life that I longed to live A moments lapse careers you to that downward spiral Through all those safety nets, all those webs we wove Once so secure borne from our labour, love and toil Exposed now like a promise of night through a civil dawn As you fall through each of my declarations of trust You blow out the candles and knock out the lights Of celebrations and occasions now shattered like glass Blackness descending through this never blinking eye As those moments and time perpetually relive yet resist The blood still refusing to flow freely through my veins As I sit and wait for this evening coffee to run cold That I may embrace the sanctuary of night once more For I was one that could never dream in the dark No more than one who could ever make amends Between those two trapezes that signaled our end 268
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“Idle Hands,” by Silica I walk empty-handed with pockets full of presence so carefully contained too precious to give away too tangible to let slip through my fingers like the Arabian sands I wade across with balmy secrets that I keep only for you during frigid nights I see a mirage woefully whisper with the wind deceptive or sincere I can't afford to pretend Siren of the sand with blackest hair like the shadows of space and hazelnut eyes I could drink from skin bronzed from the smiles of the eastern sun I must meet you but not before I cross the Red Sea
“Grasses,” By Bai Juyi Boundless grasses over the plain Come and go with every season; Wildfire never quite consumes them — They are tall once more in the spring wind. Sweet they press on the old high- road And reach the crumbling city-gate…. O Prince of Friends, you are gone again…. I hear them sighing after you.
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“Abiku,” By Wole Soyinka In vain your bangles cast Charmed circles at my feet; I am Abiku, calling for the first And the repeated time. Must I weep for goats and cowries For palm oil and the sprinkled ash? Yams do not sprout in amulets To earth Abiku’s limbs. So when the snail is burnt in his shell Whet the heated fragment, brand me Deeply on the breast. You must know him When Abiku calls again I am the squirrel teeth, cracked The riddle of the palm. Remember This, and dig me deeper still into The god’s swollen foot. Once and the repeated time, ageless Though I puke. And when you pour Libations, each finger points me near The way I came, where The ground is wet with mourning White dew suckles flesh-birds Evening befriends the spider, trapping Flies in wind-froth; Night, and Abiku sucks the oil From lamps. Mothers! I’ll be the Suppliant snake coiledon the doorstep Yours the killing cry. The ripest fruit was saddest; Where I crept, the warmth was cloying. In the silence of webs, Abiku moans, shaping Mounds from yolk. 270
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“Abiku,” by J.P. Clark Coming and going these several seasons, Do stay out of the boabab tree, Follow where you please your kindred spirits If indoors is enough for you. True, it leaks through the thatch When floods brim the banks, And the bats and the owls Often tear in at night through the eaves, And at harmattan, the bamboo walls Are ready tinder for the fire That dries up on the rack. Still, it’s been the healthy stock To several fingers, to many more will be Who reach to the sun. No longer then bestride the threshold But step in and stay For good. We know the knife scars Serrating down your back and front Like beak of the sword-fish, And both your ears, notched As a bondman to this house, All relics of your first comings. Then step in, step in and stay For her body is tired, Tired, her milk going sour Where many more mouths gladden the heart.
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“Dedication From Moremi,” by Wole Soyinka Earth will not share the rafter's envy; dung floors Break, not the gecko's slight skin, but its fall Taste this soil for death and plumb her deep for life As this yam, wholly earthed, yet a living tuber To the warmth of waters, earthed as springs As roots of baobab, as the hearth. The air will not deny you. Like a top Spin you on the navel of the storm, for the hoe That roots the forests plows a path for squirrels. Be ageless as dark peat, but only that rain's Fingers, not the feet of men, may wash you over. Long wear the sun's shadow; run naked to the night.
Peppers green and red—child—your tongue arch To scorpion tail, spit straight return to danger's threats Yet coo with the brown pigeon, tendril dew between your lips. Shield you like the flesh of palms, skyward held Cuspids in thorn nesting, in sealed as the heart of kernel— A woman's flesh is oil—child, palm oil on your tongue Is suppleness to life, and wine of this gourd From self-same timeless run of runnels as refill Your pod lings, child, weaned from yours we embrace Earth's honeyed milk, wine of the only rib. Now roll your tongue in honey till your cheeks are Swarming honeycombs—your world needs sweetening, child. Cam woodround the heart, chalk for flight Of blemish—see? it dawns!—antimony beneath Armpits like a goddess, and leave this taste Long on your lips, of salt, that you may seek None from tears. This, rain-water, is the gift Of gods—drink of its purity, bear fruits in season. 272
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Fruits then to your lips: haste to repay The debt of birth. Yield man-tides like the sea And ebbing, leave a meaning of the fossil led sands. “Ricksha,” by H.I E. Dhlomo Hamba! Mwini! Kwela, Ricksha, my boy! Grin, shout and jump about; play pranks and clown And let them think you are their kaffir toy! Yea, let them mock and cheat and kick you down! How wounded, lacerated, shamed I feel Each time I see a rickshaw passing by! My soul revolts! My streams of blood congeal! For this humiliates both he and I. Mageba, Phunga, Jama, Shaka, how Your seed lies crushed, reduced to slavery! So virile, rich and rare a Plant should now Bear fruits; its yields, instead, sterility! Pull them, Ricksha, my boy! ‘Tis sign devine Your race may yet draw Man back to Love’s shrine.
“What Taxes Me,” by Lucius Furius It's not any great tragedy but the mundane, the quotidian, which taxes me: haircuts, shaving, the mowing of lawns; leaf-raking, tooth-brushing, driving to work; taking out the garbage, matching socks; flossing, timesheets, getting gas for the car....
I long to be forced to flee at night, all wits and energy required just to survive.
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“April Blood” by Kim Chi-ha Burn! Crazed by the fragrance From the breast of the coarse yellow earth, Suffocating fragrance, Fragrance brightly illuminating darkness. Burn in the chaotic darkness, Crazed by bright, lucid existence In the decaying flesh, in the rotten spirit. Burn! In the pitch-black darkness Of the eyes' rotten pupils. Crazed by the fragrance, Crazed by the suffocating scent of the fragrance. In the chaotic end of darkness, Flowing blood, burn! Burn the eternal oppression Of silence standing aloft in the darkness. Oh, April blood . Fragrance dispersing brightly even in the darkness; Crazed by clear bright life.
NOTES April Blood commemorates South Korea's student revolution of 1960 that brought on the collapse of the Synghman Rhee regime and the first change of leadership since the Korean Republic's foundation after World War II. Some 500 people, most of them students, were killed during the uprising.
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“I Look Fine But Inside I Have No Place to Rest,” by Naipanoi Lepapa Thousands of leaves float in your head A thousand years have passed Snow has formed in the peak of your heart There is mist in your soul You dream of a comet A hundred negotiations with yourself break down Because he was there, The creepiest boy with reddy eyes The eyes that force you into desires The day he turned into ashes, That day before summer, You closed your eyes And found yourself in your childhood, He was there, All blazed into complications, With lips that seemed to torch the universe Out of you, That day before summer, He was the boy with a scary voice That one you fell in love with. “Spring and Fall: to a Young Girl,” by Gerard Manley Hopkins Márgarét, áre you gríeving Over Goldengrove unleaving? Leáves like the things of man, you With your fresh thoughts care for, can you? Ah! ás the heart grows older It will come to such sights colder By and by, nor spare a sigh Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie; And yet you wíll weep and know why. Now no matter, child, the name: Sórrow’s spríngs áre the same. Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed What heart heard of, ghost guessed: It ís the blight man was born for, It is Margaret you mourn for. 275
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“The Dance Of Sadness,” by Efeduma Eseoghene They danced away the night Their fight against such willful fright That such news would never come to spite Their faces even if sadness has brought them blight The will the people do possess Will be what they should profess Even if they all not want to confess Their pain will they then address As if their cry was not in vain The veiled ones were not sane Walking across such a lonely lane They knew it was time to feign their pain With all their known affliction They stayed knowing that their conviction Will only bring hopeless dereliction As they would never understand our tradition. “Crossing the Bar,” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson Sunset and evening star, And one clear call for me! And may there be no moaning of the bar, When I put out to sea, But such a tide as moving seems asleep, Too full for sound and foam, When that which drew from out the boundless deep Turns again home. Twilight and evening bell, And after that the dark! And may there be no sadness of farewell, When I embark;
For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place The flood may bear me far, I hope to see my Pilot face to face When I have crost the bar. 276
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“Pedestrian,” by Thomas Lux Tottering and elastic, middle name of Groan, ramfeezled after a hard night at the corpse-polishing plant, slopeshouldered, a half loaf of bread, even his hair tired, famished, fingering the diminished beans in his pocket—you meet him. On a thousand street corners you meet him, emerging from the subway, emerging from your own chest—this sight’s shrill, metallic vapors pass into you. His fear is of being broken, of becoming too dexterous in stripping the last few shoelaces of meat from a chicken’s carcass, of being moved by nothing short of the Fall of Rome, of being stooped in the cranium over some loss he’s forgotten the anniversary of.... You meet him, know his defeat, though proper and inevitable, is not yours, although yours also is proper and inevitable: so many defeats queer and insignificant (as illustration: the first time you lay awake all night waiting for dawn—and were disappointed), so many no-hope exhaustions hidden, their gaze dully glazed inward.—And yet we all fix our binoculars on the horizon’s hazy fear-heaps and cruise toward them, fat sails forward.... You meet him on the corners, in bus stations, on the blind avenues leading neither in nor out of hell, you meet him and with him you walk.
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“Romance,” by Edgar Allan Poe Romance, who loves to nod and sing, With drowsy head and folded wing, Among the green leaves as they shake Far down within some shadowy lake, To me a painted paroquet Hath been—a most familiar bird— Taught me my alphabet to say— To lisp my very earliest word While in the wild wood I did lie, A child—with a most knowing eye. Of late, eternal Condor years So shake the very Heaven on high With tumult as they thunder by, I have no time for idle cares Through gazing on the unquiet sky. And when an hour with calmer wings Its down upon my spirit flings— That little time with lyre and rhyme To while away—forbidden things! My heart would feel to be a crime Unless it trembled with the strings.
“Rediscovery,” by Gbenga Adesina We settled into the warmth only Only those shadows could give, broke Sunbeams into three One for you and I, two for every single knoll I Crossed on this river of rediscovering you We flecked shadows on the walls, watched Our touches sizzle, felt them crawl into spaces humid as The heart And like those years before the year we wrote the epitaph on us, I held you in my arms your eyes: the tense in every present 278
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“A Red, Red Rose,” by Robert Burns O my Luve is like a red, red rose That’s newly sprung in June; O my Luve is like the melody That’s sweetly played in tune. So fair art thou, my bonnie lass, So deep in luve am I; And I will luve thee still, my dear, Till a’ the seas gang dry. Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear, And the rocks melt wi’ the sun; I will love thee still, my dear, While the sands o’ life shall run. And fare thee weel, my only luve! And fare thee weel awhile! And I will come again, my luve, Though it were ten thousand mile.
“Coolie,” by Rajiv Mohabir Coolie naam dharaiya ham tej pakare jaisan chhuri kate hamke Guyana mein aike With this whip-scar iron shackle name Aja contract-bound, whole day cut cane; come night he drink up rum for so until he wine-up and pitch in the trench’s black water and cries Oh Manager! until sugar and pressure claim his two eyes. The backra manager laugh at we — so come so done. I was born a crab-dog devotee of the silent god, the jungle god, the god crosser-of-seas. White tongues licked the sweet Demerara of my sores. Now Stateside, Americans erase my slave story; call me Indian. Can’t they hear kalapani in my voice, my breath’s marine layer when I say? 279
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“On The Mountain Holiday Thinking of My Brothers In Shandong,” By Wang Wei All alone in a foreign land, I am twice as homesick on this day When brothers carry dogwood up the mountain, Each of them a branch-and my branch missing.
“On The Stork Tower,” By Wang Zhihuan The sun beyond the mountains glows; The Yellow River seawards flows. You can enjoy a grander sight， By climbing to a greater height.
“I Was Not When You Were Born, You Were Old When I Was Born,” (Tang Dynasty) by an unknown writer I was not when you were born, You were old when I was born. You regret that I was late born, I regret that you were early born. I was not when you were born, You were old when I was born. I wished to have been born together, We could enjoy our time together. You were not when I was born, I was old when you were born. I was so far away from you, You were so distant from me. You were not when I was born, I was old when you were born. I’d become a flower-seeking butterfly, And sleep on the fragrant grass every night.
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“On And On, Going On And On,” written during the Eastern Han Dynasty On and on, going on and on, Away from you to live apart. Ten thousand miles and more between us, Each at opposite ends of the sky. The road I travel is steep and long; who knows when we meet again?
The Hu horse leans into the north wind, The bird nests in southern branches. Day by day our parting grows more distant, Day by day robe and belt dangle looser. Shifting clouds block the white sun, The traveler does not look to return. Thinking of you makes one old, Years and months suddenly go by. Abandoned, I will say no more, but pluck up strength and eat my fill.
“God!” written during the Han Dynasty
I want to be your love for ever and ever, Without break or decay. When the hills are all flat, The rivers are all dry. When it thunders in winter, When it snows in summer When heaven and earth mingle, Not till then will I part from you.
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“The Yellowhammer’s Nest,” by John Clare Just by the wooden brig a bird flew up, Frit by the cowboy as he scrambled down To reach the misty dewberry—let us stoop And seek its nest—the brook we need not dread, 'Tis scarcely deep enough a bee to drown, So it sings harmless o'er its pebbly bed —Ay here it is, stuck close beside the bank Beneath the bunch of grass that spindles rank Its husk seeds tall and high—'tis rudely planned Of bleachèd stubbles and the withered fare That last year's harvest left upon the land, Lined thinly with the horse's sable hair. Five eggs, pen-scribbled o'er with ink their shells Resembling writing scrawls which fancy reads As nature's poesy and pastoral spells— They are the yellowhammer's and she dwells Most poet-like where brooks and flowery weeds As sweet as Castaly to fancy seems And that old molehill like as Parnass' hill On which her partner haply sits and dreams O'er all her joys of song—so leave it still A happy home of sunshine, flowers and streams. Yet in the sweetest places cometh ill, A noisome weed that burthens every soil; For snakes are known with chill and deadly coil To watch such nests and seize the helpless young, And like as though the plague became a guest, Leaving a houseless home, a ruined nest— And mournful hath the little warblers sung When such like woes hath rent its little breast.
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“Tarantulas on the Lifebuoy,” by Thomas Lux For some semitropical reason when the rains fall relentlessly they fall into swimming pools, these otherwise bright and scary arachnids. They can swim a little, but not for long and they can’t climb the ladder out. They usually drown—but if you want their favor, if you believe there is justice, a reward for not loving the death of ugly and even dangerous (the eel, hog snake, rats) creatures, if you believe these things, then you would leave a lifebuoy or two in your swimming pool at night. And in the morning you would haul ashore the huddled, hairy survivors and escort them back to the bush, and know, be assured that at least these saved, as individuals, would not turn up again someday in your hat, drawer, or the tangled underworld of your socks, and that even— when your belief in justice 283
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merges with your belief in dreams— they may tell the others in a sign language four times as subtle and complicated as man’s that you are good, that you love them, that you would save them again. “Sonnet—To Science,” by Edgar Allan Poe Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art! Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes. Why preyest thou thus upon the poet’s heart, Vulture, whose wings are dull realities? How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise, Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies, Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing? Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car, And driven the Hamadryad from the wood To seek a shelter in some happier star? Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood, The Elfin from the green grass, and from me The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree? “Octopus Floating . . . ,” by Bill Knott Octopus floating in earth’s ink-ore core whose arms extend up here as trees may your branches squirt their black across my pages please 284
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“I Miss You,” by Lucius Furius I miss you. Here at the foot of Mount Royal (really only a hill), which I climbed this morning, I miss you. I ask what's real. In this clamour of work, of French and English ... It's your touch that's real, your eyes looking-at-me-with-love, your lips. Here in Montreal, at the foot of Mount Royal, I miss you. “Farewell To Vice-Prefect Du Setting Out For His Official Post In Shu,” by Wang Bo By this wall that surrounds the three Qin districts, Through a mist that makes five rivers one, We bid each other a sad farewell, We two officials going opposite ways…. And yet, while China holds our friendship, And heaven remains our neighborhood, Why should you linger at the fork of the road, Wiping your eyes like a heart-broken child? “A Quatrain in Summer,” by Li Qingzhao To be, one should be a rare fellow. Not to be, one should be a ghost hero. We have revered Xiangyu till today, For he rejected alive as a loser way. 285
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“South Africa,” by H.I E. Dhlomo This beauty is not for me! My home is not My home! I am an outcast in my land! They call me happy while I lie and rot Beneath a foreign yoke in my dear strand! Midst these sweet hills and dales, under these stars To live and to be free, my fathers fought. Must I still fight and bear anew the scars? Must freedom e’er with blood, not sweat, be bought? You ask me whence these burning words and wild; You laugh and chide and think you know me well. I am your patient slave, your harmless child, You say … So tyrants dreamt as e’en they fell My country is not my own – So I will fight! My mind is made, I will yet strike for Right
“Servant-Kings,” by Raphael E. G. Armattoe Leave them alone, Leave them to be Men lost to shame, To honour lost! Servant kinglets, Riding to war Against their own, Watched by their foes Who urge them on, And laugh at them! Leave them alone, Men lost to shame, To honour lost
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“Young Africa’s Plea,” by Dennis Osadebay Don’t preserve my customs As some curios To suit some white historian’s tastes. There’s nothing artificial That beats the natural way In culture and ideals of life. Let me play with the whiteman’s ways Let me work with the blackman’s brains Let my affairs themselves sort out Then in sweet rebirth I will rise a better man Not ashamed to face the world. Those who doubt my talents In secret fear my strength They know I am no less a man. Let them bury their prejudice, Let them show their noble sides Let me have untrammeled growth, My friends will never know regret And I, I never once forgot
“Rejoice,” by Gladys-Casely Hayford
Rejoice and shout with laughter Throw all your burdens down, If God has been so gracious As to make you black or brown. For you are a great nation, A people of great birth For where would spring the flowers If God took away the earth? Rejoice and shout with laughter Throw all your burdens down Yours is a glorious heritage If you are black, or brown. 287
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“A World Elsewhere,” by William Scammell 1 The Visit There were barns, paddocks, young fruit trees coquetting in the rain and thrum of wind. It blew so hard the awning of the outside love-seat split a little further every hour. Tall dogs with silky hair slipped moorings by the Aga gliding up to my strange scent; the squash-faced semi-precious cat subsided into a hump; and you sat down, oblique and fine as an old-fashioned stroke of the pen. All the covers of the novels kiss. Five chickens cluck in the yard like perfect readers, wanting more and more from the rich yawny air to which they held one claw up in mid-strut. When the time came you fed us all we needed baroque vespers after a light supper of green salad and talk served up with a rainbow trout. I liked your vestal nightie, sloping eyes, gig girlish feet better that the small history we made ourselves to make that night. 2 Not Marble Beatrice, Laura, and the Dark Lady are. discovered over a litter of tableware with second cups of coffee, chocolate mints, liquers, the viol’s languid impudence. 288
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candour shines from each immortal eye. two handsome serving men are waved away. Someone pulls out an exquisite handkerchief and mops her nose. They laugh, and laugh, and laugh. 3 Kiev (after Mandelstam) Last night the army trundled out of town on the last streetcar, hugging its wounded. One great bloodstained overcoat was calling out “Don’t worry, we’ll be back among you! Soon!”
“The Widow’s Dream,” by Martin Reed Downstairs, she feels a sudden shift of air. Rustling the fresh paper, he lets it rest; Its great slack sheets enfold his lap like sails, Near the steaming kettle, the loaf of bread, The draining-board. He’s like an architect With plans, his mouth a straight line holding breath, He’s concentratedly construing clues. She wrestles sheets and fights to leave her bed,
To rush, this moment, down the stairs. She must beguile from him the Somerset Gazette Before he reaches that long page of names And comes upon the story of his death.
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“Between the Lines,” by Carole Satyamurti Words were dust-sheets, blinds. People dying randomly, “for want of breath” shadowed my bed-times. babies happened; adults buried questions under bushes. Nouns would have been too robust for body-parts; they were curt, homeless prepositions- “inside” “down here”, “behind”, “below”. No word for what went on in darkness, overheard. Underground, straining for language that would let me out, I pressed to the radio, read forbidden books. And once visited Mr Cole. His seventeen budgerigars praised God continually. He loved all words, he said, though he used few to force a kiss. All that summer I longed to ask my mother, starved myself, prayed, imagined skirts were getting tight, Hoped jumping down ten stairs would put it right. My parents fought in other rooms, their tight-lipped murmuring muffled by flock wallpaper. What was wrong, what they had to say couldn’t be shared with me. He crossed the threshold in a wordless slam of doors. “Gone to live near work” my mother said, before she tracked down my diary, broke the lock, made me cut out pages that guessed what silence was about.
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“Million Man March Poem,” by Maya Angelou The night has been long, The wound has been deep, The pit has been dark, And the walls have been steep. Under a dead blue sky on a distant beach, I was dragged by my braids just beyond your reach. Your hands were tied, your mouth was bound, You couldn't even call out my name. You were helpless and so was I, But unfortunately throughout history You've worn a badge of shame. I say, the night has been long, The wound has been deep, The pit has been dark And the walls have been steep. But today, voices of old spirit sound Speak to us in words profound, Across the years, across the centuries, Across the oceans, and across the seas. They say, draw near to one another, Save your race. You have been paid for in a distant place, The old ones remind us that slavery's chains Have paid for our freedom again and again. The night has been long, The pit has been deep, The night has been dark, And the walls have been steep. The hells we have lived through and live through still, Have sharpened our senses and toughened our will. The night has been long. This morning I look through your anguish Right down to your soul. 291
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I know that with each other we can make ourselves whole. I look through the posture and past your disguise, And see your love for family in your big brown eyes. I say, clap hands and let's come together in this meeting ground, I say, clap hands and let's deal with each other with love, I say, clap hands and let us get from the low road of indifference, Clap hands, let us come together and reveal our hearts, Let us come together and revise our spirits, Let us come together and cleanse our souls, Clap hands, let's leave the preening And stop impostering our own history. Clap hands, call the spirits back from the ledge, Clap hands, let us invite joy into our conversation, Courtesy into our bedrooms, Gentleness into our kitchen, Care into our nursery. The ancestors remind us, despite the history of pain We are a going-on people who will rise again. And still we rise.
“Sickness and Art,” by Lucius Furius I Of course you're right in saying that I'm sick: No healthy person wants to kill himself.... But those psychiatrists' pills 'd kill me just as surely as this gun: They'd kill the me that feels. II You ask how I'm doing.... I fear, not well.... By all objective measures I should be content, but the heart mocks objectivity.
I cling to life by the thinnest of threads: My art is the thread by which I cling....
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“21st Century Trance,” by Wesley Macheso I was possessed by the spirit. He seized my being in delirium, rolled me down the slope, wobbling and plunging, smashing my feeble back at Mwala Umodzi*. This is where the God rested. These hunkers pictured on a rock are the timeless marks of the spirit defying scientific sedimentation. Captured in phantasmagoria, I think I saw the spirit leap from where he planted his footprints on the edge of Chafunda Lundu**. My digital camera matched not the flashlight when the God thundered; worshippers must be intoxicated at Mtsakana***. Surely the rain will come. Then I heard the people’s cry of desperation; “The rain won’t come!” Marasmic infants wobbling on red sand bellies stout like premiership footballs about to burst under the wrath of the angry sun. “Hear us out Jerusalem for we die!” “Rescue us great prophet!” Carbon fumes have bamboozled the cosmos (Global warming they say) The dark clouds refuse to gather, they refuse to cry when they gather. Not a single tear. Just sweat and tears. Sweat and tears. Locusts now feed on the corpses of young ones littered across the plain; no green in the field, no life to sustain the pests. Surely the gods must be crazy. 293
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Hear the people cry; the fertile farmland that produced plenty is now that overflowing graveyard soothing plenty of lifeless bones beneath its wicked warmth. ARVs will not kill the virus. The vampire continues to suck the dusky blood like an infested jigger. Electrocuted wires of hair on withered black bodies defeat the spirits of the newly hatched; is the curse of Africa the last plague? The cultural aliens cry out to the ears of their new saviours; “Oh, prophet! We thirst for anointing water to cleanse our beloved land!” Surely the gods have deserted us. How I wish my grandmother, that ancient pot of sacred wisdom, lived in this age and time. Her ancient words were life giving: When we offered the gods masese**** at Mtsakana, the rain came. When the gods struck the land with strange plagues with no names, we went imploring at Khulubvi*****. Search within your hearts you young age, perhaps someone wore their oxfords or brought their IPod to the sacred shrine. That guinea fowl in the yard may be the spirit evading the envious Mlauli******. Under that acacia tree, Mbona******* awaits your sincere call. —*It is said that at one time Mbona sat on this rock and left buttock imprints **It is believed that Mbona rested here when he was preparing to establish his own capital ***A rain shrine used as a sacrificial site to honor the spirits of the dead ****Local brew. *****A place where the Mang’anja worship the spirit of Mbona 294
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******Mbona’s uncle who wanted to kill him out of jealousy *******Legendary figure credited with magical powers of bringing rain, creating forests, creating wells of water on sandy land, and the ability to transform into creatures such as guinea fowls
“The People of the Other Village,” by Thomas Lux hate the people of this village and would nail our hats to our heads for refusing in their presence to remove them or staple our hands to our foreheads for refusing to salute them if we did not hurt them first: mail them packages of rats, mix their flour at night with broken glass. We do this, they do that. They peel the larynx from one of our brothers’ throats. We devein one of their sisters. The quicksand pits they built were good. Our amputation teams were better. We trained some birds to steal their wheat. They sent to us exploding ambassadors of peace. They do this, we do that. We canceled our sheep imports. They no longer bought our blankets. We mocked their greatest poet and when that had no effect we parodied the way they dance which did cause pain, so they, in turn, said our God was leprous, hairless. We do this, they do that. Ten thousand years, ten thousand brutal, beautiful years.
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“The Horse Poisoner,” by Thomas Lux No one knew why horses were dying—two from two farms over, one in town, three at the poor farm (not in great shape, anyway, so no concern at first), then the mayor’s son’s pony, then three stalls in a row at the local sulky track. The vet sent blood to the State Police, who sent it to Boston for “further analysis.” Meanwhile, two more died. One so old it was no surprise, and another mistaken for a deer and shot. Some people wanted to make a connection, but the errant hunter was cousin to the sheriff and was known as too dim to pull off a string of horse poisonings. There were no more suspicious deaths in the county for two months. Then three, lying down next to each other, seen first by my cousin Freddy at dawn in the town square. He delivered newspapers. Horses rarely lie down flat unless they’re sick, or dead. Test results came back from Boston and, Freddy said, also the Feds. Inconclusive, though each necropsy showed that the poison was delivered with the aid of a carrot or a sugar cube in a carrot.
“Toiling Farmers,” by Li Shen Farmers weeding at noon, Sweat down the field soon. Who knows food on a tray Thanks to their toiling day?
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“Ode to the Electric Fish that Eat Only the Tails of Other Electric Fish,” by Thomas Lux Which regenerate their tails and also eat only the tails of other electric eels, presumably smaller, who, in turn, eat ... Without consulting an ichthyologist—eels are fish—I defer to biology’s genius. I know little of their numbers and habitat, other than they are river dwellers. Guess which river. I have only a note, a note taken in reading or fever—I can’t tell, from my handwriting, which. All I know is it seems sensible, sustainable: no fish dies, nobody ever gets so hungry he bites off more than a tail; the sting, the trauma keeps the bitten fish lean and alert. The need to hide while regrowing a tail teaches guile. They’ll eat smaller tails for a while. These eels, these eels themselves are odes! “Night Poem,” by Wole Soyinka Your hand is heavy, Night, upon my brow. I bear no heart mercuric like the clouds, to dare. Exacerbation from your subtle plough. Woman as a clam, on the sea's cresent. I saw your jealous eye quench the sea's Flouorescence, dance on the pulse incessant Of the waves. And I stood, drained Submitting like the sands, blood and brine Coursing to the roots. Night, you rained Serrated shadows through dank leaves Till, bathed in warm suffusion of your dappled cells Sensations pained me, faceless, silent as night thieves. Hide me now, when night children haunt the earth I must hear none! These misted cells will yet Undo me; naked, unbidden, at Night's muted birth. 297
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“Parting” by Kim Chi-ha Farewell, farewell. Passing the low silvery hills, Passing the dancing flowers In the quivering shade of the grove, Vanishing city Where my bloody youth was buried, Farewell. Winds fluttering restlessly Among the fallen shacks, Among the collapsed fences. Sunrays yelling, tearing apart the yellow earth. Heavy silence Suppresses the crying all around, And in the heart, sadness burns. In worn-out overalls, in the crumpled body This long, long lamentation burning. Unextinguishable lamentation. Blue flames of grief Neither oblivion nor death can quench. Not a day could I sleep without drinking; Not a day could I live without fighting. Life was shame; life was scorn; I couldn't even die. Nowhere on earth to go, setting everything on fire. I cried and cried, And they trampled and trampled; The very last handful of youth's pride Torn into strips. With the opiate injected I finally fell asleep. My eyes became those of gentle sheep. Head bent, I bid farewell to my tired shadow. With eyes raised again 'Tis rather a strange land ... Villages, woods, crimson earth, I kiss with tears. I embrace the naked sufferings of tomorrow's earth Which I must fight for again, laying down my life. Nostalgia surges fully into mad and rebellious hearts. The smell of earth deep, deep in my heart. 298
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Friends! Who have struggled fearlessly In this most barren land, never to be forgotten, Once again let us embrace, The bloody bitter days long gone by. Farewell. Passing the gleaming yellow dust· road beside tall poplars, Passing the quivering shades of the grove. Vanishing city, Farewell, farewell. NOTES Parting was written in 1966 after Kim Chi Ha's graduation from Seoul National University and as he left the capital to travel through the Korean countryside. “Hunger” by Kim Chi-ha Ah, my belly's empty! Pulling up weeds I lie down and drink spring water, Use a rock as my pillow. I'll eat roots, gulp down dirt and wild flowers, Bright red poison mushrooms, Yet still have an empty belly. I could devour animals by the hundreds, thousands-hard ones. I want to eat pork, put away fat ones. I'll eat you. I've been driven mad by long starvation, Dragging this enormous empty gut along the ground. I will leave the country where there is nothing to eat And go to Seoul Picking up food along the way: Fish bones, sprouts, Rib-bones leftover by the dogs, Eggs, houses, streets, Pieces of iron. Male and female, Anything that has grown fat— I'll even eat human flesh. Ah, I'm so unbearably hungry I could eat money. 299
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“The Conqueror Worm,” by Edgar Allan Poe Lo! ’t is a gala night Within the lonesome latter years! An angel throng, bewinged, bedight In veils, and drowned in tears, Sit in a theatre, to see A play of hopes and fears, While the orchestra breathes fitfully The music of the spheres. Mimes, in the form of God on high, Mutter and mumble low, And hither and thither fly— Mere puppets they, who come and go At bidding of vast formless things That shift the scenery to and fro, Flapping from out their Condor wings Invisible Wo! That motley drama—oh, be sure It shall not be forgot! With its Phantom chased for evermore By a crowd that seize it not, Through a circle that ever returneth in To the self-same spot, And much of Madness, and more of Sin, And Horror the soul of the plot. But see, amid the mimic rout, A crawling shape intrude! A blood-red thing that writhes from out The scenic solitude! It writhes!—it writhes!—with mortal pangs The mimes become its food, And seraphs sob at vermin fangs In human gore imbued. Out—out are the lights—out all! And, over each quivering form, 300
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The curtain, a funeral pall, Comes down with the rush of a storm, While the angels, all pallid and wan, Uprising, unveiling, affirm That the play is the tragedy, “Man,” And its hero, the Conqueror Worm.
“Love Lives Beyond the Tomb,” by John Clare Love lives beyond The tomb, the earth, which fades like dew— I love the fond, The faithful, and the true Love lives in sleep, 'Tis happiness of healthy dreams Eve’s dews may weep, But love delightful seems. 'Tis seen in flowers, And in the even's pearly dew On earth's green hours, And in the heaven's eternal blue. ‘Tis heard in spring When light and sunbeams, warm and kind, On angels’ wing Bring love and music to the wind. And where is voice, So young, so beautiful and sweet As nature’s choice, Where Spring and lovers meet? Love lives beyond The tomb, the earth, the flowers, and dew. I love the fond, The faithful, young and true. 301
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“Beating the Drum (Spring & Autumn Period)” by Unknown The drums are booming out; We’re busy all about, Building walls high and low. Alone I southward go. I follow Sun Zizhong To fight with Chen and Song. I cannot homeward go; My heart is full of woe. Where stops and stays our force? I’ve lost my battle horse. O where can it be found? It’s buried underground. “Meet or part, live or die, We’ve made oath, you and I. Give me your hand I’ll hold, And live with me till old!” With my wife I’ve long parted. Can I live broken-hearted? Alas! the oath we swore Can be fulfilled no more.
“Song of Divination,” by Li Zhiyi I live upstream and you downstream, From night to night of you I dream. Unlike the stream you are not in view, Though both we drink from River Blue. When will the river no more flow? When will my grief no more grow? I wish your heart will be like mine, Then not in vain for you I pine. 302
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“Laguna Beach,” by Lucius Furius Lounging in the dry warmth of the sun, overcome by the beauty of the green cliffs rising above the hypnotic blue water. . . . I think of Mann's The Magic Mountain, obsession with the physical (not, in this case, disease, of course, but the sensual): skin glowing in the year-round sun; ripe fruit falling into one's hand; air, rich with the smell of flowers. . . . Wouldn't such pleasure inevitably dull the mind's keen edge? Wouldn't Eden's ease subvert all great endeavor? “The First Day,” by Christina Rossetti I wish I could remember the first day, First hour, first moment of your meeting me; If bright or dim the season, it might be Summer or winter for aught I can say. So unrecorded did it slip away, So blind was I to see and to foresee, So dull to mark the budding of my tree That would not blossom yet for many a May. If only I could recollect it! Such A day of days! I let it come and go As traceless as a thaw of bygone snow. It seemed to mean so little, meant so much! If only now I could recall that touch, First touch of hand in hand! - Did one but know! 303
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“Past And Future,” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning MY future will not copy fair my past On any leaf but Heaven’s. Be fully done Supernal Will! I would not fain be one Who, satisfying thirst and breaking fast, Upon the fulness of the heart at last Says no grace after meat. My wine has run Indeed out of my cup, and there is none To gather up the bread of my repast Scattered and trampled; yet I find some good In earth’s green herbs, and streams that bubble up Clear from the darkling ground,—content until I sit with angels before better food:— Dear Christ! when thy new vintage fills my cup, This hand shall shake no more, nor that wine spill.
“Pain In Pleasure,” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning A THOUGHT ay like a flower upon mine heart, And drew around it other thoughts like bees For multitude and thirst of sweetnesses; Whereat rejoicing, I desired the art Of the Greek whistler, who to wharf and mart Could lure those insect swarms from orange-trees That I might hive with me such thoughts and please My soul so, always. foolish counterpart Of a weak man's vain wishes! While I spoke, The thought I called a flower grew nettle-rough The thoughts, called bees, stung me to festering: Oh, entertain (cried Reason as she woke) Your best and gladdest thoughts but long enough, And they will all prove sad enough to sting!
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“Song of River City,” by Su Shi (Song Dynasty) Ten years, dead and living dim and draw apart. I don’t try to remember, But forgetting is hard. Lonely grave a thousand miles off, Cold thoughts, where can I talk them out? Even if we met, you wouldn’t know me, Dust on my face, Hair like frost. In a dream last night suddenly I was home. By the window of the little room, You were combing your hair and making up. You turned and looked, not speaking, Only lines of tears coursing down. Year after year will it break my heart? The moonlit grave, The stubby pines. “Perplexed Music,” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning EXPERIENCE, like a pale musician, holds A dulcimer of patience in his hand, Whence harmonies, we cannot understand, Of God; will in his worlds, the strain unfolds In sad-perplexed minors: deathly colds Fall on us while we hear, and countermand Our sanguine heart back from the fancyland With nightingales in visionary wolds. We murmur ‘Where is any certain tune Or measured music in such notes as these?’ But angels, leaning from the golden seat, Are not so minded their fine ear hath won The issue of completed cadences, And, smiling down the stars, they whisper-SWEET. 305
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“Crying Child” by Daniel Mwale She has been crying for centuries, Since the fright of ages begun, Her echoes reached to many countries, But never resorted to a gun. She lives in a tiny house, Windowless and dark inside, Human feaces and cobwebs hanging loose, But sparkling with beauty outside. She cries uncontrollably, Sending her tears abroad, Crossing the south and north sea probably, For friends in need are friends indeed. They crawled in still the child cries, Humanitarian aid is indeed agency, Billions of dollars to avert crisis, Leaving a smiling face with intimacy. She goes into the shop for chocolate and yogurt, To herself said eat and enjoy merrily, Doing it with passion like the work of art, Forgetting yesteryears misery. Her friends abroad wondered, Why she remains on the same status quo, Why her house still dirty inside? Despite their humanitarian call. She has been crying for centuries, Since the fright of ages begun, Her echoes reached to many countries, But never resorted to a gun. What is war? Why do they kill each other? Are they not all Africans? Are they not all humans? Is it not a sin to kill? But why war? War in my thoughts. 306
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Why war starts? And why war ends? Where does peace go? When war starts? And where does war go to? When peace exists? Who starts war? Who ends war? Why do they fight? What do they fight for? Why war in Africa? Why war in DRC? Why war in Sudan? Why war in Libya? Beyond the hills of Boston and London they met, Echoes of a crying child quakes the earth, Shall we send experts of behavioral economics? Debating it at length. Imperialism! Not political imperialism, She fought it five decades ago, Agreed on economic imperialism, For the child to weep not for no more. “Days,” by Ralph Waldo Emerson DAUGHTERS of Time the hypocritic Days Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes And marching single in an endless file Bring diadems and fagots in their hands. To each they offer gifts after his will Bread kingdoms stars and sky that holds them all. I in my pleach’d garden watched the pomp Forgot my morning wishes hastily Took a few herbs and apples and the Day Turned and departed silent. I too late Under her solemn fillet saw the scorn. 307
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“The City In the Sea,” by Edgar Allan Poe Lo! Death has reared himself a throne In a strange city lying alone Far down within the dim West Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best Have gone to their eternal rest. There shrines and palaces and towers (Time-eaten towers that tremble not!) Resemble nothing that is ours. Around by lifting winds forgot Resignedly beneath the sky The melancholy waters lie. No rays from the holy heaven come down On the long night-time of that town; But light from out the lurid sea Streams up the turrets silentlyGleams up the pinnacles far and freeUp domes- up spires- up kingly hallsUp fanes- up Babylon-like wallsUp shadowy long-forgotten bowers Of sculptured ivy and stone flowersUp many and many a marvellous shrine Whose wreathed friezes intertwine The viol the violet and the vine. Resignedly beneath the sky The melancholy waters lie. So blend the turrets and shadows there That all seem pendulous in air While from a proud tower in the town Death looks gigantically down. There open fanes and gaping graves Yawn level with the luminous waves; But not the riches there that lie In each idol's diamond eyeNot the gaily-jewelled dead Tempt the waters from their bed; For no ripples curl alas! 308
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Along that wilderness of glassNo swellings tell that winds may be Upon some far-off happier seaNo heavings hint that winds have been On seas less hideously serene. But lo a stir is in the air! The wave- there is a movement there! As if the towers had thrust aside In slightly sinking the dull tideAs if their tops had feebly given A void within the filmy Heaven. The waves have now a redder glowThe hours are breathing faint and lowAnd when amid no earthly moans Down down that town shall settle hence Hell rising from a thousand thrones Shall do it reverence.
“In An Artist’s Studio,” by Christina Rossetti One face looks out from all his canvases, One selfsame figure sits or walks or leans: We found her hidden just behind those screens, That mirror gave back all her loveliness. A queen in opal or in ruby dress, A nameless girl in freshest summer-greens, A saint, an angel—every canvas means The same one meaning, neither more nor less. He feeds upon her face by day and night, And she with true kind eyes looks back on him, Fair as the moon and joyful as the light: Not wan with waiting, not with sorrow dim; No as she is, but was when hope shone bright; Not as she is, but as she fills his dream.
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“I Left My Mittens in the Smokies,” by Lucius Furius I left my mittens in the Smokies. It was that night at Maddron Bald on the ridge after we'd hiked from Davenport Gap— 12 miles, 4,000 feet. The girl gave us icicles. Dazed and breathless, we pitched the tent and scrambled into our sleeping bags. The morning sun felt good -- Sterling Ridge on our left, Cosby far below to the right; Mt. Guyot with its spruces and firs; lunch at Tri-Corner Knob; then down through the rhododendrons and mud to McGhee Springs. Raven Fork—the beech tree, the icy water, the boulders, the sunlight. Cabin Flats and Smokemont—the rain, the people with pancakes. Campfires, backpacks, flapjacks, barley; sunshine, lichens, blisters, . . . wood-smoke. “Suicide,” by Clarius Ugwuoha shattered and scattered
lonely and disillusioned his world hung on a ragged knot the birds sang away in the trees the clouds shifted about to fall morning beckoned but he was gone. 310
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“The Psychologist,” by Abigail George There was a near death Experience in the family. We are at the game reserve. Amongst mountain lions. Blank strangers came. They came with disorder. Writing disorder. Once spooked swans in a dream I found myself on their lake. Drowning in fields of black water. Our eyes are made of fire. She is the baby of the family. Competition started at the swings. Their lungs must be a mansion covering the sharp milk estate of the ghetto moon’s craters. All named after Jesuit priests. To do lists unfolding. I am online. Repair. That is where you will find me. The magic of celebrity. Of fame on earth planting itself there Like Sherlock Holmes. I drink in the lines of her face. In the corners of her eyes. Her mouth. I have lost her for good now. Every season from childhood. My spiteful humanity. My shadow. I cannot catch up to her. To our shared lessons from our educationalist father In the old fashioned wild.
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“I Think It Rains,” by Wole Soyinka I think it rains That tongues may loosen from the parch Uncleave roof-tops of the mouth, hang Heavy with knowledge I saw it raise The sudden cloud, from ashes. Settling They joined in a ring of grey; within, The circling spirit. O it must rain These closures on the mind, blinding us In strange despairs, teaching Purity of sadness. And how it beats Skeined transperencies on wings Of our desires, searing dark longings In cruel baptisms. Rain-reeds, practised in The grace of yielding, yet unbending From afar, this, your conjugation with my earth Bares crounching rocks.
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“We Had It All” by Dolly Parton I can hear the wind a blowing in my mind Just the way it use to sound through the Georgia pines You were always there to answer when I'd call You and me, we had it all Remember how I use to touch your hair Reaching for the feeling that was always there You were the best thing in my life, I can recall You and me, we had it all I know that we can never live those times again But I let my dreams take me back to where we've been And I stay there with you just as long as I can Oh it was so good oh oh It was so good It was so good when you were my man
But I’ll never stop believing in your smile Even though you didn’t stay, it was all worth while You were the best thing in my life I can recall You and me, we had it all.
“Now You Will Feel” by Lucius Furius "I said I didn't love you, I said I didn't want you, but continued to act normal, to extend common courtesies, even— in moments of weakness-a certain kindness. “The treatment failed. Your sickness lingers. Now you must feel the cold truth of my not loving you.” 313
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“Masquerades at the Harvest Dance,” by Chris Chinwe Ulasi …without guns and fanfare, except a crown for the festival and a raffia skirt for fans…! I think of the wide-eyed gaze of the masquerade mocking what it sees. I must admit, I’ve always liked the power that comes from being behind the mask.
Tradition invented the festival, and custom dictates the rules of the game. Nature, the harvest granted in yam barns,– I am inviting the world to see. The harvest week is approaching with crown for the peasant’s head and a mask for his armor. The music a sonorous affirmation to the harvest God; jubilations winged in triumphant flights of changing climate. The noonday ghosts are everywhere in the streets. A ghost, in multi-hued decorum, accosted me. His fork-shaped wipe danced in my face. “Yeah. You know am not scared.” But the old choice of running, enamored of fear, departed me at the precise stroke of noon the tropical sun ray hit Savannah’s anthills. Clutching a jumble of raffia palm in my hands I revisited the dance of blessed spirits, only now, my naked face is racing the masquerades who, I figured, knew me. In fact, they didn’t.
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“If We Die Tonight,” by Nnaemeka Oruh If we die tonight, What stories would they tell? …of billions siphoned while Millions staggered around on broomstick legs? Of destruction of millions from vendetta sought As the commander-in-chief ? Of the millions murdered, As they innocuously sipped on your cola? Or… Of the maverick who Dressed like a mad man, Drank like a fool, Danced in the middle of the night to his own drumbeats, Refused their religion when it took from the poor And… Gave his last penny to the penniless? If you die tonight, What story shall be told?
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“Confessions,” by Ajise Vincent The first time I saw her my heart quivered like an obstinate dog plagued with fever after succumbing to the bait of a deluge. Then, in my eyes her beauty was lustrous and delectable. It even made my trouser snake wax in yeasty ambitiousness.
Not once.
Not twice.
Lo! Like a lizard that eulogizes nature with its nodding pantomimes, then, my neck swayed in oscillatory recklessness anytime I saw her sashay. She was the definition of obsession. But just when I decided to concoct my masculinity, and expunge all traces of cowardice so as to spur our amity to next height, I discovered that her beauty was deficient in attitude. She is now ugly. “Sleepless Night,” by Josephine Chifundo Likoya I still remember that night All sorts of thoughts came to me ‘I should have done this’ ‘I shouldn't have done that’ Why did I punish myself Thinking about something that had already been said and done? Guilty conscience is natural It makes you feel human Apology is the only way out May be i should have said ‘sorry’ before i went to sleep That was the longest night 316
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“Silk,” by Caleb Okereke Scented Candles You judge me by my stutter My show of sobriety By the inklings of clumsiness Sprinkled on my heart You judge me by the way I talk Your eyes pierce through me Like sunlight on the skin Your words become the lyrics To a song I never wrote I do not know the tune The tune I now dance to The same one you sang that day Your voice, velvet. You knew me in days I barely understood myself Loved me through times I thought no one did Sheathed me underneath your skin Taking the blame for all my wrongs Yet in all, I could tell I could tell the sparse intervals in your words I could tell the now distant songs I could tell the little whispers that vanished with the night You wrapped it in shiny papers and lodged it underneath your bed I could tell the things that now seemed long gone I could tell, with time I could tell it all. “Our Head Gears,” by Adeola Ikuomola Chain mine and let me peg yours down Our head gears have lost their bearings Seeking to console the bereaved grains With our unruly dentitions in detention Like tea cups measuring the furious sea 317
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“The Beginning of the End,” by Dela Bobobee What happens to our beginning when the end sets in abruptly like a page torn from a novel that tells our unfinished story in hushed tones shrouded in silly self pity of anachronism? will our end be just like a dream of a cold sun that sets at dawn to depict a fossil past in rubrics that was tainted and traumatized or beget new beginnings in an end like the old phoenix from the dust purged in crucible of conscience? when the dust settles from hunts and we look around us with hope poverty is a state of the mind we shall mend our leaking barns nurse no real or imaginary wounds for our bleeding hearts will soon clot and our last shall becomes the first.
“A Thousand Origami,” by Emuobome Jemikalajah I am a worn-out piece of paper. For many a hand has formed From this little piece, a thousand shapes. I do not want for folded edges, For in some places, I tear. My lines of frailty sit well With the next form I assume; A testament to my malleability. For I am like paper in the hands Of a child practicing origami.
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“African Stories,” by Adeola Ikuomola I always like to tell African stories Under the umbrellas of the moon And the guardianship of the stars Without a racial trace on our race I always like to tell African stories Like the waves lapping the shores And the palms wiping the breezes To bridge up the generational gap I always like to tell African stories Like the hanging gardens of peace Swinging to and fro in all greenery Founded on the folklores of purity I always like to tell African stories Abounding in our glittering colour With colourful cultures renowned Bookmarked across all continents I always like to tell African stories About you my very precious child The matured fruit from my womb To glitter like raw gold in the fires “Blue Heavens,” by I.J. Kalia Comely smile, hearty wink, shy hearts, shy eyes, heart abut heart her cologne like Georgia peach sweeten the air to heighten the mood the insanity of love arose to the heavens of pleasure and from blue heavens 319
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come a tender touch on the softness of my hard heart. “Behind Those Eyes,” by Wesley Macheso Behind her Christian eyes lies a great puzzle. Those seductive eyes that peruse mother earth rummaging every nook and dark corner, illuminating the hideous darkness, bleaching brown skins and sable minds in the name of enlightenment. Preaching peace, waging war. Those eyes that oversaw my brothers skin stark-black bent-double under your devilish lash. Gashing the hinds of those weary souls in the intense heat of your cotton plantations. My dark brothers squawked in sweats of blood. Those sly eyes that preach liberty. The panoramic sights that know no limits. Didn’t they excavate a hideous monster from nefarious catacombs in the Orient? And what weapons of mass destruction they found there! My God. Sweet Uncle Sam, behind those eyes you lie.
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“The Sun Shall Rise,” by Clarius Ugwuoha Though the sky be dark With clouds And it rains Without cease… Though Grief perches on the wall Like an owl And hardship drums Her rhythms on the door… Though the barren fingers Of the dark Touch off on everything And you ask… Though it be dark today Pot-black sky Flakes of soot raining And you cry… Lo! The barren fingers of the dark Shall recede! The Sun shall rise Never to set again It’s golden streaks Dawn to dawn Shall permeate your world
Do not cry The Sun Shall Rise!
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“I Am!” by John Clare I am—yet what I am none cares or knows; My friends forsake me like a memory lost: I am the self-consumer of my woes— They rise and vanish in oblivious host, Like shadows in love’s frenzied stifled throes And yet I am, and live—like vapours tossed Into the nothingness of scorn and noise, Into the living sea of waking dreams, Where there is neither sense of life or joys, But the vast shipwreck of my life’s esteems; Even the dearest that I loved the best Are strange—nay, rather, stranger than the rest. I long for scenes where man hath never trod A place where woman never smiled or wept There to abide with my Creator, God, And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept, Untroubling and untroubled where I lie The grass below—above the vaulted sky. “Remember,” by Christina Rossetti Remember me when I am gone away, Gone far away into the silent land; When you can no more hold me by the hand, Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay. Remember me when no more day by day You tell me of our future that you plann'd: Only remember me; you understand It will be late to counsel then or pray. Yet if you should forget me for a while And afterwards remember, do not grieve: For if the darkness and corruption leave A vestige of the thoughts that once I had, Better by far you should forget and smile Than that you should remember and be sad. 322
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“Beasts of Nalunga II” by Jack Mapanje Beasts of Nalunga seize their time when the land is dry and cave panthers rip out the frogs that might shelter them; torrential rains are then unleashed, dragging away fire places, gobbling up jars, pots, ladles, hoes, calabashes; sending homes tumbling down canyons, swirling with people's cattle, sheep, goats, dogs, chicken the lot, as men, women, children fumble, knock about, forever sashaying to nondescript labyrinths en route to distant waters and lakes, seas and oceans.
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“Beasts of Nalunga III” by Jack Mapanje When their moment comes beasts of Nalunga respect no-one, the young, the aged, the poor must all churn in the gushing brown currents, gurgling down inscrutable pathways to the rhythmic thunderbolts that consume whatever stands in their way; but beasts of Nalunga are at their most loquacious veiled as vampires that suck ordinary people's blood at night, often with intricate intravenous tubing, leaving behind invisible blemishes as people flee their homes.
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“Beasts of Nalunga IV” by Jack Mapanje Ask whoever cares to know ask whoever wants to remember ask Chilobwe, Mchesi, other township or country chiefs, they'll show you the blood their despotic regime once swapped for apartheid gold wherever Young Pioneers with their ‘spearhead' this and ‘spearhead' that stood sentry. As for today's bornagain Young Democrats ask Chiwere, cheSomba or other chiefs, they'll testify to bloodletting rituals that have come with the new liberties which other beasts summon in order to wheedle western food-aid and beat the eternal famines, malarias, AIDs, plagues that our western pharmaceuticals patented by their beasts of the IMF, World Bank, forever profit from whichever way our politicians may dispute the origins of our burdens.
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“Beasts of Nalunga VI” by Jack Mapanje And when riddlers call beasts of Nalunga spirits of the innocent that our hit squads ‘accidentalised' once, now seeking peace for their mangled bodies with today's dispensation; when our narrators today poets tomorrow remember to restore the victims of beasts of Nalunga to their rightful pages in the nation's history, let these and other singers craft the truths we were silent about for fear of death; maybe it's right that a few riddlers remember the ad hoc mat-coffins that took some mangled bodies past ordinary doors, when they should have gone out to their impromptu graves past windows, according to the tattoos from the medicine men and women who gave them new lease of life; maybe the singers are duty-bound to remember the coffins that should not have been buried at gun point, or carcasses of the ‘politicals' who did not deserve to dissolve in basins of surphuric acid at Malawi Young Pioneer bases, when it was a crime to shed tears for family branded ‘rebels'.
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“Keep On Keeping On,” By Tamara Booi (There’s Hope)
Every time you go home At least one harvest has dried out You got to keep on hoping!
Every time you turn on the radio A role-model has committed crime You got to keep on trusting! Every time you look at the TV Someone is acting foolish You got to keep on moving! Every time you listen to the news Politicians keep on fighting You got to keep on voting! Every time you want to sleep Problems keep on making noise You got to keep on pushing! Every time you want to move on Past mistakes keep on pulling back You got to keep on trying! Loved ones will keep on dying Men will keep on lying Children will keep on crying Government will keep on failing We got to keep on surviving!
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“Old Folks Laugh,” by Maya Angelou They have spent their content of simpering, holding their lips this and that way, winding the lines between their brows. Old folks allow their bellies to jiggle like slow tambourines. The hollers rise up and spill over any way they want. When old folks laugh, they free the world. They turn slowly, slyly knowing the best and the worst of remembering. Saliva glistens in the corners of their mouths, their heads wobble on brittle necks, but their laps are filled with memories. When old folks laugh, they consider the promise of dear painless death, and generously forgive life for happening to them.
“Once Upon a Time With a Bird,” by Toyin Bakare Once upon a time with a bird She moved Like a walking shadow Smiling at vales She perched on brittle creaking tree Hushed it…With mellifluous rhythm She gleamed upon my gaze Then, I Bade Bye! 328
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“The Haunted Palace,” by Edgar Allan Poe In the greenest of our valleys By good angels tenanted, Once a fair and stately palace— Radiant palace—reared its head. In the monarch Thought’s dominion, It stood there! Never seraph spread a pinion Over fabric half so fair! Banners yellow, glorious, golden, On its roof did float and flow (This—all this—was in the olden Time long ago) And every gentle air that dallied, In that sweet day, Along the ramparts plumed and pallid, A wingèd odor went away. Wanderers in that happy valley, Through two luminous windows, saw Spirits moving musically To a lute’s well-tunèd law, Round about a throne where, sitting, Porphyrogene! In state his glory well befitting, The ruler of the realm was seen. And all with pearl and ruby glowing Was the fair palace door, Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing And sparkling evermore, A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty Was but to sing, In voices of surpassing beauty, The wit and wisdom of their king. But evil things, in robes of sorrow, Assailed the monarch’s high estate; (Ah, let us mourn!—for never morrow 329
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Shall dawn upon him, desolate!) And round about his home the glory That blushed and bloomed Is but a dim-remembered story Of the old time entombed. And travellers, now, within that valley, Through the red-litten windows see Vast forms that move fantastically To a discordant melody; While, like a ghastly rapid river, Through the pale door A hideous throng rush out forever, And laugh—but smile no more.
“The Lonely Voice,” by Clarius Ugwuoha A lonely voice, Long-drawn-out, Emanates as from nowhere, Impregnates the morning air Birth is given To war-set warriors clanging Matchets and chanting War songs
Dusk and the world is laid to waste Staring back nostalgic stares At the ruin of its own hands. Lonely voice say what you are That makes widows of the newly wed Orphans of the newly born Gloomy of a sunny day… These pressurizes chants of your praise Do betray Pent up fury At your heraldic calls! 330
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“The Life of a Digger,” by Margarita Engle Jamaican digging crews have to sleep eighty men to a room, in huge warehouses like the ones where big wooden crates of dynamite are stored. My hands feel like scorpion claws, clamped on to a hard hard shovel all day, then curled into fists at night. At dawn, the steaming labor trains deliver us by the thousands, down into that snake pit where we dig until my muscles feel as weak as water and my backbone is like shattered glass.
But only half the day is over. At lunchtime, we see sunburned American engineers and foremen eating at tables, in shady tents with the flaps left open, so that we have to watch how they sit on nice chairs, looking restful. We also watch the medium-dark Spanish men, relaxing as they sit on their train tracks, grinning as if they know secrets. We have no place to sit. Not even a stool. So we stand, plates in hand, uncomfortable and undignified.
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Back home, I used to dream of saving enough Panama money to buy a bit of good farmland for Momma and my little brothers and sisters, so that we would all have plenty to eat. Now all I want is a chair. And food with some spice. And fair treatment. Justice.
“Fugitive From Justice,” by Clarius Ugwuoha The Sun let down To hide its shame The earth runs Like the fleet-footed hound The stench of blood Palls the bleeding knife. What river of tears! And the sudden market where grief was sold, Fugitive Fugitives there are too From the wreckage of the tongue and pen Fugitives from justice In the very home they live. Run, Fugitive, run From the shadow that trails But Justice grinds exceedingly small!
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“Spirit Knows No Distinction,” By Tamara Booi They hated you; Because you are black They hid knowledge in the book Because you can’t read They assumed you know nothing; Because you uneducated They told you that you can’t Because you never did You hate his children; Because they are not yours You hate your father; Because he hates your Mother You hate happiness; Because you are never happy You hate speaking; Because no one listens You’ve got so much hatred; For just about everything Your reasons motivates The hatred in your sole Spirit knows no difference Spirit knows no color Spirit knows no loyalty It’s either you are a hater or a lover!
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“Can You Hear The Music?” by Wesley Macheso Can your ears hear the musings, the sweet melodies of mellow birds chattering to the rhythm of the winds birching on the antlers of Nyika? Do your otoliths dare to catch the lisping whispers in the winds of leaping crickets chirping to nights as dark as the moon by day? And do your eardrums beat to the rhythm and bass of frogs croaking and groaning, churning the mud and grunting, breathing life into nights as dead as the land? Can you hear the music of nature seducing the sleeping giant in the artist to listen, to feel, to conceive, to create?
“Death,” by Bill Knott Going to sleep, I cross my hands on my chest. They will place my hands like this. It will look as though I am flying into myself.
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“One Day You’ll Regret,” by Naipanoi Lepapa Sometimes I am like your mother, storms hardened strong. Sometimes I am empty a controlled freak a showroom delete. Sometimes I am youth furniture old glass. Sometimes I manage I let go I breathe I give myself to my life. Sometimes I am half-loved unloved blinded doubtful. I am walking in a jam and everything adds up to you. I should go back to school, maybe nursery re-learn myself, my worth what it feels to receive love without beating ‘self up, without quarrelling, a feeling, a fire, a shot, my clumsy heart. Perhaps you should take that walk I should stop lining up You are not Jupiter, not hundred sun rings Perhaps when I’m gone you’ll regret you lazy fool.
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“Lullaby,” by Maggie Dietz After Lyle Lovett If I had a ginko tree I'd climb it in the evening. If I had a marmoset He'd climb the tree with me. If we saw a falling star I'd wish I had a rocket. If I had a rocket I'd drag the star back home. If I went to space I'd pick up a satellite.
If I had my own moon I wouldn't be so sad. If I weren't so sad I wouldn't need a companion. If I sold my marmoset I'd have a lot of cash.
If I had some money I'd buy an Eldorado. (Silver, 1959, With fins like raptor wings.) I'd shine that Eldorado and drive it to my father's. If I had a father I'd take him for a ride.
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“The Sun” by Kim Chi-ha The sun was only as wide as a man's foot. Not a single person knows of the cyclone approaching, Steadily approaching. In the fields, however, The leaves dance to and fro in the wind— The wind has been known to move mountains. The waves are not quiet for a moment. Do you know that the blade has at last corroded? You would riot know though the wind howled by. The sun was only as wide as a man's foot. Idiot sun! The fire-tempered steel melts in the fire; The water-reared city falls asleep in the water. No one knows, now On the streets, every night, People let out cries from their nightmares. Sometimes people go mad! Do you know? You probably don’t know that the blade has corroded. Do you know or don't you? Was there ever a night when you were not whipped? There was probably never a day when rocks did not fly at you. Never a day, of course! Like being worn away by water, Like a boulder being constantly worn away-like that! I say the day will come The old sword's blade rotted away-while weeping When it cannot even cut the wind-while weeping aloud Do you know the rusted blade? The sun's an idiot. Do you know? The sun was only as wide as a man’s foot. Do you know or not? You could not be expected to know.
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“The Rain,” by Clarius Ugwuoha The sun ripened in the sky Plucked by unseen hands. Blind clouds groped through. The wind picked up her broom And swept neatly through the sand. The trees argued fiercely Gesticulating and turning. The skies were hurrying about for a shelter And from the distance, Between thundering, A spray of cold rain came Hammering on the iron sheets!
“Lapai,” by Toyin Bakare Crypt! Yet a laughing star In her bosom dwells Daffodils Often A smiling sun Yes! She stirs us Wipes us With Bliss Lapai; Just take a Glimpse and leave.
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“If Only…” by ‘Lakunle Jaiyesimi If only I were privileged If only I were adorned with wings To fly like the saintly angels From beyond the tallest trees Where no mortal ever reached Except he be transformed Into an untouchable If only I had an opportunity To handle the Wand of Kingdom Authority I will pierce the hearts of Men Rigid with greed Puffed with pride Messy with mischief To free its venom of hate If only I were chanced I will beat hypocrisy out of piety And render men pure as their core desires Inflaming their sublime passions to the Creator When best, worship is accepted Without the inkling of doubt And with no action of retreat.
“The Visitor,” by Toyin Bakare You are sleepless gay Yet, Of Solitude art With Icy hand
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“Jazzy Blues,” by Ikhide R. Ikheloa The river is not the same river That was here When I held you close. The river is gone. The secret is here The river is gone. The secret is here The river is gone. And the river Is not deep enough To hold our secret. “Footpaths of Thought,” by JKS Makokha They are winding and somewhat narrow these paths our evening thoughts retrace when we after work abandon somehow the daily weight of worldly affairs. When in crowdy evening company of commuting city strangers, many are the moments you and I opt to take solo walks within along these footpaths of thought in the company of our selves. Retreating from cold city pavements, where man and machine vent and step on toes or tires of each, we choose to withdraw from public reach each evening minute we meander
in the maze within our roaming minds in conversation with the tiny voice within us as we saunter on these footpaths within. 340
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“Butterflies” by Dolly Parton I would spin for you a blanket Out of gold and silver threads I would let my gentle bosom Be a pillow for your head I’d caress your perfect body On a rosy bed at night Play you love songs on a golden harp And sing you Butterflies In a diamond-studded chalice On an emerald-plated tray I would bring to you sweet nectar And gifts of bright array I would paint for you a castle In a blue and yellow sky Paint you happy ever after And paint you Butterflies Butterflies, my heart flutters with the notion I get high on the wings of sweet emotion Darling I, I just think of you and I get butterflies I get close to you and I get butterflies If only I were magic I would make the wishes true I would wave a magic wand And be in Paradise with you But I'm just a girl that loves you I will love you all my life But I do have a magic feeling And it gives me butterflies We should fly away together, you and I Off to paradise forever, I get high I get close to you and I get butterflies I think of you and I get butterflies.
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I will spin for you a blanket out of gold and silver threads If only I were magic, I would make the wishes true I would wave a magic wand and be in paradise with you
“Love Is Like A Butterfly” by Dolly Parton Love is like a butterfly As soft and gentle as a sigh The multicolored moods of love are like its satin wings Love makes your heart feel strange inside It flutters like soft wings in flight Love is like a butterfly, a rare and gentle thing I feel it when you’re with me It happens when you kiss me That rare and gentle feeling that I feel inside Your touch is soft and gentle Your kiss is warm and tender Whenever I am with you I think of butterflies Love is like a butterfly The multicolored moods of love are like its satin wings Love makes your heart feel strange inside It flutters like soft wings in flight Love is like a butterfly, a rare and gentle thing
Your laughter brings me sunshine Everyday is spring time And I am only happy when you are by my side How precious is this love we share How very precious, sweet and rare Together we belong like daffodils and butterflies Love is like a butterfly, a rare and gentle thing.
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“Dialogue by a Lake,” by Abigail George Why are you crying? Someone asked. Because of the parachutes and bombs. They come like a thief in the night. But a German love story is forever. What is written on a child’s body Is different to what is written on an adult’s? In those days nobody knew What female depression was? All people had were their dreams And the dreams they had for their children. And during the war the German children Still saw rainbows when it rained cats and dogs. Death would come – and the living Still suffered on in silence. Writers would write and rewrite history. Daughters became wives and mothers Even during the war for they thought it would pass Quickly like another season. “Okigbo’s Flute,” by E.E. Sule Logistics! Okigbo staggers awake! Multitude of amputated metaphors – a procession of progeny Bearing a calabash of broken poetries to the goddess In the goddess’s talon They find Okigbo’s flute Its logistics an archaeology of confused tongues The water suddenly acquires depth Deep, deeper than the intestine of the Atlantic They file into it seeking strayed melody of the flute Logistics! Okigbo cackles alive! A poem brightly blinks its eye Alas! the pen is broken the fingers downcast with whitlows 343
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“Kitchen Song,” by Tolu Akinwole And suddenly We were called upon To dance a fragmentary dance In the billows of the red flame Of the sharpened teeth Of the hallowed men Of the holy jungle Of the sun-tanned up We were called to dance To heartily dance To the delightful strain Of the weeping goje To the gallant wail Of the green bugle A shattering Blisters The harem From the holy jungle Of the sun-tanned up Woke us up – The lazy sleepers we are! – To present us with A rich, reddish dish Of mangled bodies Of hooded hearts Of muffled shouts Of broken dreams…
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“I Don’t Wanna Throw Rice” by Dolly Parton She married the one I love today When my back was turned she took him away Now while they’re all outside, waiting to throw rice What I want to throw will surely black her eyes Because I don’t want to throw rice I want to throw rocks at her She took the only love I had No, I don’t want to throw rice I want to throw rocks at her It would be a way to hurt her because she hurt me so bad Well I never stole nothing in my life But if I get the chance I’ll steal him from his wife Because all is fair in love and war, maybe I’m carrying this too far But I feel like tying dynamite to her side of the car..
“Death,” by ‘Lakunle Jaiyesimi Love Has settled Like a blossoming Rose Smiling sour amidst thick thorns To wither… To wither… Only to wither… In this early spring Frowning free amidst streaming tears Never… Never… Never again… To shed her warm shadow At my flickering lips And say “Good Night, Dear!”
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“Exchange,” by E.E. Sule We do not know how deep we love those we hate Until an exchange of emotions Flushes bits of sentiment Clogging the arteries of our mindscape Artlessly we allow words – bare, basic, banal – To build a bridge of smiles between our hearts And tales spring in hilarity Inventing a future, a freedom, an ecstasy And we seek a room to safely inhabit Two lone brave souls Restless like drunken birds on the surface of sea Come away, the brave one The world will misunderstand us And the daring revelation you bring Will spill across hundreds of sickened minds Come away, the brave one Let us listen alone to our minds Exchanging heartbeats of endangered doves Where prejudices conspire against the will of the heart We do not know how deep we love those we hate But triumphant souls are they who Hand in hand trudge up the hill.
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“The Bridge” by Dolly Parton The bridge, so high The bridge, so tall Here is where it started On the bridge The moon is big and yellow And the stars are all a’ glow From the bridge, I see reflections In the waters far below You kissed me for the first time here And held me awfully tight And the bridge became our favorite place We came here often in the night And one night while standing on the bridge Desire swept through us both Passion took us by the hand And showed us where to go From the bridge we saw a meadow So we ran together there Where we found love together Our emotions filled the air The bridge, so wide The bridge, so long Where once we stood together Tonight I stand alone Tonight, while standing on the bridge My heart is beating wild To think that you could leave me here With our unborn child My feet are moving slowly Closer to the edge Here is where it started And here is where I’ll end it... 347
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“An African Night,” by Osita Okoroafor It was that a dark veil was thrown Over the face of the moon As it smiled down on the sprawling savannah But then was your beauty ever made more manifest Nor has yet a greater glory revealed the face of night The chorus of a thousand stars Blinking in solemn acclaim Of this rustic rapture on an ancient landscape A cacophony of sounds in a crazy potpourri The chirping insects and the owl’s ominous hoot Stirred in perfect unison in nature’s boiling pot of soot Like a conductor would an orchestra One and all a symphony of harmony But suddenly quiet descends on all like a heavy hand As hunger seize the night in a reign of terror Trailing the musk of fear they stalk majestically Their prey through the still frightened foliage Soon they make their harvest From the darkness that abound Can I ever forget the smell of blood? Mixed with the odorous aroma of the camwood forest Tell me what other sound tests the stout heart Like the growling of the devouring of a fresh kill Danger soon fades away In the awakening of the forest As it erupts once more in a celebration of survival The night wind pause its excited conversation With the thrashing foliage In awe of this surreal masterpiece A splash of black on nature’s canvas Punctuated with flickering flames of gold Under the moonlight in the village square The lights of these fire carrying insects Is reflected in the eyes of the wizened sage Surrounded by starry-eyed children As he regales them with tales of nights long past The stories of glorious African nights. 348
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“We No Longer Remember,” by Nnaemeka Oruh I can no longer remember The faces of cousins of my childhood Beautiful girls and boys whom together, We dustied up the village-square in dry seasons And in the rainy season shared the fireside
Eating roast corn and pear Udochukwu left us pre-teen Louis, early teenage years Just a few got to semi-adulthood Our innocence was murdered At the threshold of teenage years Dreams of a wonder-world slaughtered By the gruesome hand of adulthood Today we still aspire. Building fresh dreams from the scattered bricks Of shattered dreams Dreams, which too soon shatter again Providing fresh bricks for fresh Temporary dreams. I can no longer remember–and neither do you– What it means to dream and believe in it Reality is a gruesome night watchman with a sledge hammer Hovering above us, and plundering Dreams at their foetal stage. 349
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“Written In December,” by Wesley Macheso What gods haunt this month when the skies are dark and the rage of Namalenga* mlengalenga scares off the infant god; the pale child in a manger. When Mphambe** strikes his stroke Napolo*** weeps and sweeps celebrants in black down the valley. What angry and hungry gods haunt this month as wine tingles and mingles with blood dread and anxiety or mourning and festivity converge in a single bowl; the chalice of Dionysus he who compels the poet to create. What thirsty gods haunt this month The spirit of metal work – Ogun Dionysus – he who craves wine and blood Mphambe – the death in lightning Napolo – the spirit in the gushing water tearing down the valley. Alas! What gods haunt this month! —* God the creator ** God of lightning ***The spirit in flash floods
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“North of Boston,” by Maggie Dietz Hoarfrost coats and cuffs the playing fields, a heyday of glistening. So there’s hope in my throat as I walk across them to the woods with my chest flung open, spilling its coins. The light so bright I can hear it, a silver tone like a penny whistle. It’s fall, so I’m craving pine cones. Hundreds of maples the color of bulldozers! But something strange is going on: the trees are tired of meaning, sick of providing mystery, parallels, consolation. “Leave us alone,” they seem to cry, with barely energy for a pun. The muscular river crawls on its belly in a maple coat of mail. Muddy and unreflective, it smells as if it too could use some privacy. The sumac reddens like a face, holding out its velvet pods almost desperately. The Queen Anne’s Lace clicks in the wind. A deaf-mute milkweed foaming at the mouth. Back at the field I look for what I didn’t mean to drop. The grass is green. Okay, Day, my host, I want to get out 351
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of your house. Come on, Night, with your twinkly stars and big dumb moon. Tell me don’t show me, and wipe that grin off your face. “Nando’s Song,” by Ikhide R. Ikheloa You held my hand And giggling we crossed Crossed the four corners of darkness Kicked to Olokun’s bosom The sacrifice to nonchalant gods White chalk White cock White chalk White yam Red palm oil Four pennies Empty bottle of Fanta I will hold your hand And together we will cross This junction of darkness. “Eternal Harmony,” by Emeka “Akaraka” Ogaraku And the red sand danced sensually To the caressing tunes of the breeze fairly Exposing its charm to the sunrays To the gaping urge of a common man Whose lust stretches beyond love? The ripples of a green cactus Displays its secrets to bright eyes of the night Sapping water from the dried air Tortoise drinking from morning dew While pelicans sing the morning grace There is a sense of harmony Or sympathy for symphony The moon reflects the night’s beauty Of eternal peace before history 352
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“Tula [Books are Door-Shaped]” by Margarita Engle Books are door-shaped portals carrying me across oceans and centuries, helping me feel less alone.
But my mother believes that girls who read too much are unladylike and ugly, so my father's books are locked in a clear glass cabinet. I gaze at enticing covers and mysterious titles, but I am rarely permitted to touch the enchantment of words. Poems. Stories. Plays. All are forbidden. Girls are not supposed to think, but as soon as my eager mind begins to race, free thoughts rush in to replace the trapped ones. I imagine distant times and faraway places. Ghosts. Vampires. Ancient warriors. Fantasy moves into the tangled maze of lonely confusion. 353
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Secretly, I open an invisible book in my mind, and I step through its magical door-shape into a universe of dangerous villains and breathtaking heroes. Many of the heroes are men and boys, but some are girls so tall strong and clever that they rescue other children from monsters. “Autumn,” by John Clare The thistledown's flying, though the winds are all still, On the green grass now lying, now mounting the hill, The spring from the fountain now boils like a pot; Through stones past the counting it bubbles red-hot. The ground parched and cracked is like overbaked bread, The greensward all wracked is, bents dried up and dead. The fallow fields glitter like water indeed, And gossamers twitter, flung from weed unto weed. Hill-tops like hot iron glitter bright in the sun, And the rivers we're eying burn to gold as they run; Burning hot is the ground, liquid gold is the air; Whoever looks round sees Eternity there. “The Outdated Sunlight,” by Adeola Ikuomola The outdated sunlight In her dark night gown Double-clicked darkness To mourn her overweight Upon the swiftest waterfall Lynching her feministic gaits Within glassine masculine gates 354
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“The Sleeper,” by Edgar Allan Poe At midnight, in the month of June, I stand beneath the mystic moon. An opiate vapor, dewy, dim, Exhales from out her golden rim, And softly dripping, drop by drop, Upon the quiet mountain top, Steals drowsily and musically Into the universal valley. The rosemary nods upon the grave; The lily lolls upon the wave; Wrapping the fog about its breast, The ruin moulders into rest; Looking like Lethe, see! the lake A conscious slumber seems to take, And would not, for the world, awake. All Beauty sleeps!—and lo! where lies Irene, with her Destinies! Oh, lady bright! can it be right— This window open to the night? The wanton airs, from the tree-top, Laughingly through the lattice drop— The bodiless airs, a wizard rout, Flit through thy chamber in and out, And wave the curtain canopy So fitfully—so fearfully— Above the closed and fringéd lid ‘neath which thy slumb’ring soul lies hid, That, o’er the floor and down the wall, Like ghosts the shadows rise and fall! Oh, lady dear, hast thou no fear? Why and what art thou dreaming here? Sure thou art come o’er far-off seas, A wonder to these garden trees! Strange is thy pallor! strange thy dress! Strange, above all, thy length of tress, And this all solemn silentness!
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The lady sleeps! Oh, may her sleep, Which is enduring, so be deep! Heaven have her in its sacred keep! This chamber changed for one more holy, This bed for one more melancholy, I pray to God that she may lie Forever with unopened eye, While the pale sheeted ghosts go by! My love, she sleeps! Oh, may her sleep, As it is lasting, so be deep! Soft may the worms about her creep! Far in the forest, dim and old, For her may some tall vault unfold— Some vault that oft hath flung its black And wingéd pannels fluttering back, Triumphant, o’er the crested palls Of her grand family funerals— Some sepulchre, remote, alone, Against whose portals she hath thrown, In childhood, many an idle stone— Some tomb from out whose sounding door She ne’er shall force an echo more, Thrilling to think, poor child of sin! It was the dead who groaned within. “The Narrative,” by Abigail George I thank you God and mother earth. And this The rural country of blood, stone and wine, rust and bone that I’ve imagined from afar all of my life. A thousands suns Could not wish you away. You are God’s gift to the world to This drowning woman with her bloodlines tied to a phoenix Rising up from the ashes. There are rituals and alchemy In everything I say. In everything I stand for. Education Is just a word within a word, an Einsteinium word? And Although the times we find ourselves in right now is so Dickinson, With the light so dappled, this side of the world is so pure, So green as if we were diving into mother’s milk again. 356
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“The Dying Child,” by John Clare He could not die when trees were green, For he loved the time too well. His little hands, when flowers were seen, Were held for the bluebell, As he was carried o'er the green. His eye glanced at the white-nosed bee; He knew those children of the spring: When he was well and on the lea He held one in his hands to sing, Which filled his heart with glee. Infants, the children of the spring! How can an infant die When butterflies are on the wing, Green grass, and such a sky? How can they die at spring? He held his hands for daisies white, And then for violets blue, And took them all to bed at night That in the green fields grew, As childhood's sweet delight. And then he shut his little eyes, And flowers would notice not; Birds' nests and eggs caused no surprise, He now no blossoms got; They met with plaintive sighs. When winter came and blasts did sigh, And bare were plain and tree, As he for ease in bed did lie His soul seemed with the free, He died so quietly.
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“The Second Coming,” by William Butler Yeats Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
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“No Return” by Kim Chi-ha I shall not return having once stepped into this place. If I sleep, it is the sleep which cuts deeply into the flesh That sleep, that white room, that bottomless vertigo. The sound of high leather boots in the night, The place where they come and go on the ceiling, Invisible faces, hands, gestures, That room where voices and laughter arise That white room, that bottomless vertigo. Opening my eyes With the pain of a fingernail being pulled out, Crying, my body being torn apart, My wizened soul alone remaining. Can I not depart? In vain, Comrades who died in vain, Fallen into humiliating sleep, Fallen into sleep in vain. In the past Sometimes faintly smiling, sometimes crying out Those wonderful friends. Ah, I shall not return, not return.
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“Grief,” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning I TELL you hopeless grief is passionless; That only men incredulous of despair Half-taught in anguish through the midnight air Beat upward to God's throne in loud access Of shrieking and reproach. Full desertness In souls as countries lieth silent-bare Under the blanching vertical eye-glare Of the absolute Heavens. Deep-hearted man express Grief for thy Dead in silence like to death, Most like a monumental statue set In everlasting watch and moveless woe Till itself crumble to the dust beneath. Touch it; the marble eyelids are not wet: If it could weep it could arise and go.
“Mother And Child,” by Joseph Omoh Ndukwu We were bold and we held our country in our hands And the world spat at us that we should be so young and yet so proud I saw a mother feed her baby, touch his pink so tenderly. She learned to love him for nothing, wanting nothing but his smile and his innocence And he loved her back I walked away, learning how to love my country One tenderness placed on top another How dare we reverse roles? we are only tiny children in the skirt of our country.
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“Diamond Fish 1,” by Emeka “Akaraka” Ogaraku She swims through the river In the dark winter light Igniting the waves with glittering blisters Illuminating the rebellious night And its majestic secrets and magic mights Equipped with power and pride And super-hyperbolic prominence Overwhelmed by the ignorance of her arrogance With such a wide and wild stride Her glories come always from outside Where she is admired and adored Empty, lonely and starved within With flamboyance she swallows her pride How long oh beauty how long Shall you dwell from outside? How far will you hide your emptiness? Behind flaunty and uncertain glamour.
“Diamond Fish “2” (Material girl)” by Emeka “Akaraka” Ogaraku What counts is only money and wealth Morality and fairness she won’t know She takes in all that is forbidden and white as snow Her vanity knows no bound Filled with frivolities and empty excesses Beautiful, intelligent and rich Never had the taste of pain of poverty She violates every norm and uses friends as pawns She remains silent before the truth Unwilling to take any responsibility She is sneaky, sticky, slimy, a subtle serpent Feels herself as evil genius, prides her filthy ingenuity She is unbearable, full of irritation and vulgar Stealthy in search of a stooge, a fall guy Oh diamond fish Oh material girl How long would you live out of yourself ? 361
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“Wake Me Up When It Is Time,” by Anthony Ominiabohs Hush! Let the hasty multitude rush by To the enclaves rumoured to hold gold Where the spotlight of notoriety glows Like a torch in a narrow tunnel of boulders Hush! Let my lying head no intrusion know For I am gone to where the spirits meet In the land I know to reveal with a bow, all of life’s up’s and downs— Where grace and fortunes are forever adance To divine my place in the kingdom of man Hush! You who hold the sounding cymbal Let my meet go unperturbed So the rivers joining may be smooth and fruitful For you will know my hour When it does strike and you see the signs, Then and only then should you clap your gongs And wake me up when it is time. “Nod to a Falling Tree,” by Chris Msosa I ran into a skanking daffodil drunk on something Screaming and surely saying something Important to sober up my indisposed mind A leftover from burning embers a pile of ash Redeeming itself to rekindle its scalded flowers From ever getting stuck on this grey From ever becoming what is left of this grey And the freedom which gives it good time Also gives me good rhyme and these eyes and mind Of mine are no strangers to such a landfill weathering Or this rude animated dance pulsating before this Gathering of grey owls
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“For My Soul’s Keeper,” by Naza Amaeze Okoli The Journey I have come to stir the fire On which rests our covenant Your hair glisters, The orange glow of the sun Whispers low tunes over its rough edges We are the envy of the wilted universe I – a child of nature You – the perfection of creation I come To crouch beneath the fence I cannot scale To let our souls simmer… To keep warm I come to make fire I pledge my weakness I proclaim you my destiny I will love you in pain You were far away When I looked up but did not find the stars: I saw expanse I spelled my name across the sky Until my eyes closed You were a-way The day I went home A-lone… When I fell on pebbled shadows You were silent When I sang the last requiem When the April storm Sweeping through the long thorns of time Crashed upon my head
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“Mysticism of Honest Doubt,” by Michael Achile Umameh O, supreme someone So alluring, so annoying My mystical impulse desires to see you And I know you are there Wherever is there In the old world, in the new world In the bold world, in the restless world And these worlds cannot hide you And I too, am there. My tortured impulse aspire to see you Yet my clear-sightedness is blind For your glory extinguishes the lights of my stars Your silence drowns my screams. My Stalker And I cannot hide from you. I renounce my ladders to you. For they say: “we are not the God you are seeking” For you are concealed behind The screen of learned phrases of my prayers Hidden in my conventions and routine repetitions However thick, no coating of hypocrisy can hide you These clouds cannot make me doubt the sun My delight, my dread, my light, my night O supreme someone Of me be it said: “See a man who has seen” And yet knows nothing: Believe his testimony. Inspired, let me see you.
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“Bleeding Hearts,” by Osita Okoroafor With sharpened points and flaming darts We have come to play The game of bleeding hearts Reeling from the mangling scars I’ve received With flowers and a heart full of promises I come still To receive forty more severe stabs All fatal blows Agonized screams and a heart torn apart A feigned smile in the eyes of a seductress The orgy of devouring hearts has begun Drowned by a surge of emotions Drunken on these dizzying feelings On the day when tomorrow’s echo Is a frightening roar In the arena of racing pulses and beating hearts O! Cruel love you have slain me yet again Armour of brazen hearts Rent in two by the flash of a smile A ripple of blood through a heart of stone Somersaulting souls in acrobatic posturing Flipping feelings in a tide of fluctuating fortunes The draught of a season of frowning In the famine of dry pockets And a deluge of reined-in emotion In the high noon of bounties Still I come To receive more severe stabs In the Golgotha Wherein I was crucified in the name of love.
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“November,” by Maggie Dietz Show's over, folks. And didn't October do A bang-up job? Crisp breezes, full-throated cries Of migrating geese, low-floating coral moon. Nothing left but fool's gold in the trees. Did I love it enough, the full-throttle foliage, While it lasted? Was I dazzled? The bees Have up and quit their last-ditch flights of forage And gone to shiver in their winter clusters. Field mice hit the barns, big squirrels gorge On busted chestnuts. A sky like hardened plaster Hovers. The pasty river, its next of kin, Coughs up reed grass fat as feather dusters. Even the swarms of kids have given in To winter's big excuse, boxed-in allure: TVs ricochet light behind pulled curtains. The days throw up a closed sign around four. The hapless customer who'd wanted something Arrives to find lights out, a bolted door.
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“Epiphany,” by Wesley Macheso The sensual rhythm of thumping drums stirred the ancestors in their sealed graves awakening them from eternal slumber. Namalenga, the creator gathered the dark and restless clouds at the zenith of Kaphirinthiwa*. Thunder roared in the mountains, the earth shook violently as Napolo** recoiled beneath the rocks, ready for a surprise visit to the top of the enticed mountain. Mphambe***, the terrifying one, sparkled his mighty sword and slashed the dusky sky into two equal halves emancipating the viscous waters that swept the mountain clean like a cleansing volcanic eruption. The rain came. Chauta**** cast his resplendent bow bedecking the wailing sky with multiple shades: yellow green blue orange indigo red And from the blinding band of colours descended humans, forest creatures, birds that fly and snakes that creep, their footprints eternal marks on the malleable rock. The birth of a new generation. Then uninvited entourage caught us off guard. Their black book proclaiming righteousness condemned the messengers of Chisumphi*****. Their ways bamboozled the tribesmen and the God rose to the sky in a rapture! People dispersed in bewilderment as the spirit soared higher and higher dissolving into the vastness of blue skies.
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But Leza******* patiently cajoles the new generation; awake you young age, dig the deep roots of the mighty tree that is Africa. Rejoice and sing your black songs for ere they toured, Africa had God. —*A hill believed to be the place of creation in Chewa mythology **Mythical snake believed to cause floods, earthquakes, whirlwinds, etc. ***The God of thunder and lightning ****God manifested in rainbows *****God ******God as patient
“Ekwe (The Wooden Internet)” by Emeka “Akaraka” Ogaraku His voice is deep, big and hard His wordings are coded choice massages willingly heard His lawful massages and carrying heavy weight He is EKWE THE WOODEN INTERNET He is the spokesman of a creed and a people Only the tribe understands him The spying enemies encipher him He is the lion roaring over the vast desert Listen you Ezes and Sages Hear you Odibos and the Ofeges Perceive you palm-wine tappers and drinkers The drum speaks the same choice words Of unity and peaceful arrangements. He sings better than the nightingale Roars deeper than Lion the forest king Higher, calling down the sparrows And harder than the elephant’s horn Ekwe is the voice of the truth The voice we can and we do trust.
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“Our Grandmothers,” by Maya Angelou She lay, skin down in the moist dirt, the canebrake rustling with the whispers of leaves, and loud longing of hounds and the ransack of hunters crackling the near branches. She muttered, lifting her head a nod toward freedom, I shall not, I shall not be moved. She gathered her babies, their tears slick as oil on black faces, their young eyes canvassing mornings of madness. Momma, is Master going to sell you from us tomorrow? Yes. Unless you keep walking more and talking less. Yes. Unless the keeper of our lives releases me from all commandments. Yes. And your lives, never mine to live, will be executed upon the killing floor of innocents. Unless you match my heart and words, saying with me, I shall not be moved. In Virginia tobacco fields, leaning into the curve 369
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of Steinway pianos, along Arkansas roads, in the red hills of Georgia, into the palms of her chained hands, she cried against calamity, You have tried to destroy me and though I perish daily, I shall not be moved. Her universe, often summarized into one black body falling finally from the tree to her feet, made her cry each time into a new voice. All my past hastens to defeat, and strangers claim the glory of my love, Iniquity has bound me to his bed. yet, I must not be moved. She heard the names, swirling ribbons in the wind of history: nigger, heifer, mammy, property, creature, ape, baboon, whore, hot tail, thing, it. She said, But my description cannot fit your tongue, for I have a certain way of being in this world, and I shall not, I shall not be moved. No angel stretched protecting wings above the heads of her children, fluttering and urging the winds of reason into the confusions of their lives. The sprouted like young weeds, 370
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but she could not shield their growth from the grinding blades of ignorance, nor shape them into symbolic topiaries. She sent them away, underground, overland, in coaches and shoeless. When you learn, teach. When you get, give. As for me, I shall not be moved. She stood in midocean, seeking dry land. She searched God's face. Assured, she placed her fire of service on the altar, and though clothed in the finery of faith, when she appeared at the temple door, no sign welcomed Black Grandmother, Enter here. Into the crashing sound, into wickedness, she cried, No one, no, nor no one million ones dare deny me God, I go forth along, and stand as ten thousand. The Divine upon my right impels me to pull forever at the latch on Freedom's gate. The Holy Spirit upon my left leads my feet without ceasing into the camp of the righteous and into the tents of the free. 371
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These momma faces, lemon-yellow, plum-purple, honey-brown, have grimaced and twisted down a pyramid for years. She is Sheba the Sojourner, Harriet and Zora, Mary Bethune and Angela, Annie to Zenobia. She stands before the abortion clinic, confounded by the lack of choices. In the Welfare line, reduced to the pity of handouts. Ordained in the pulpit, shielded by the mysteries. In the operating room, husbanding life. In the choir loft, holding God in her throat. On lonely street corners, hawking her body. In the classroom, loving the children to understanding. Centered on the world's stage, she sings to her loves and beloveds, to her foes and detractors: However I am perceived and deceived, however my ignorance and conceits, lay aside your fears that I will be undone, for I shall not be moved.
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“Meeting Point,” by Louis MacNeice Time was away and somewhere else, There were two glasses and two chairs And two people with the one pulse (Somebody stopped the moving stairs): Time was away and somewhere else. And they were neither up nor down; The stream’s music did not stop Flowing through heather, limpid brown, Although they sat in a coffee shop And they were neither up nor down. The bell was silent in the air Holding its inverted poise— Between the clang and clang a flower, A brazen calyx of no noise: The bell was silent in the air. The camels crossed the miles of sand That stretched around the cups and plates; The desert was their own, they planned To portion out the stars and dates: The camels crossed the miles of sand. Time was away and somewhere else. The waiter did not come, the clock Forgot them and the radio waltz Came out like water from a rock: Time was away and somewhere else. Her fingers flicked away the ash That bloomed again in tropic trees: Not caring if the markets crash When they had forests such as these, Her fingers flicked away the ash. God or whatever means the Good Be praised that time can stop like this, That what the heart has understood 373
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Can verify in the body’s peace God or whatever means the Good. Time was away and she was here And life no longer what it was, The bell was silent in the air And all the room one glow because Time was away and she was here.
“Tula [City Life is a Whirl of Poetry Readings]” by Margarita Engle City life is a whirl of poetry readings and forbidden tertulias, gatherings where young and old, rich and poor, male and female, dark and light— runaway slaves and freed ones, former masters and former servants—all take turns sharing secret verses rooted in startling new ideas. Each evening, I go home with a mind that glows in the light of words, which leap like flames...
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“Dedication,” by Wole Soyinka Earth will not share the rafter's envy; dung floors Break, not the gecko's slight skin, but its fall Taste this soil for death and plumb her deep for life As this yam, wholly earthed, yet a living tuber To the warmth of waters, earthed as springs As roots of baobab, as the hearth. The air will not deny you. Like a top Spin you on the navel of the storm, for the hoe That roots the forests plows a path for squirrels. Be ageless as dark peat, but only that rain's Fingers, not the feet of men, may wash you over. Long wear the sun's shadow; run naked to the night. Peppers green and red—child—your tongue arch To scorpion tail, spit straight return to danger's threats Yet coo with the brown pigeon, tendril dew between your lips. Shield you like the flesh of palms, skyward held Cuspids in thorn nesting, insealed as the heart of kernel— A woman's flesh is oil—child, palm oil on your tongue Is suppleness to life, and wine of this gourd From self-same timeless run of runnels as refill Your podlings, child, weaned from yours we embrace Earth's honeyed milk, wine of the only rib. Now roll your tongue in honey till your cheeks are Swarming honeycombs—your world needs sweetening, child. 375
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Camwood round the heart, chalk for flight Of blemish—see? it dawns!—antimony beneath Armpits like a goddess, and leave this taste Long on your lips, of salt, that you may seek None from tears. This, rain-water, is the gift Of gods—drink of its purity, bear fruits in season. Fruits then to your lips: haste to repay The debt of birth. Yield man-tides like the sea And ebbing, leave a meaning of the fossilled sands.
“Light Woefully Terminated,” by Adeola Ikuomola The sky is caught coughing Invoking tonal tomb tones Time for citizens to mourn Crowns interred for thorns Wild were our nightmares Hot were our conspiracies Light woefully terminated Remitted dual dark dirges With our afflicted tin cups Echoing our rib-kit bowers Noisily for bread we yawn Upon brakeless water falls Our country lacking poetry Ruins all our smiling similes With alienated alliterations Bait showcasing body bags
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“The World Of Effigies,” by Osita Okoroafor In a world of effigies Night falls as the shadows lengthen In a world of shadows Under the full moon of reality Characters of clay dissipate Like wisps of smoke they regurgitate The foul breath of loyalty gone sour Fanning the horizon Inspiring debited devotion Ring forth your collated chorus Rousing the ranting rabble Bearing banners of banality Remember that a prayer Before a tottering totem Will be offered on mounds Of mundane immorality For the man that courts immortality While groveling in the pits of life’s crudity Has led to the sacrificial slab His shackled posterity For a mount of the throne of brevity And will be besieged by courtiers With hollowed integrity While dancing to the drums of infidelity Chanting hymns to his deified sovereignty Like flies pecking furiously at a rotten carcass While buzzing with praises to its strangulating stench With copious conviviality Remember that the fate of a defiled deity Is written on the walls of its crumbling shrine For when a god loses its iron teeth of chastisement There will be no more sacrifice of appeasement To be deserted by the carrion eaters of fortune When the banks of your faulted favour runs dry You will inhabit the desecrated house of fallen gods Playing host to the lizards of desolation.
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“The Valley of Unrest,” by Edgar Allan Poe Once it smiled a silent dell Where the people did not dwell; They had gone unto the wars, Trusting to the mild-eyed stars, Nightly, from their azure towers, To keep watch above the flowers, In the midst of which all day The red sun-light lazily lay. Now each visitor shall confess The sad valley’s restlessness. Nothing there is motionless— Nothing save the airs that brood Over the magic solitude. Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees That palpitate like the chill seas Around the misty Hebrides! Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven That rustle through the unquiet Heaven Uneasily, from morn till even, Over the violets there that lie In myriad types of the human eye— Over the lilies there that wave And weep above a nameless grave! They wave:—from out their fragrant tops External dews come down in drops. They weep:—from off their delicate stems Perennial tears descend in gems.
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“For Dry Morsels We Mourn,” by Adeola Ikuomola For dry morsels we mourn Like censored mousers In wasteful waves we wail Like embattled cargoes For dry morsels we roar Like lightning-castrated thunders Our voice boxes are boxed Like thudded cowherd drums For dry morsels we sigh Like the skies ravaged by smokes Our enumerated rib rumble Like the woeful earthquakes Interred in cardinal courtyards Encompassed by vile compasses The triumphant truths truncated To triple-fatten the wild falsehoods In our nightmares we neigh Like wild bees-invaded horses With diehard deceitful change Misfiring in our thick-skinned forests From viperous chambers of regrets We regress into our electoral lockers Our ballot papers to be readdressed To refashion our defaced democracy
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“Beasts of Nalunga V” by Jack Mapanje It's after they've drained the people's blood that the lion heads, rhinoceros trunks and hyena hinds the sphinxes we call beasts of Nalunga - prowl about the land marauding like rabid monsters, maiming. And no guns, not even game rangers' guns; no voices, not even ancestral voices, no police bullets, no army bombs, no Young Pioneers machete or Young Democrat phangas, nothing but nothing beats beasts of Nalunga; stab, hack or shoot them, no blood will splatter nor is their DNA detectable; whatever you take them, however you see them, the brutes will not shy away, for beasts of Nalunga are cyclic sagas of people besotted by wars, battles, tyrants, plagues.
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“Ain’t Misbehavin’” by Louis Armstrong No one to talk with, all by myself No one to walk with, I'm happy on the shelf babe Ain't misbehavin', savin' my love for you I know for certain the one I love I'm through with flirtin', you that I'm thinkin' of Ain't misbehavin' Oh savin' my love oh baby, love for you Like Jack Horner in a corner Don't go nowhere and I don't care Oh your kisses worth waitin' for, babe I don't stay out late, don't care to go I'm home about eight, me and my radio, babe Ain't misbehavin' Savin' all my love for you.
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“The Sound Of Nature,” by Josephine Chifundo Likoya Early in the morning While on my bed Noise of the birds So sweet It wakes me up Through the window I can see the bird Standing on a beautiful flower A flower surrounded by green grass Other birds standing on tree branches All starring at me The wind blowing softly Tree branches moving from side to side The fresh air fills my nose I can smell the scent of flowers The sound of nature makes me so happy.
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“The Tongue,” by Josephine Chifundo Likoya With the tongue You say good things to me And the look in your eyes says you are a good person With the tongue You say bad things to me And the look in your eyes says you are a bad person How powerful the tongue is With the tongue We built many things together for so many years with the tongue Everything is destroyed in a few seconds How powerful the tongue is Mistakes made The tongue collects them all The tongue will always exist Only you decides its use Being a good tool Can also deceive How powerful the tongue is
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“How Much Love Do You Have In Your Wallet,” by Park Yuchun Falling in love for someone Is saying goodbye for someone else While my height grows from span-to-span My mom and dad become smaller Taking one step, two steps while looking We do resemble each other We live by dreaming the same dream Achieving everything People come and go A bright smiling face Just smiling even in the midst of an exhausting life That is life If only the entire world would all be happy The footsteps of people walking The whispers feel so good Even the scent of the street It feels good because it’s mine If everything was exactly the same everyday mm hmm~ Each person coming and going A bright smiling face Just smiling even in the midst of an exhausting life That is life Anyway, in this world You can’t live the way you want to It’s okay even if you’re lacking That is what life is all about People coming and going The bright smiling expression Us, even in the midst of an exhausting life It’s happy for us even to just be together If only the entire world is happy…
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“Pickin Em Up and Layin Em Down,” by Maya Angelou There's a long-legged girl in San Francisco by the Golden Gate. She said she'd give me all I wanted but I just couldn't wait. I started to Pickin em up and layin em down, Pickin em up and layin em down, Pickin em up and layin em down, gettin to the next town Baby. There's a pretty brown in Birmingham. Boys, she little and cute but when she like to tied me down I had to grab my suit and started to Pickin em up and layin em down, Pickin em up and layin em down, Pickin em up and layin em down, getting to the next town Baby. I met that lovely Detroit lady and thought my time had come But just before I said "I do" I said "I got to run" and started to Pickin em up and layin em down, Pickin em up and layin em down, Pickin em up 385
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and layin em down, getting to the next town Baby. There ain't no words for what I feel about a pretty face But if I stay I just might miss a prettier one some place I started to Pickin em up and layin em down, Pickin em up and layin em down, Pickin em up and layin em down, getting to the next town Baby.
“Death’s Blue Horizon,” by Joseph Omoh Have you ever heard someone define the horizon to you? I remember my father telling me they were where the lips of the water touched the sky Are graveyards too places were the dead touch lips with the world of the living?
Have you never wondered why the word beyond makes you think of horizons And boundless blue spaces? Maybe it is the death in us. Maybe no death happens when it is not morning When we can trace the path of departure on the great beyond
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“My Fingers Old Roots,” by Abigail George The divine strings of strategy. Every year we had a new puppy. Losing those animals does not matter to me half as much as losing her. A dense pain-body moved within me. I imagined my parents putting up house opposite the hospital where I was born. I imagine them moving furniture. They guided my soul. She did too. What she wants is a novel me. What she wants is for me to grow up. I am thirty-six and still left out in the cold. Still living it “up” to her. My rival’s expectations. You will never find her in an encyclopaedia. She will not accept flowers. Tears for rain. Rain for tears. Driftwood like the surgeon’s Glove is temporary. “The Highwayman,” by Anthony Ominiabohs Creeping shadows speak of night Horses of dawn no longer bray Nor offer consolations from this blight Screeching creatures throw their scares The bulging anthill grows a mound Bearded soldiers mask your spears Be winged companions for the perilous hour The highwayman noisily barks, His hounds dare a fatal bite A strand of their draught in every night Let them! By day too shall another round And though no evil thought come to dine By God shall all suns be made mine. 387
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“I Dreamt,” by Ahmed Hussain I dreamt of a land full of blood Of tourists Climbing up a slippery cliff I saw a man, standing on top Of Kilimanjaro, Staring at the moist broadleaves That surround Mount Stanley and Karisimbi
I dreamt of a man, moulded From the clay, Soaked in blood of potters I saw the man in white coat Slicing patients With empathy, laced with delight As Jesus to bread during Last Supper I dreamt of men crowded Around a messiah who Sells aphrodisiacs in vanilla flavour I saw their wives tucking Sharp blades Beside their bedpost, Women drunken on sour love potions I dreamt of the man in white coat Stitching up women With broken hearts under a fluttering lantern I saw children roaming With decaying umbilical cords Children with no memory of life Outside a camp I saw men with mushroom beards dancing To the drums of foreign gods I dreamt of snow falling from the sky Of Africa I saw men huddled around fire From their burning homes Breathing in soot As they watch the debris of their past Hover in the air… 388
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*Mount Stanley and Karisimbi are mountains located in Democratic Republic of the Congo.
“Nine Million Bicycles,” by Katie Melua There are nine million bicycles in Beijing That's a fact, It's a thing we can't deny Like the fact that I will love you till I die. We are twelve billion light years from the edge, That's a guess, No-one can ever say it's true But I know that I will always be with you. I'm warmed by the fire of your love everyday So don't call me a liar, Just believe everything that I say There are six billion people in the world More or less and it makes me feel quite small But you're the one I love the most of all We're high on the wire With the world in our sight And I'll never tire, Of the love that you give me every night There are nine million bicycles in Beijing That's a Fact, it's a thing we can't deny Like the fact that I will love you till I die And there are nine million bicycles in Beijing And you know that I will love you till I die!
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“Zoloft,” by Maggie Dietz Two weeks into the bottle of pills, I'd remember exiting the one-hour lens grinder at Copley Square— the same store that years later would be blown back and blood-spattered by a backpack bomb at the marathon. But this was back when terror happened elsewhere. I walked out wearing the standard Boston graduate student wire-rims, my first-ever glasses, and saw little people in office tower windows working late under fluorescent lights. File cabinets with drawer seams blossomed wire bins, and little hands answered little black telephones, rested receivers on bloused shoulders— real as the tiny flushing toilets, the paneled wainscotting and armed candelabras I gasped at as a child in the miniature room at the Art Institute in Chicago. It was October and I could see the edges of everything—where the branches had been a blur of fire, now there were scalloped oak leaves, leathery maple five-points plain as on the Canadian flag. When the wind lifted the leaves the trees went pale, then dark again, in waves. Exhaling manholes, convenience store tiled with boxed cigarettes and gum, the BPL's forbidding fixtures lit to their razor tips and Trinity's windows holding individual panes of glass between bent metal like hosts in a monstrance. It was wonderful. It made me horribly sad. It was the same years later with the pills. As I walked across the field, the usual field, to the same river, I felt a little burst of joy when the sun cleared a cloud. It was fricking Christmas, and I was five years old! I laughed out loud, picked up my pace: the sun was shining on me, on the trees, on the whole damn world. It was exhilarating. And sad, that sham. Nothing had changed. Or 390
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I had. But who wants to be that kind of happy? The lenses, the doses. Nothing should be that easy.
“The Yellow House, 1978,” by Maggie Dietz The kitchen in the house had a nook for eating, a groove for the broom behind the door and the woman moved through it like bathing, reaching ladles from drawers, turning to lift the milk from the refrigerator while still stirring the pudding, as if the room and everything in it were as intimate to her as her body, as beautiful and worthy of her attention as the elbows which each day she soothed with rose lotion or the white legs she lifted, again and again, in turn, while watching television. To be in that room must be what it was like to be the man next to her at night, or the child who, at six o’clock had stood close enough to smell the wool of her sweater through the steam, and later, at the goodnight kiss, could breathe the flavor of her hair— codfish and broccoli—and taste the coffee, which was darkness on her lips, and listen then from upstairs to the water running down, the mattress drifting down the river, a pale moonmark on the floor, and hear the clink of silverware—the stars, their distant speaking—and picture the ceiling—the back of a woman kneeling, covering the heart and holding up the bed and roof and cooling sky.
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“Jaguar,” by Francisco X. Alarcón some say I'm now almost extinct in this park but the people who say this don't know that by smelling the orchids in the trees they're sensing the fragrance of my chops that by hearing the rumbling of the waterfalls they're listening to my ancestors' great roar that by observing the constellations of the night sky they're gazing at the star spots on my fur that I am and always will be the wild untamed living spirit of this jungle 392
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“Plurality,” by Louis MacNeice It is patent to the eye that cannot face the sun The smug philosophers lie who say the world is one; World is other and other, world is here and there, Parmenides would smother life for lack of air Precluding birth and death; his crystal never breaks— No movement and no breath, no progress nor mistakes, Nothing begins or ends, no one loves or fights, All your foes are friends and all your days are nights And all the roads lead round and are not roads at all And the soul is muscle-bound, the world a wooden ball. The modern monist too castrates, negates our lives And nothing that we do, make or become survives, His terror of confusion freezes the flowing stream Into mere illusion, his craving for supreme Completeness means be chokes each orifice with tight Plaster as he evokes a dead ideal of white All-white Universal, refusing to allow Division or dispersal—Eternity is now And Now is therefore numb, a fact he does not see Postulating a dumb static identity Of Essence and Existence which could not fuse without Banishing to a distance belief along with doubt, Action along with error, growth along with gaps; If man is a mere mirror of God, the gods collapse. No, the formula fails that fails to make it clear That only change prevails, that the seasons make the year, That a thing, a beast, a man is what it is because It is something that began and is not what it was, Yet is itself throughout, fluttering and unfurled, Not to be cancelled out, not to be merged in world, Its entity a denial of all that is not it, Its every move a trial through chaos and the Pit, An absolute and so defiant of the One Absolute, the row of noughts where time is done, Where nothing goes or comes and Is is one with Ought And all the possible sums alike resolve to nought. World is not like that, world is full of blind Gulfs across the flat, jags against the mind, Swollen or diminished according to the dice, 393
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Foaming, never finished, never the same twice. You talk of Ultimate Value, Universal Form— Visions, let me tell you, that ride upon the storm And must be made and sought but cannot be maintained, Lost as soon as caught, always to be regained, Mainspring of our striving towards perfection, yet Would not be worth achieving if the world were set Fair, if error and choice did not exist, if dumb World should find its voice for good and God become Incarnate once for all. No, perfection means Something but must fall unless there intervenes Between that meaning and the matter it should fill Time’s revolving hand that never can be still. Which being so and life a ferment, you and I Can only live by strife in that the living die, And, if we use the word Eternal, stake a claim Only to what a bird can find within the frame Of momentary flight (the value will persist But as event the night sweeps it away in mist). Man is man because he might have been a beast And is not what he was and feels himself increased, Man is man in as much as he is not god and yet Hankers to see and touch the pantheon and forget The means within the end and man is truly man In that he would transcend and flout the human span: A species become rich by seeing things as wrong And patching them, to which I am proud that I belong. Man is surely mad with discontent, he is hurled By lovely hopes or bad dreams against the world, Raising a frail scaffold in never-ending flux, Stubbornly when baffled fumbling the stubborn crux And so he must continue, raiding the abyss With aching bone and sinew, conscious of things amiss, Conscious of guilt and vast inadequacy and the sick Ego and the broken past and the clock that goes too quick, Conscious of waste of labour, conscious of spite and hate, Of dissension with his neighbour, of beggars at the gate, But conscious also of love and the joy of things and the power Of going beyond and above the limits of the lagging hour, Conscious of sunlight, conscious of death’s inveigling touch, Not completely conscious but partly—and that is much. 394
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“I Still Get Jealous,” by Louis Armstrong Dear Dolly I still get jealous When they look at you I may not show it, but I do It's more than I can bear When they start to stare 'Cause they think You're too good to be true I still get jealous When we kiss goodnight Unless you hold me Extra tight And dear, I know a secret You didn't know I knew I still get jealous 'Cause it pleases you Mama and Dolly, I know a secret You didn't know, I knew I still get jealous, honey Very jealous I still get jealous 'Cause it pleases you
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“Poetry,” by Osita Okoroafor A tattoo on my soul A sharp point, an acrid contact Infinitesimally minute yet monumentally bewildering It is like sap dripping on Green shades and brown glades Still scorched and blighted like a sparkling pond in the soul Which overflowing turns an arid heart Into a field of blooming rosebuds It is a dream hanging from golden tassels A vision of heaven and gilded angels Wafts of perfumed petals Purifying, cloying and alluring Absolutely stilling Drops of poignancy yet it is like Torrents gushing from the mouth Of a roaring river All consuming, bewildering, all conquering Life’s mark on my soul My identity in this crowd It is my passage through this unyielding throng.
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“Words are Birds,” by Francisco X. Alarcón words are birds that arrive with books and spring they love clouds the wind and trees some words are messengers that come from far away from distant lands for them there are no borders only stars moon and sun some words are familiar like canaries others are exotic like the quetzal bird some can stand the cold others migrate with the sun to the south some words die caged— 397
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they're difficult to translate and others build nests have chicks warm them feed them teach them how to fly and one day they go away in flocks the letters on this page are the prints they leave by the sea
“Exaggeration,” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning WE overstate the ills of life, and take Imagination (given us to bring down The choirs of singing angels overshone By God's clear glory) down our earth to rake The dismal snows instead, flake following flake, To cover all the corn; we walk upon The shadow of hills across a level thrown, And pant like climbers: near the alder brake We sigh so loud, the nightingale within Refuses to sing loud, as else she would. O brothers, let us leave the shame and sin Of taking vainly, in a plaintive mood, The holy name of GRIEF!—holy herein That by the grief of ONE came all our good.
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“Blue Suit” by Kim Chi-ha Wish I were a bird, Water, or else wind. Imprisoning the thin naked body, this suit of Blue! Wish the blue were the sea. Could the sea gleam even in my brief dream. Sticking in my heart, bleeding painfully, And then clotting into the square scarlet mark ... But for it— But for it I might not refuse death; Even a destiny scattered in ashes would not matter. In eyes anxiously awaiting dawn On such a dark night, In the clear tears overflowing, Could the crystal morning-glory dazzle just once, Could the sun's rays shine. Vivid blue sky opening Through the dark clouds in nightly dreams ... Could I stand in spilling sunrays a moment. Willingly would I die imprisoned in the blue suit; Were it real, Were it now, For ever and ever Willingly would I die.
NOTES The inmates of South Korea's prisons wear blue uniforms. Prisoners accused or convicted of violations of the Anti-Communist Law wear in addition a red-plastic badge about three centimeters square pinned over the left breast.
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“The Closet,” by Bill Knott (...after my Mother’s death) Here not long enough after the hospital happened I find her closet lying empty and stop my play And go in and crane up at three blackwire hangers Which quiver, airy, released. They appear to enjoy Their new distance, cognizance born of the absence Of anything else. The closet has been cleaned out Full-flush as surgeries where the hangers could be Amiable scalpels though they just as well would be Themselves, in basements, glovelessly scraping uteri But, here, pure, transfigured heavenward, they’re Birds, whose wingspans expand by excluding me. Their Range is enlarged by loss. They’d leave buzzards
Measly as moths: and the hatshelf is even higher!— As the sky over a prairie, an undotted desert where Nothing can swoop sudden, crumple in secret. I’ve fled At ambush, tag, age: six, must I face this, can I have my hide-and-seek hole back now please, the Clothes, the thicket of shoes, where is it? Only The hangers are at home here. Come heir to this Rare element, fluent, their skeletal grace sings Of the ease with which they let go the dress, slip, Housecoat or blouse, so absolvingly. Free, they fly Trim, triangular, augurs leapt ahead from some geometric God who soars stripped (of flesh, it is said): catnip To a brat placated by model airplane kits kids My size lack motorskills for, I wind up glue-scabbed, Pawing goo-goo fingernails, glaze skins fun to peer in as Frost-i-glass doors ... But the closet has no windows, Opaque or sheer: I must shut my eyes, shrink within To peep into this wall. Soliciting sleep I’ll dream 400
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Mother spilled and cold, unpillowed, the operatingTable cracked to goad delivery: its stirrups slack, Its forceps closed: by it I’ll see mobs of obstetrical Personnel kneel proud, congratulatory, cooing And oohing and hold the dead infant up to the dead Woman’s face as if for approval, the prompted Beholding, tears, a zoomshot kiss. White-masked Doctors and nurses patting each other on the back, Which is how in the Old West a hangman, if He was good, could gauge the heft of his intended ... Awake, the hangers are sharper, knife-’n’-slice, I jump Helplessly to catch them to twist them clear, Mis-shape them whole, sail them across the small air Space of the closet. I shall find room enough here By excluding myself; by excluding myself, I’ll grow.
“BLK History Month,” by Nikki Giovanni If Black History Month is not viable then wind does not carry the seeds and drop them on fertile ground rain does not dampen the land and encourage the seeds to root sun does not warm the earth and kiss the seedlings and tell them plain: You’re As Good As Anybody Else You’ve Got A Place Here, Too
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“The Song of the Feet,” by Nikki Giovanni It is appropriate that I sing The song of the feet The weight of the body And what the body chooses to bear Fall on me I trampled the American wilderness Forged frontier trails Outran the mob in Tulsa Got caught in Philadelphia And am still unreparated I soldiered on in Korea Jungled through Vietman sweated out Desert Storm Caved my way through Afghanistan Tunneled the World Trade Center And on the worst day of my life Walked behind JFK Shouldered MLK Stood embracing Sister Betty I wiggle my toes In the sands of time Trusting the touch that controls my motion Basking in the warmth of the embrace Day’s end offers with warm salty water It is appropriate I sing The praise of the feet I am a Black woman
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“The Consolations of Sociobiology,” by Bill Knott Those scars rooted me. Stigmata stalagmite I sat at a drive-in and watched the stars Through a straw while the Coke in my lap went Waterier and waterier. For days on end or Nights no end I crawled on all fours or in My case no fours to worship you: Amoeba Behemoth. —Then you explained your DNA calls for Meaner genes than mine and since you are merely So to speak its external expression etcet Ergo among your lovers I’ll never be ... Ah that movie was so faraway the stars melting Made my thighs icy. I see: it’s not you Who is not requiting me, it’s something in you Over which you have no say says no to me.
“O Me! O Life!” by Walt Whitman Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring, Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish, Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?) Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d, Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me, Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined, The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life? Answer. That you are here—that life exists and identity, That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.
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“Pluto,” by Maggie Dietz Don't feel small. We all have been demoted. Go on being moon or rock or orb, buoyant and distant, smallest craft ball at Vanevenhoven's Hardware spray-painted purple or day-glow orange for a child's elliptical vision of fish line, cardboard and foam. No spacecraft has touched you, no flesh met the luster of your heavenly body. Little cold one, blow your horn. No matter what you are planet, and something other than planet, ancient but not "classical," the controversy over what to call you light-hours from your ears. On Earth we tend to nurture the diminutive, root for the diminished. None of your neighbors knows your name. Nothing has changed. If Charon's not your moon, who cares? She remains unmoved, your companion.
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“Refusal,” by Maya Angelou Beloved, In what other lives or lands Have I known your lips Your Hands Your Laughter brave Irreverent. Those sweet excesses that I do adore. What surety is there That we will meet again, On other worlds some Future time undated. I defy my body's haste. Without the promise Of one more sweet encounter I will not deign to die.
“My Mother’s Blue Letter,” by Joseph Omoh My mother sent me a letter But it had no words It was just her eyes in the blue room It said: ‘Nothing is ever lost. We leave marks behind.’ But maybe death is the colour blue Maybe death is not something that stinks, like Blue Ice I smell of it Or how else can I begin to take notes? Our history is coloured with death, a beautiful blue portrait Maybe I should not ask, ‘Why?’
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“Lies Are True,” by Nurain Oladeji I live with ghosts picking Meat pieces off my plate. I chase them about a crux Where sanity scuffles for equilibrium We run about, Laugh, Tease like lovers in a garden where shrubs And thorns Bear florid petals. Nightmare and dream are shades Of one meaning. Lies are true. Fiction and truth share Lexical kinship. I know, Children keep ugly pets Until molars of prejudice Begin to unglue. “Good Bones,” by Maggie Smith Life is short, though I keep this from my children. Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways, a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative estimate, though I keep this from my children. For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird. For every loved child, a child broken, bagged, sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world is at least half terrible, and for every kind stranger, there is one who would break you, though I keep this from my children. I am trying to sell them the world. Any decent realtor, walking you through a real shithole, chirps on about good bones: This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful. 406
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“Love Song,” by Maggie Dietz The ancients would lift a clay spout to your lips— water and honey and wine. I give you milk, softened with wine, and swear you'll never hunger, never thirst while I'm alive. What suffering I can't preclude I'll soothe with singing: My future, for you not the greenness of a leaf but of the leaves on all the April branches. Fire, I give you fuel. I sweat and chop the wood. I tender forever in you who begin where I end as if your body is my body, your elegance my elegance. Sustenance, emptiness is lack of you, yearning is the road to where you are. You are the road, the where, the song, the hunger. Child, I give you sleep, I sing you there. 407
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“The Storm,” by Anthony Ominiabohs Like rocky screes, Her armies shall march Tearing down the spirits Of the pragmatic man First will come the howling wind, To bind his will in earthly decrees Maxims and mantras will then be read Till his fealty sways in odd degrees Second will come the rising sand Gushing inharmoniously in unfriendly winds Spraying dust over man’s apraxic reason Till his heart seeks hollowly for solace Third will come the storm, like an unsheathed sword With the wings of the intellect on its shiny hilt In the fury of a splitting atom, forte will glow Pushing this man to the clumps of homogenous despair The storm will come, to all men some time Fellow men would drive her incongruous mills This man’s will, would no doubt bend or break And scatter just like the rocky screes But then . . . a while longer Would come the doting sun And free the strenuous man to lofty swing Storm and her whims would have been a rung “Melancholy,” by Ssemutooke Joseph Kitaka The sight yesterday of classmate Allan With his old man gladly going swimming Had me behind the classroom bitterly weeping As I saw myself and my own old man Whom I never saw also gladly go swimming; Back home I asked mother if she thought My old man would have taken me swimming 408
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Were he to be this earth still walking And she said, Yes, she thought Small tears down her eyes streaming.
“As Time Goes By,” by Louis Armstrong You must remember this A kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh The fundamental things apply As time goes by And when two lovers woo They still say, "I love you" On that you can rely No matter what the future brings As time goes by Moonlight and love songs Never out of date Hearts full of passion Jealousy and hate Woman needs man And man must have his mate That no one can deny it's still the same old story A fight for love and glory A case of do or die The world will always welcome lovers As time goes by
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“Ulalume: A Ballad,” by Edgar Allan Poe The skies they were ashen and sober; The leaves they were crispéd and sere— The leaves they were withering and sere; It was night in the lonesome October Of my most immemorial year; It was hard by the dim lake of Auber, In the misty mid region of Weir— It was down by the dank tarn of Auber, In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir. Here once, through an alley Titanic, Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul— Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul. These were days when my heart was volcanic As the scoriac rivers that roll— As the lavas that restlessly roll Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek In the ultimate climes of the pole— That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek In the realms of the boreal pole. Our talk had been serious and sober, But our thoughts they were palsied and sere— Our memories were treacherous and sere— For we knew not the month was October, And we marked not the night of the year— (Ah, night of all nights in the year!) We noted not the dim lake of Auber— (Though once we had journeyed down here)— We remembered not the dank tarn of Auber, Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir. And now, as the night was senescent And star-dials pointed to morn— As the star-dials hinted of morn— At the end of our path a liquescent And nebulous lustre was born, Out of which a miraculous crescent Arose with a duplicate horn— 410
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Astarte's bediamonded crescent Distinct with its duplicate horn. And I said—"She is warmer than Dian: She rolls through an ether of sighs— She revels in a region of sighs: She has seen that the tears are not dry on These cheeks, where the worm never dies, And has come past the stars of the Lion To point us the path to the skies— To the Lethean peace of the skies— Come up, in despite of the Lion, To shine on us with her bright eyes— Come up through the lair of the Lion, With love in her luminous eyes." But Psyche, uplifting her finger, Said—"Sadly this star I mistrust— Her pallor I strangely mistrust:— Oh, hasten! oh, let us not linger! Oh, fly!—let us fly!—for we must." In terror she spoke, letting sink her Wings till they trailed in the dust— In agony sobbed, letting sink her Plumes till they trailed in the dust— Till they sorrowfully trailed in the dust. I replied—"This is nothing but dreaming: Let us on by this tremulous light! Let us bathe in this crystalline light! Its Sybilic splendor is beaming With Hope and in Beauty to-night:— See!—it flickers up the sky through the night! Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming, And be sure it will lead us aright— We safely may trust to a gleaming That cannot but guide us aright, Since it flickers up to Heaven through the night." Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her, And tempted her out of her gloom— And conquered her scruples and gloom: 411
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And we passed to the end of the vista, But were stopped by the door of a tomb— By the door of a legended tomb; And I said—"What is written, sweet sister, On the door of this legended tomb?" She replied—"Ulalume—Ulalume— 'Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume!" Then my heart it grew ashen and sober As the leaves that were crispèd and sere— As the leaves that were withering and sere, And I cried—"It was surely October On this very night of last year That I journeyed—I journeyed down here— That I brought a dread burden down here— On this night of all nights in the year, Oh, what demon has tempted me here? Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber— This misty mid region of Weir— Well I know, now, this dank tarn of Auber— In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir." Said we, then—the two, then—"Ah, can it Have been that the woodlandish ghouls— The pitiful, the merciful ghouls— To bar up our way and to ban it From the secret that lies in these wolds— From the thing that lies hidden in these wolds— Had drawn up the spectre of a planet From the limbo of lunary souls— This sinfully scintillant planet From the Hell of the planetary souls?" “The Bison,” by Hilaire Belloc The Bison is vain, and (I write it with pain) The Door-mat you see on his head Is not, as some learned professors maintain, The opulent growth of a genius’ brain; But is sewn on with needle and thread. 412
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“I Have Embraced the Harmattan Tide,” by Chris Chinwe Ulasi I have embraced the Harmattan tide. Even though wool and cotton are not raised in this season. The rainy season was treacherous. The bright tropical sun still camped inside the sky, bordered by a darkened heart. I paid no heed to an obsession; and warmed up to its daily sights. Nothing yet could replace its assurance for my discomfiture, these tides of my veiled despair. The first sign of its coming, in a studied contour awash with filtered sand, white-washed, a painting by an anonymous artist revealed her patron, nonetheless. My skin, which refused moisture from petroleum jelly Is now coated by the white hue: on its pale white face the gem of the North East Trade Winds. The cool dry wind whistled continuously. Everywhere, it seemed, a pleasant taste of white powder rains on the skin of this earth. In the bright tropical sun, warming my skin. Across the palm-lined road, where brittle brown leaves have joined in on an Indian ritual dance, the foul and her chicks scrambled for what insects will rise against the dusty-white sky. Up in the palm fronds, a squirrel stood on two legs mocking the wind. Down on brown earth, a woman struggled to keep her wrappers on against a sudden gush of impolite wind. From the approaching sunset, a whirlwind; the orange bright glow of the twilight framed against the border of the distant sky. Inside the house, it was morning. 413
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“Mantra,” by Biodun Idowu Its gathering in the storm, and I gather my weeds, stand facing it. The force blows through my dreads and each one lifts in fear and lies back to cower in this billowing. I stand weak kneed, small, terrified to my core but still standing. For lying, is no option for the gladiator about to face certain death. My only weapon is laughter, I throw back my head and Peal. Even when the wind knocks my mirth back into my head, I force it out again, make it louder , harder. For I have no more tears in here. I am dehydrated; all I have left is this empty echo of a laugh I repeat to the face of this storm just to say ‘I am still here’ though I quiver at the new onslaught gathering for me. I laugh and laugh till my teeth almost separate from my soul but I keep on for I am afraid that if I stop, I will cry. The billowing arms of this storm will beat me into submission I have no strength; my weapon is feeble, futile in the face of this. However I wave it with every conviction I can lie with. The storm is upon me, my eyes are shut I may go down but I will be the warrior Who dies, teeth bared.
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“Grandmother and Me,” by JKS Makokha the evenings are now behind me those that used to bring tears to me when the taste of tea meant misery and like mint near my eyes gave me always a blind perception of reality. the evenings are now behind me when my new grandmother and me would share a teapot of bitter tea and two invisible loaves of serenity as the story of her life left her for me the evenings are now behind me when her voice will become free and like that of a new Sherazadee weave cobwebs of familiar fantasy binding me making only my ears see
the evenings are now behind me when my father’s mother and me will listen to our old man go pee behind his wattle hut, all used tea as Death watched nearby, closely the evenings are now behind me when she will not let the past be as she repeatedly emptied memory bequeathing hallowed family history to one who distrusts oral testimony.
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“Reading the Bones,” by Abigail George Here tears are unflinching eyewitnesses and posed limbs carry blurry dreams, in this hot climate, this zone, this phase like a horse chewing at the bit; a half-living thing made up of stars and bulging factual constellations. In this sweltering, settled country of self-awareness and neuroses of unsettling homesickness as if stitched under the water of a river, ocean and the sea we shrink back from the mouths of fire starters. Watery clouds, the pale, lonely blue ribbon of the sky like a game of Solitaire the width of a thread in my mind’s eye Insiders whisper under foot, hotter instincts have gone to splinters as if to say forget this place of weeping. On the ground, on pavements, on steps, Under the fluffy slate of white clouds. Life is burning in neon, pretty lights. While we stir in our sleep, our bodies hunched under the covers, our dreams subliminal – we are no longer self-conscious.
The lids of our eyes flutter gently, rapidly then very briefly in the moonlight; we dream of dim pictures; times when we were happiest in our childhood My mother’s eyes are dissolved behind her huge sunglasses, we were watching the shells, the weeds, wrecks, pebbles, driftwood, anglers breakers that were beached, once soldiers of love and hate, exiled, I hold their misshapen assembly in my hands these dry lovely bones, these ancient fossils, these museum pieces – I had to give it a name; This discovery, a hallmark, I mark it, shelve it as The secret life of dreamers and newcomers. 416
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I have to forget relevant and compelling notes on war, unique to our disturbing history, take a pill that embeds itself comfortably in my mouth; oh joy! What is this heady rush of loveliness? It is vital like composed radii or an atom. Writhed bird grounded; shunned like an omen explosions of veiled colour; blasé yet knowing. In a forest of flowers like a giant war machine Your destiny and lives lived furiously on the edge was marked – long before the end of your lifetime. There remain case histories to be written.
“Delight,” by Ssemutooke Joseph Kitaka That in this dark deep dead of night Your form and soul all so bright Should shine my dull world to light, That in the worst of the worst of moments —of fears and hurts and unutterable torments— Your cheer should upon me come in torrents, That in the oft eerie mazes of this wide world Your hand ever tender should thine readily hold Toward the correct boulevard to steadily lead, That among the many volatile and perfidious Carrying on here down amongst us, with us, A man should find one to count on, to cherish!
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“Unreligious Love,” by Anthony Ominiabohs This broken clay pot bleeds Waiting for you to amend You call her your queen, Belittle her common sense With generic panegyrics, You swept her off her heady feet You think your appetence grows But this lover’s ways are gross; His insidious ravishing, Leaves her aura in dark stains His frothy promises hang loosely Après his sated hungers You drag this joy to a miry laugh Debase her pride with your offhand words You temper her flaws with a severe lash And at night, you cuddle her lonely flesh This broken clay pot bleeds, Staggering away from your harness Her content has sought to please in vain, Tempering your injustice with her tenacity Today her justice guides her far The loving signpost of her tenderness For you to learn the lessons of your ways Go forward in time to make amends The past has locked her rigid watch Cos her prayers to love have been no shams Your love has broken the aisles And made this temple apteral.
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“Infatuation,” by Frank E. Achebe Lust, this harbinger of many ills, Like wormwood has been Found in this river that once flowed In sincere serenity and silence. The man-prisoner has become a victim of Mental flagellations and lunar obfuscations A taking of night dreams Grace, gone and stolen by this passer-by. A travesty of benevolence, The man—a giver of his freedom, Wealth and many great goods to The exigent warder of his emotions. A blind goon he has become Beauty has blinded the eye Elusive desires have enslaved him to absurdity And has taken him all he has given that once made him a man. “In his footsteps,” By Obemata At eight, I inherited a pair of shoes. The wedding shoes my father spent a lifetime polishing. The pair didn’t fit my feet. Walking in his footsteps was a song I sang at school; and back at home, I would put my father’s shoes on, a size too large and strut down our living room. Years later, still trying out the shoes, I would clump away down the neighborhood in familiar steps. Did I hear someone say I walked in his footsteps? 419
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“Bondage to Truthfulness,” by Adeola Ikuomola Foolishness is the power point of truthfulness And truthfulness is liberation from foolishness Better court perpetual bondage to truthfulness Than freedom and liberty in foolish dispositions Your love showcases my foolishness in the skies I am made foolish to truthfulness for your heart Your daybreak is my brake and no other morning Generates the flourishing rays of love like you do You are my monolithic monument in truth to own Embalm me in the layers of your meaningful palm Hold me captive and blindfold me with your heart And deafen me to the voices of the huge hirelings The youthful rays opened the doors for all mortals To trudge round the clock city states in their quest To capture the northern skies like the light in flight But to you I am rebound in the bond of matrimony
“Eagles,” by Chris Msosa And so the eagle comes No flap in its wide wings Just diving in Like a hot knife through butter Grabbing our kith and kin And we watch it leave We have not made a move We have not learnt a lesson We the cowards are just watching Our hearts calmly beating Doesn’t that eagle coming in Grabbing our kith and kin Remind you of some old scary tale? 420
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“Son to Mother,” by Maya Angelou I start no wars, raining poison on cathedrals, melting Stars of David into golden faucets to be lighted by lamps shaded by human skin. I set no store on the strange lands, send no missionaries beyond my borders, to plunder secrets and barter souls. They say you took my manhood, Momma. Come sit on my lap and tell me, what do you want me to say to them, just before I annihilate their ignorance ? “Passing Time,” by Maya Angelou Your skin like dawn Mine like musk One paints the beginning of a certain end. The other, the end of a sure beginning. 421
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“Meeting Absence,” by Nurain Oladeji Muffled grunts draw the boy To the dusk-shrouded gut Of the open mouth of a car window. The grunting man’s shirt soaks Of a punctured throat’s wail His eyes are a glassy dim His hand fails to fill up his throat The boy chokes on a gasp and feels Life flee his voice. He recovers his twitching knees. Here, guests meet hosts’ absence. He crawls back the way he came, Into the safety of dusk Not forgetting to leave behind a wish That the grunting man quickly stills. “The Golden Age,” by Bill Knott Is thought to be a confession, won by endless torture, but which our interrogators must hate to record—all those old code names, dates, the standard narrative of sandpaper throats, even its remorse, fall ignored. Far away, a late (not lost) messenger stares, struck by window bargains or is it the gift of a sudden solicitude: is she going to lift up her shadow’s weight, shift hers onto it? She knows who bears whom. In that momentary museum where memory occurs more accrue of those torturers’ pincers than lessened fingernails, eyes teased to a pulp, we beg for closeups. Ormolus, objets d’art! A satyr drains an hourglass with one gulp. 422
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“Seasonal,” by Maggie Dietz Summer-long the gulls’ old umbra cry unraveled ease but certain waves went by, then by. The sky shook out the days. The seabirds’ hunger rose in rings, flung rock-clams to their shatterings, raked gullets full, the bone-bills scraped. High noon: oceans of time escaped. * All winter we slept benched together, breakers, sleepdrunk children in a car not conscious where they go. We kneaded bread, kept out the weather, while old suspicions huddled by the door, mice in the snow. * In spring, the leaving bloomed— oak leaf unfurled, a foot, resplendent vigorous, aching to shake loose but still dependent. One morning moongreen loaves rose into bones that rose to lift our skin like sleeves, our time together’s revenant. * Perennial fall, come cool the cliffs, bring quiet, sulfur, early dark. Represent as you must: dusk, dying, ends and row us into winter’s water: The body, wind-whipped, forms stiff peaks, ice settles in the marrow bone. At the chest, the live stone breaks against the beak, beak breaks against stone. 423
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“Merry-No-Round,” by Bill Knott The wooden horses are tired of their courses and plead from head to hoof to be fed to a stove— In leaping lunging flames they’d rise again, flared manes snapping like chains behind them. The smoke would not blind them as do these children’s hands: beyond our cruel commands the fire will free them then as once the artisan when out of the tree they were nagged to this neigh.
“Memories,” by Senator Ihenyen I cry in the rain as memories of you rise in the rainbow painting smiles in the sun…
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“The Rock Cries Out to Us Today,” by Maya Angelou A Rock, a River, a Tree Hosts to species long since departed, Mark the mastodon. The dinosaur, who left dry tokens Of their sojourn here On our planet floor, Any broad alarm of their hastening doom Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages. But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully, Come, you may stand upon my Back and face your distant destiny, But seek no haven in my shadow. I will give you no hiding place down here. You, created only a little lower than The angels, have crouched too long in The bruising darkness, Have lain too long Face down in ignorance. Your mouths spelling words Armed for slaughter. The rock cries out today, you may stand on me, But do not hide your face. Across the wall of the world, A river sings a beautiful song, Come rest here by my side. Each of you a bordered country, Delicate and strangely made proud, Yet thrusting perpetually under siege. Your armed struggles for profit Have left collars of waste upon My shore, currents of debris upon my breast. Yet, today I call you to my riverside, If you will study war no more. Come, clad in peace and I will sing the songs The Creator gave to me when I And the tree and stone were one. Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your brow
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And when you yet knew you still knew nothing. The river sings and sings on. There is a true yearning to respond to The singing river and the wise rock. So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew, The African and Native American, the Sioux, The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek, The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheikh, The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher, The privileged, the homeless, the teacher. They hear. They all hear The speaking of the tree. Today, the first and last of every tree Speaks to humankind. Come to me, here beside the river. Plant yourself beside me, here beside the river. Each of you, descendant of some passed on Traveller, has been paid for. You, who gave me my first name, You Pawnee, Apache and Seneca, You Cherokee Nation, who rested with me, Then forced on bloody feet, Left me to the employment of other seekersDesperate for gain, starving for gold. You, the Turk, the Swede, the German, the Scot... You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru, Bought, sold, stolen, arriving on a nightmare Praying for a dream. Here, root yourselves beside me. I am the tree planted by the river, Which will not be moved. I, the rock, I the river, I the tree I am yours—your passages have been paid. Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need For this bright morning dawning for you. History, despite its wrenching pain, Cannot be unlived, and if faced with courage, Need not be lived again. Lift up your eyes upon The day breaking for you. Give birth again
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To the dream. Women, children, men, Take it into the palms of your hands. Mold it into the shape of your most Private need. Sculpt it into The image of your most public self. Lift up your hearts. Each new hour holds new chances For new beginnings. Do not be wedded forever To fear, yoked eternally To brutishness. The horizon leans forward, Offering you space to place new steps of change. Here, on the pulse of this fine day You may have the courage To look up and out upon me, The rock, the river, the tree, your country. No less to Midas than the mendicant. No less to you now than the mastodon then. Here on the pulse of this new day You may have the grace to look up and out And into your sister's eyes, Into your brother's face, your country And say simply Very simply With hope Good morning.
“Recovery,” by Maya Angelou A last love, proper in conclusion, should snip the wings forbidding further flight. But I, now, reft of that confusion, am lifted up and speeding toward the light. 427
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“A Long Line Waiting,” by Joseph Omoh Have you ever heard the moans of leaves dying on the pavements? Have you ever asked where birds pick their songs? There can never be silence in the world of graves Only sounds of frequencies we may never hear Like radioisotopes of unspent half-lifes are the dead abandoned There are entrails of a dead dog In this morning of clean air And passers-by hold their noses, hurrying away Because death stinks But has it not been said that the world is a passage? Are we not all waiting in line, a long line of people waiting to die?
“To Helen,” by Edgar Allan Poe Helen, thy beauty is to me Like those Nicéan barks of yore, That gently, o'er a perfumed sea, The weary, way-worn wanderer bore To his own native shore. On desperate seas long wont to roam, Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, Thy Naiad airs have brought me home To the glory that was Greece, And the grandeur that was Rome. Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche How statue-like I see thee stand, The agate lamp within thy hand! Ah, Psyche, from the regions which Are Holy-Land!
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“Of What Colour Is Love,” by Osita Okoroafor For you lovers in this age and time Take this skeptic to task and tell me The price I pay? Conviction for faith eternal And maybe keep this flame burning forever Or imprison those hurried whispers Ever so ephemeral Of what colour is love? Is it red? For the supreme price of loyalty and sacrifice So then I may intone “I shall share a lover’s fate” And with a smile approach heaven’s gate Is it blue? The colour of dreams Sailing down the calm blue seas Charting a course of destiny Under the wide blue heavenly skies Nestling safely asleep in the serene arms of romance Tell me if it is black The angry skies, the rough seas The dark end to a morning of promises A sad tale of lovers gone astray Wet tears on lonely nights Or even two lost souls together finding their way Under the dark curtain of bright stars Or green maybe The fresh promise of a new birth Of health, sustained growth and longevity Inspired by nature’s benign elements Or green still as the green eyes that see all evil Bought emotions, weightless still Despite the weighty pockets on which it is anchored The hollowness of materialism A heart’s dereliction for an empty bank account Is love as bright As the sun’s glowing rays? The glorious rebirth of a golden dawn 429
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Or the dove’s purified plumage Of peace and tranquility Brightened hope and a renewed zest for loving When life could hold more promises Than the colours of the rainbow Of what colour is love? Tell me that I may know when I meet it.
“A Kiss to Build a Dream On,” by Louis Armstrong Give me a kiss to build a dream on, And my imagination will thrive upon that kiss. Sweetheart, I ask no more than this: A kiss to build a dream on. Give me a kiss before you leave me, And my imagination will feed my hungry heart. Leave me one thing before we part, A kiss to build a dream on. When I’m alone with my fancies, I’ll be with you, Weaving romances, making believe they’re true.
Give me your lips for just a moment, And my imagination will make that moment live. Give me what you alone can give, A kiss to build a dream on!
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“Song of a Riverbird,” by Lola Shoneyin I have sat here by the riverfront My eyes on the grand footpath. I have sat here long By the bushes, upon the rocks Deaf to the river’s silent laugh. I am the riverbird I do only great things with my mouth. I have come to the riverfront to unmask. I have come to tell of the forest path. Some have said the medicine man Will call away my voice Because my tongue is burdened With questions unasked. Some have said the medicine man Will seize my voice Because I have come to the riverfront to unmask. Many have hung their feathers In waiting for this song I say I have sat here long On hook over grass My eyes on the grand footpath. I feel the sweep of eagle wings I feel the sweep of unwoken winds The eagle has found the wailing forests The eagle has trailed the cry of nests This is the sweep of unwoken winds The eagle has come, he will hear great things Eagle-of-mighty-winds, I ask, How will you pass this grand footpath? The egrets have passed with their bloodied beaks Having filled their belies with golden ticks. Bats have passed and dark loomed large, We asked, how much longer this reign of camouflage
The darkness has frailed the fledglings in their bloom The hornbills are hoarse with the old hollow tune How many more weaverbirds shall hearken 431
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To the call of the hunter? How many more songbirds shall hang From the branches of the thorn bush? How many more owls shall shun the moondance? How many more sparrows shall flee the darkness of these lands? How many more white cocks shall counsel with proverbial guests? How many more firefinches shall wake up dead in their nests? Eagle-of-mighty-winds, How will you pass this grand footpath? How much longer this darkness? Hear with your ears these great things Eagle-of-might-winds what do you see with your might eyes? Do you see the forest? A little to the right, upon the rise of your eyes? Do you see that forest with your mighty eyes? Look with me outside this darkness Look with me beyond this river Do you see us perched upon the treelets? Do you hear the distant mating songs of flocks in unfettered rapture? Lead us to the place of sun-bless greens Lead us to the saplings of new beginnings Lead us to the roots of ageless peace Lead us to that forest where lovesongs never cease Hear with your ears these great things. “New Breed Politician,” by Amatoritsero (Godwin) Ede Sun-sired sons Who would fire The crops of the field. Rising sap bruises the spine The snake of being Strikes the psyche in poisonous green; Green is the colour of harvest. 432
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“The Devil Now Lives In Jos,” by Toni Kan Onwordi The Devil lives in Jos And the language he speaks is hate He feeds on flesh and his drink of choice is blood He picks his teeth with the bones of innocents The Devil lives in Jos He walks with a hood He wields a scythe in his hands He is a young politician with hungry eyes A money bag with no scruples His thoughts are grim His schemes are evil He will not be at peace Until the city is a pile of rubble The Devil lives in Jos He walks the streets of Gada Biu And sharpens his sword in Farin Gada His eyes aflame with blood lust The Devil lives in Jos He is the neighbor gone mad The friend who has turned bad The Devil, now, lives in Jos.
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“Cat,” by Adeola Ikuomola I cannot be a cat Without a personal cart To deliver the travailing rats Into my barren maternity ward I cannot be a cat While my dearest rats Soar aboard the flying mats Mocking my deflated eyeballs I am the belled cat And wrongly branded fat To resuscitate the dying rats With my hunger generated ribcages Farewell nutritious rats My immortal airborne meal Come down my balanced diet Into my new waterlogged potholes “The Hearts Of The Sea,” by Adeola Ikuomola Do not panic like the war-wary waves The crabs guide their shore balconies Seeing through the precision shutters Beneath new high-ranking binoculars The waves are bound to the binderies To bookmark the contingency cargoes The seas with continual interruptions Classify their motions for continuance There are beams in the eyes of the sea Where locomotives are minute specks The trays survey their measured scars Within the broken scales from the fins The poets in us bear sharp expressions Upon light paths in the heart of the day To wed the rainbow under the sunrays Like my candles bleeding on the stands 434
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“Jolene” by Dolly Parton Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene I'm begging of you please don't take my man Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene Please don't take him just because you can Your beauty is beyond compare With flaming locks of auburn hair With ivory skin and eyes of emerald green Your smile is like a breath of spring Your voice is soft like summer rain And I cannot compete with you, Jolene He talks about you in his sleep There's nothing I can do to keep From crying when he calls your name, Jolene And I can easily understand How you could easily take my man But you don't know what he means to me, Jolene Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene I'm begging of you please don't take my man Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene Please don't take him just because you can You could have your choice of men But I could never love again He's the only one for me, Jolene I had to have this talk with you My happiness depends on you And whatever you decide to do, Jolene Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene I'm begging of you please don't take my man Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene Please don't take him even though you can Jolene, Jolene 435
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“In The Ghetto” by Dolly Parton As the snow flies On a cold and gray Chicago mornin’ A poor little baby child is born In the ghetto And his mama cries 'Cause if there's one thing that she don't need It's another hungry mouth to feed In the ghetto People, don't you understand The child needs a helping hand Or he'll grow to be an angry young man some day Take a look at you and me Are we too blind to see Do we simply turn our heads And look the other way Well the world turns And a hungry little boy with a runny nose Plays in the street as the cold wind blows In the ghetto And his hunger burns So he starts to roam the streets at night And he learns how to steal And he learns how to fight In the ghetto
Then one night in desperation A young man breaks away He buys a gun, steals a car Tries to run, but he don't get far And his mama cries As a crowd gathers 'round an angry young man Face down on the street with a gun in his hand In the ghetto As her young man dies On a cold and gray Chicago mornin’ Another little baby child is born In the ghetto 436
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“Insane Moment,” by Ssemutooke Joseph Kitaka Suddenly The song of the fields is a silly wild cacophony The quiet of noon home a sombre frozen void The radio is a distressing mad discordance The screen a flurry of undefined absurd forms The book shelves no more have the power to arrest The writing gadgets no more the magic to release The night club has lost the glitz to charm The house of Providence the clout to quiet The people once in the breast no longer are there The rationale of their acquaintance gone with them The things formerly planned all are lost The things previously done not memorable either All ambition appear without rationale or purpose All toil without true reward or recompense All acquisition seem without realism or substance All loss without essence or significance The very concept of life looks inane and idiotic The very continuing here frivolous and foolish The very notion of existence is base and stupid The very picture of the world blank and bleak.
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“The Mothering Blackness,” by Maya Angelou She came home running back to the mothering blackness deep in the smothering blackness white tears icicle gold plains of her face She came home running She came down creeping here to the black arms waiting now to the warm heart waiting rime of alien dreams befrosts her rich brown face She came down creeping She came home blameless black yet as Hagar’s daughter tall as was Sheba’s daughter threats of northern winds die on the desert’s face She came home blameless
“Dirge At Dawn,” by Senator Ihenyen …at the wake of dawn, I hear cockcrows and in the cradle where there are cries of life, bitter memories are blossoming with the songs by the grave… as these tears are trickling down my eyes, writing the epitaph of the end and as my heart throbs away like a dirge, I know that where lies the cradle lies the grave…
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"She Never Met A Man (She Didn't Like)" by Dolly Parton I know you think you love her and you're making plans to leave But I must tell you something I just hope you'll believe I know it isn't real love that you see in her eyes Cause she's never met a man she didn't like And you're no different from the others A new acquaintence in the night You mean no more to her than all the others she's held tight But I know she's convinced you it was love at first sight But she's never met a man she didn't like I must let you go but I want you to know That I love you please don't let her ruin our lives For there'll be other men and she won't want you then She's never met a man she didn't like I must let you go but I want you to know That I love you please don't let her ruin our lives For she'll have other men oh and she won't want you then Cause she's never met a man she didn't like Oh no she's never met a man she didn't like “Psalm For Ladies,” by Josephine Chifundo Likoya Physically strong So Beautiful All she knows is love Love that comes from deep inside Men are allowed to take a glance Fearless when a hump appears Over the edge she passes through Running happily down the slopes Learning fast every little thing Above all she perseveres Disturbances she avoids In everything she is humble Ever heard of her? She is a lady with vision 439
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“Back to Earth,” by Charlina Daitouah So deathly bored am I, of all these allusions, comparisons and euphemisms. Why couldn’t he just say she’s a false beauty, but belabor the point by insisting that she is a medically-preserved, silicone-upheld, botox-enhanced, prime example of state of the plastic art? If she says, you are fair as medusa, while I am candid: you are very horrible; you would still get the picture, wouldn’t you? Would you rather the subtle allusion to a white woman’s derriere, than to be told that your back and butt are one flesh? Or do you prefer the romantic phrase, “vague as a June day”, to my more direct one: “stupid”? You still want to ramble in that poetic muck? Listen, when the poets call him an Adonis, what they really mean is that he is a cavalier rake and cheat, too handsome to resist. No doubt you’ve heard them say, true love shines brightly as the morning light of May. Pay no heed, they only mean to lead you astray. It was such rhythmical nonsense that beguiled the preacher’s son into marrying the town’s whore. Yes, my dear, “sowing wild oats” is just what you feared: frenzied bouts of non-agricultural, unprotected sex. What you euphemistically refer to as a “kept man”, is, truth be told, a shameless pimp. Sex worker, my foot. You mean a whore, don’t you? I know, I know, you all like to be gently told, which is why I am thoroughly tickled, at the effect of these jabs on your right-sized egos. “We Lived Happily During the War,” by Ilya Kaminsky And when they bombed other people’s houses, we protested but not enough, we opposed them but not enough. I was in my bed, around my bed America was falling: invisible house by invisible house by invisible house. I took a chair outside and watched the sun. In the sixth month of a disastrous reign in the house of money in the street of money in the city of money in the country of money, our great country of money, we (forgive us) lived happily during the war.. 440
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“To A Father (So This is Life For You)” by Hamzat Kassim You must be a hard man living the way you do. So completely without need, to be wanted or given to. Ever ready to bear arms and fight because everything is a war.
Did life find you here? You must be a tired man fighting the way you do. In a battle no one wins because no others share your will. Not to maim your fallen ego nor make soot of love and truth. Did life leave you here?
You must be a sad man dying the way you are. Too far from grace and abyss to feel anything but human fear. To fade so quickly and forget so soon because no one remembers you. Did life fail you here?
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“Growing Old,” by Hamzat Kassim Sermon joe ballast sam furnace sally and music man fallacious memories of fading days no longer mine to recall alone idle feuds monochrome dreams cosmic battles in well lit yards innocent fragments of a simpler time no longer mine to reinvent no regrets the ultimate goal no game no foul no glory no need to tell a story no expectation no disappointment? LIE Life is much too selfish.
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“Stubs,” by Nurain Oladeji This flood cannot be contained But we submit to a wind That lines us up in its way, We are shadows Scrambling for fragments Of smashed light. Hearts strike harmonious strings, Unsheathing us to drown In secrets dressed as song. Halos crown shadows and make The world a kingdom Where everyone is king, A sprout blooms Into a forest for life to sneak in and axe Memories into stubs. And then, We hate most what we’ve loved. And love more what is lost. “To My Mother,” by Edgar Allan Poe Because I feel that, in the Heavens above, The angels, whispering to one another, Can find, among their burning terms of love, None so devotional as that of “Mother,” Therefore by that dear name I long have called you— You who are more than mother unto me, And fill my heart of hearts, where Death installed you In setting my Virginia's spirit free. My mother—my own mother, who died early, Was but the mother of myself; but you Are mother to the one I loved so dearly, And thus are dearer than the mother I knew By that infinity with which my wife Was dearer to my soul than its soul-life. 443
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“Song for the Old Ones,” by Maya Angelou My Fathers sit on benches their flesh counts every plank the slats leave dents of darkness deep in their withered flanks. They nod like broken candles all waxed and burnt profound they say 'It's understanding that makes the world go round.' There in those pleated faces I see the auction block the chains and slavery's coffles the whip and lash and stock. My Fathers speak in voices that shred my fact and sound they say 'It's our submission that makes the world go round.' They used the finest cunning their naked wits and wiles the lowly Uncle Tomming and Aunt Jemima's smiles. They've laughed to shield their crying then shuffled through their dreams and stepped 'n' fetched a country to write the blues with screams. I understand their meaning it could and did derive from living on the edge of death They kept my race alive.
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“The Sky Is a Spy,” by Adeola Ikuomola The sky is a spy Standing on a watch tower With a charming personality And his overwhelming feelings Spiced with consuming creativity The sky is a spy The king of a slippery ring Reigning supreme in the clouds Investigating the purchasing powers Of the high-ranking handbag keepers The sky is a spy Operating in a grand style In the blazing aerial high waves Where skiers upon brighter clouds Slide downhill to moon-rated victories
The sky is a spy The detectives’ master key For fact finding in the dark places To burst the celebrated mythology Interred in the deeply fortified forests The sky is a spy He has struck up the rain And struck down the sunny appeal And the strikebreaking muscular floods Hum humbled hand-baggers home in chains
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“The Health-Food Diner,” by Maya Angelou The Health-Food Diner No sprouted wheat and soya shoots And Brussels in a cake, Carrot straw and spinach raw, (Today, I need a steak). Not thick brown rice and rice pilaw Or mushrooms creamed on toast, Turnips mashed and parsnips hashed, (I'm dreaming of a roast). Health-food folks around the world Are thinned by anxious zeal, They look for help in seafood kelp (I count on breaded veal). No smoking signs, raw mustard greens, Zucchini by the ton, Uncooked kale and bodies frail Are sure to make me run to Loins of pork and chicken thighs And standing rib, so prime, Pork chops brown and fresh ground round (I crave them all the time). Irish stews and boiled corned beef and hot dogs by the scores, or any place that saves a space For smoking carnivores.
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“Smitten,” by Abigail George Flowers infect thoughts of death in The cemetery bittersweet like rage, A strange, demented vocabulary as If it were the memory of ill health– My emptiness dies with the dawn And finally calm I heal old wounds. I call this progress, obstacles and Challenges have ceased to exist for Me because all I see when I dig is the Blade of the sun, I have to endure for There is no other way out of the abyss Except to jump over the black edge. Writing an anthem for the youth Where would I place meaning, how Would utopia fit, the missing link, The most primal of screams, the Poverty of the mind, that great divide Between place and time, a helpless Poet transformed by ripples of a halfLife of drowning in garlic, the Familiar, the discovered plate, the poet Frightened to death to be smitten, who Instead embraces to be cured of it and Having deciphered enough of it in Lovely words threaded through Her head realizes that the world is Not her home, it is only a meeting Point where the courage for the Broken is exposed and where it no Longer mocks immortality, marriage Or takes possession of physical space In an agonizing waiting game–(poets) Female poets see things in interiors, As instruments that can cut through The blue, the picture, details of what A house means, for them it’s a song.
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“Sour Harvest,” by Amatoritsero (Godwin) Ede Time will heal What human nature has destroyed: You were the scythe; I was the ploughshare Twin psyches Together we cultivated heart’s richness; Words were our crop, our thoughts were manure Careless we Doubts weeded in, raising poisonous sap Along the growing stems Until we unhappily plucked out What we happily planted Shrivelled to a shock of sour harvest; We broke seeds And I run reeling round our rolling fields A seedling lost in the dust that is man. “Pregnant Male,” by Charlina Daitouah I watched him shuffle along the dirt path, his trailing cuffs gathering dust, hoisting his ample belly as he ambled along, rolling unevenly from side to side. I observed him struggle in full gestation, his rotund middle heaving with his feeble exertions, breathing heavily, sweating buckets, laboring under a childless pregnancy. 448
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“Kayatu (I don’t know…)” by Mtendere Alice Kishindo The destruction or is it the making, I can never understand. To be judged? Normal. To be watched? Normal. Spoken of ? Appropriate Chastised? Everyone gets their turn When do you ever win? This challenge What is the highest score? I do not know! Money? Never enough! Success? Overrated! They say…. Ambition? Overwhelmingly normal, Hearts? Crushed to pulp Trust, earned with all above Friends, non-existent philosophy Skeptic? Indefinitely! What is all this fuss? Challenge! You quip! You take it, run with it, try it out! Start over, tens of millions of quests Isn’t it exciting! Challenge? You say… It is that overdressed futility Sashaying her hips Lulling you on her breasts Towards your imminent failure!
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“The Dancer,” by ‘Niran Okewole We turn in our dreams, hanging from slowing moving ceiling fans, listening to Larry King and the butler. The ventriloquists, they have no business on Elephant Mountain. But not like the fluid motion of the hydra down at sea, not like the gyro of anemones. Angles, Ares, old Euclid sits alone On a platform of geometries, cheering the weaving dance of histories, dance of confluent minds among worlds, Uncle Ezra’s logopoeic vision. Pirouetting on a pinhead looks easy when you’re an Orisa. Leopard skins and leotards may be out of fashion for wood-gods, they are dressed to kill. The dancer is a jungle goddess. “Have you seen her eyelashes!” “No, It’s her broken front teeth I’ve seen,” “The bomb, isn’t she.” “Better. She’s the night after the bomb.” “And the morning after.” No pills. “The Dream,” by Alexander Pushkin Not long ago, in a charming dream, I saw myself -- a king with crown's treasure; I was in love with you, it seemed, And heart was beating with a pleasure. I sang my passion's song by your enchanting knees. Why, dreams, you didn't prolong my happiness forever? But gods deprived me not of whole their favor: I only lost the kingdom of my dreams. 450
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“Status Update,” by Wesley Macheso I used to light fires. Fetching firewood at the break of dawn Mixing spices, herbs, and additives Knowing the right amount of garlic to pound together with the salt. Chopping onions into fine particles to blend with the stew for an appetizing aroma, maintaining the sweet taste of home. Now I receive memos every morning. Marked trays demand my attention; IN. OUT. PENDING. Either descending the stairs in high heels or taking the lift impatiently eyes glued to the hands on my wrist; I should never waste a second I should not miss an appointment. I am the product of globalization and minority rights.
“Life,” by Lucius Ndimele Genesis Stark illumination of Sprouting verdure Groping hands glee Under a fog of freshness Its dim concurs With the patience of the coffin As the hands of the clock Dances away with time Swiftly 451
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“When Doctors Strike,” by Adeola Ikuomola When foreign doctors strike They open up the fountains For bloods and tears to flow Like flood descending peaks When interior doctors strike They build up the water dam For our women and children To drown in the earth’s tank When patriotic doctors strike They build flying orphanages In wet widows and widowers For morticians and mourners When luminary doctors strike Ill health floats in dark clouds To close the celestial borders Abreast the Hippocratic Oath “Sweetest Goodbye,” by Josephine Chifundo Likoya Our continuous fruitless plans From your endless ideas Stories and glee, time passed Heart so empty Had been a good listener Our usual stories: your snags and feats Wish I could talk, my mouth so sealed My stories being worthless In the name of friendship I had to smile Watched you walking out silently I’m sure you read my mind Thanks to you for the sweetest goodbye At last I can talk My stories are now valuable Plans so fruitful My heart full of joy 452
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“Telling Stories,” by Wesley Macheso The land comes to life when the sun goes to sleep. The orange glow in the sky at dusk lightens up sable faces worn but pregnant with anticipation. Full moons are the perfect setting to gather the children under the tree, to dig up heroes, villains, and tricksters of the good old days when man was one with nature and lion and hare lusted after the daughter of the chief. The next generation must know about the woman who failed to control her passion and was swallowed by the choleric mud for laughing at the spirits of the ancestors. Shadows of darkness and hooting owls are desired for painting reflections of the past on the canvases of young minds. Twilight zones are for moulding courageous men and virtuous women. The fate of dissidents and unfaithful spouses is foretold in the dark.
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“Susan,” by Chris Msosa White walls. Empty beds waiting occupation. Angels some ugly some beautiful. Some ask me odd questions, Some I ask the odd question. Wide rooms filled with emptiness. Gloom smiles at me. Should I smile back? Will he not refute it? The stench rises. Sometime in my life This was familiar place. She was in its baptism. And I required Such baptism to get to her.
But now there is not a thing That respects her. Nothing speaks of her It is all empty and I am afraid. Who will save me in her absence?
“Love Apart” by Christopher Okigbo The moon has ascended between us, Between two pines That bow to each other; Love with the moon has ascended Has fed on our solitary stems; And we are now shadows That cling to each other, But kiss the air only
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“A Womans Shortcomings,” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning She has laughed as softly as if she sighed, She has counted six, and over, Of a purse well filled, and a heart well tried Oh, each a worthy lover! They "give her time"; for her soul must slip Where the world has set the grooving; She will lie to none with her fair red lip: But love seeks truer loving. She trembles her fan in a sweetness dumb, As her thoughts were beyond recalling; With a glance for one, and a glance for some, From her eyelids rising and falling; Speaks common words with a blushful air, Hears bold words, unreproving; But her silence says - what she never will swear And love seeks better loving. Go, lady! lean to the night-guitar, And drop a smile to the bringer; Then smile as sweetly, when he is far, At the voice of an in-door singer. Bask tenderly beneath tender eyes; Glance lightly, on their removing; And join new vows to old perjuries But dare not call it loving! Unless you can think, when the song is done, No other is soft in the rhythm; Unless you can feel, when left by One, That all men else go with him; Unless you can know, when unpraised by his breath, That your beauty itself wants proving; Unless you can swear "For life, for death!" Oh, fear to call it loving! Unless you can muse in a crowd all day On the absent face that fixed you; Unless you can love, as the angels may, 455
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With the breadth of heaven betwixt you; Unless you can dream that his faith is fast, Through behoving and unbehoving; Unless you can die when the dream is past Oh, never call it loving!
“Satan’s Plea,” by Nnaemeka Oruh
Misjudgment Lucifer’s condemnation premature His evil pales In comparison to man’s Murderers Killers of kith and kin Killers with nukes and words Killers with pills and injections And worse, The insane murder of The unwanted child Carried in the womb for nine full months Now; Wrapped in plastic Thrown into a trash can The hope of a nation Is asphyxiated
Dark hours, twilight days Hell stutters, Lucifer enraged… ‘Father’, he prayed ‘Do let this cup pass over me For I’m not worthy, To be called Satan’
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“Comfort,” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning SPEAK low to me, my Saviour, low and sweet From out the hallelujahs, sweet and low Lest I should fear and fall, and miss Thee so Who art not missed by any that entreat. Speak to mo as to Mary at thy feet! And if no precious gums my hands bestow, Let my tears drop like amber while I go In reach of thy divinest voice complete In humanest affection—thus, in sooth, To lose the sense of losing. As a child, Whose song-bird seeks the wood for evermore Is sung to in its stead by mother's mouth Till, sinking on her breast, love-reconciled, He sleeps the faster that he wept before.
“The Blood Orange Sky,” by Abigail George My brother and I believed in ghosts from an early age. When we were little we thought they would haunt us to an early grave. They drowned in the air like swastikas; armies in flight. When they went missing we would try to find them Again picking on the words black, shelved, barren, lit them up in the Orange sky as if it was a furnace burning at Auschwitz. I wanted to be the woman who gave you everything. Instead I came with darkness, a wreck that was visible, cats, So I hunted my brother down; swore him to secrecy. I could see the boy in him still; even in the fog – with Flecks of blue marbled sky dissolved in his eyes I kept him safe, Warm; beguiled in my arms before I let him go.
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“Sunday,” by January Gill O'Neil You are the start of the week or the end of it, and according to The Beatles you creep in like a nun. You're the second full day the kids have been away with their father, the second full day of an empty house. Sunday, I've missed you. I've been sitting in the backyard with a glass of Pinot waiting for your arrival. Did you know the first Sweet 100s are turning red in the garden, but the lettuce has grown too bitter to eat. I am looking up at the bluest sky I have ever seen, cerulean blue, a heaven sky no one would believe I was under. You are my witness. No day is promised. You are absolution. You are my unwritten to-do list, my dishes in the sink, my brownie breakfast, my braless day. “The Lesson,” by Maya Angelou
I keep on dying again. Veins collapse, opening like the Small fists of sleeping Children. Memory of old tombs, Rotting flesh and worms do Not convince me against The challenge. The years And cold defeat live deep in Lines along my face. They dull my eyes, yet I keep on dying, Because I love to live. 458
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“The Black Family Pledge,” by Maya Angelou BECAUSE we have forgotten our ancestors, our children no longer give us honor. BECAUSE we have lost the path our ancestors cleared kneeling in perilous undergrowth, our children cannot find their way. BECAUSE we have banished the God of our ancestors, our children cannot pray. BECAUSE the old wails of our ancestors have faded beyond our hearing, our children cannot hear us crying. BECAUSE we have abandoned our wisdom of mothering and fathering, our befuddled children give birth to children they neither want nor understand.
BECAUSE we have forgotten how to love, the adversary is within our gates, an holds us up to the mirror of the world shouting, 'Regard the loveless' Therefore we pledge to bind ourselves to one another, to embrace our lowliest, to keep company with our loneliest, to educate our illiterate, to feed our starving, to clothe our ragged, to do all good things, knowing that we are more than keepers of our brothers and sisters.
We ARE our brothers and sisters. IN HONOR of those who toiled and implored God with golden tongues, and in gratitude to the same God who brought us out of hopeless desolation, we make this pledge.
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“Happy Valley,” by Alice Lyons The brook is this mix of roar & hiss as if God has managed to scalpel a section of tempest & clothespin it in the woods Over There Always draped in the trees while we eat white summer peaches from celadon bowls while the sun bleaches & blue jay squawks score the maple, oak birch and apple-treed sky with their oblique Scriabin musics. Fifteen years since I have seen a real Fall her deciduous burlesque, her glistering things sifting on the old cider mill. A holy show. I hold a wooden fragrance & a sodden mush of crushed flowing apples in a cache and will never give it up. The cardinal is the best bird because it is a red mark on the blank snow amid the charcoal Twombly of maple, oak birch and apple branches. Pines are green & faraway, don’t figure. My sister in spring is even prettier, her smile the genuine quality of it undiminished in the many months since I have been in Happy Valley. It roars and is constantly in spate because it has its reasons spring being spring plus my visiting. “Discontent,” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning LIGHT human nature is too lightly tost And ruffled without cause, complaining on-Restless with rest, until, being overthrown, It learneth to lie quiet. Let a frost Or a small wasp have crept to the inner-most Of our ripe peach, or let the wilful sun Shine westward of our window,--straight we run A furlong's sigh as if the world were lost. But what time through the heart and through the brain God hath transfixed us,--we, so moved before, Attain to a calm. Ay, shouldering weights of pain, We anchor in deep waters, safe from shore, And hear submissive o'er the stormy main God's chartered judgments walk for evermore. 460
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“Eldorado,” by Edgar Allan Poe Gaily bedight, A gallant knight, In sunshine and in shadow, Had journeyed long, Singing a song, In search of Eldorado. But he grew old— This knight so bold— And o’er his heart a shadow— Fell as he found No spot of ground That looked like Eldorado. And, as his strength Failed him at length, He met a pilgrim shadow— ‘Shadow,’ said he, ‘Where can it be— This land of Eldorado?’ ‘Over the Mountains Of the Moon, Down the Valley of the Shadow, Ride, boldly ride,’ The shade replied,— ‘If you seek for Eldorado!’ “A Little Bird,” by Alexander Pushkin In alien lands I keep the body Of ancient native rites and things: I gladly free a little birdie At celebration of the spring. I'm now free for consolation, And thankful to almighty Lord: At least, to one of his creations I've given freedom in this world! 461
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“Consolation,” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning ALL are not taken; there are left behind Living Belov’ds tender looks to bring And make the daylight still a happy thing And tender voices to make soft the wind: But if it were not so, if I could find No love in all this world for comforting Nor any path but hollowly did ring Where 'dust to dust' the love from life disjoin'd; And if before those sepulchres unmoving I stood alone (as some forsaken lamb Goes bleating up the moors in weary dearth) Crying 'Where are ye O my loved and loving?' I know a voice would sound 'Daughter I AM. Can I suffice for Heaven and not for earth?'
“They Went Home,” by Maya Angelou They went home and told their wives, that never once in all their lives, had they known a girl like me, But... They went home.
They said my house was licking clean, no word I spoke was ever mean, I had an air of mystery, But... They went home. My praises were on all men's lips, they liked my smile, my wit, my hips, they'd spend one night, or two or three. But...
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“To One In Paradise,” by Edgar Allan Poe Thou wast that all to me, love, For which my soul did pine— A green isle in the sea, love, A fountain and a shrine, All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers, And all the flowers were mine. Ah, dream too bright to last! Ah, starry Hope! that didst arise But to be overcast! A voice from out the Future cries, “On! on!”—but o’er the Past (Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies Mute, motionless, aghast! For, alas! alas! with me The light of Life is o’er! No more—no more—no more— (Such language holds the solemn sea To the sands upon the shore) Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree, Or the stricken eagle soar! And all my days are trances, And all my nightly dreams Are where thy grey eye glances, And where thy footstep gleams— In what ethereal dances, By what eternal streams.
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“Five Bandits” by Kim Chi-ha We are now enjoying times of great peace that are unprecedented since Tan'gun2 founded the nation. In such peaceful and prosperous times, could there be poverty or could there be any bandits? Farmers eat so much that they frequently die of ruptured stomachs! People go naked the year round because they are loath to wear silk garments anymore! Ko Chae-pong3 might claim to be a great bandit, but there were greater during the time of Confucius in China. Corruption and irregularities are on the rampage throughout the country; but, then, there were social evils during the golden age in ancient China too. Regardless of one's position, once one has formed the habit of stealing, one is most likely to retain it for the rest of one's life. Five bandits live as neighbors in the heart of Seoul. Human waste characterizes the scenery in the southern part of Seoul. To the east, Dong Bing Ko-dong's4 luxurious mansions border the dirty Han River. Barren mountains surround the capital on the north like the hairless rear ends of chickens. Spread below the naked mountains is Songbuk-Tong and Suyu-Dong.5 Between the north and south, wooden shacks dot the landscape. Towering high above the decrepit shacks scattered far below like pockmarks, inside the arrogant, jarring, great gates at Changch'un-Dong and Yaksu-Dong6 are five stately floral palaces, glittering, sparkling, and shooting up into the sky without restraint, filled day and night with music and the sounds of feasting. These are the dens of the five bandits, who are unsurpassed in craftiness and brutality, with bloated livers the size of Nam-san7 and necks as tough as Tonggt' Ak's8 umbilical cord, who are called the Tycoon, the Assemblyman, the Government Official, the General, and the Minister.9 Although everyone else has five internal organs and six entrails in his abdomen, these fellows, each endowed with a robber's sack as large as the testicles of a huge bull, have five internal organs and seven entrails. They originally learned robbery from the same master, but each of them developed his potential in a different way. Ceaselessly committing robbery day and night, they developed their skills until they were almost magical. One day, when the five bandits had gathered together, one of them said: "Ten years ago today each of us, swearing on our blood, opened up in business. Since then we have improved our skills daily, and accumulated more and more gold. How about chipping in for a prize of 100,000 Kun10 of gold to see which one of us has developed the best techniques over these months and years?" Thus they decided to hold a contest under the slogan "Banditry." The spring sun was warm, the day pleasant, the wind gentle, the clouds floating by. The five bandits, each brandishing a golf club, each determined to win, set out to display their miraculous skills. The first bandit stepped forth, the one 464
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called the business tycoon, wearing a custom-made suit tailored of banknotes, a hat made of banknotes, shoes made of banknotes and gloves knitted of banknotes, with a gold watch, gold rings, gold buttons, a gold necktie pin, gold cuff links, a gold buckle, golden teeth, golden nails, golden toe-nails and golden zippers, with a golden watch chain dangling from his wiggling ass. Watch the tycoon demonstrates his skill! Roasting the cabinet minister a beautiful brown, and boiling the vice-minister red, sprinkling soy sauce, mustard, hot sauce, and MSG, together with red pepper, welsh onions, and garlic on them, he swallowed them up, together with banknotes collected from taxes, funds borrowed from foreign countries, and other privileges and benefits. Pretty girls he lured, made his mistresses, and kept busy producing babies. A dozen daughters thus made were given as tribute to high officials as midnight snacks. Their tasks were to collect information on the pillow, thereby enabling him to win negotiated contracts, buy land cheaply, and make a fortune once a road was opened. He claimed in his bids a thousand won11 when five won were sufficient to do the work, pocketing the difference as well as withholding laborers' wages. Even Son O-Kong12 would be no match for his subtle techniques of appropriation, his superb skills of flattery. Now the second bandit steps forth with his cronies from the National Assembly. Here come hunchbacks, alley foxes, angry dogs, and monkeys. Hunched at the waist, their eyes are as narrow and slanted as Cho Cho's.13 Lumbering, rasping, covering -their hairy bodies with the empty oaths of revolution, coughing up mucus, raising their golf clubs high into the sky like flags, thunderously yelling slogans, rolling on viper-colored jagged floors: Revolution, from old evil to new evil! Renovation, from illegal profiteering to profiteering illegally! Modernization, from unfair elections to elections unfair! Physiocracy, from poor farms to abandoned farms! Construction, all houses to be built in Wawoo14 style! Clean up society, follow Chong In-Suk 15 Rise up! Rise up! Bank of Korea notes! Korean rice wine! Fists! Ballots spoiled with numerous seals and pockmarks! Owls, weasels, blind men, ghosts—all put to use in the holy battle of stealing votes! Son Ja, that old Chinese strategist, declared long ago that soldiers do not reject vice, that Governors are bandits, that a public oath is an empty oath. You foolish people, get out of the way! You stink! Let me play golf! Now the third bandit emerges, looking like a rubber balloon with viperous pointed eyes, his lips firmly closed! Portraying a clean government official, when sweets are offered, he shows that he doesn't like them by shaking his head. Indeed, it must be true. But look at this fellow's other face. He snoops here and smiles there, stout, 465
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impudent, sly; his teeth are crooked and black from an over-indulgence in sweets, worn out until they could decay no more. He sits in a wide chair as deep as the sea, before a desk as high as the sky. Saying "no thank you" with one hand and "thank you" with the other. He cannot do possible things, but he can do impossible things; he has piles of documents on top of his desk and bundles of money under it. He acts like an obedient shaggy dog when flattering superiors, but like a snarling hunting dog to subordinates. He puts public funds into his left pocket and bribes for favors done into his right pocket. His face, a perpetual mask of innocence, conveys purity—the purity of a white cloud. His all-consuming passion is asking after the well-being of madams of deluxe restaurants. The fourth bandit steps forth, a big gorilla. He is tall, reaching almost to the heavens. The marching column of soldiers under his command is as long as China's Great Wall. He has white tinted eyes, a tiger's mouth, a wide nose, and a shaggy beard; he must be an animal. His breast is adorned with colorful medals made of gold, silver, white copper, bronze and brass. Black pistols cling to his body. He sold the sacks of rice meant to feed the soldiers, and filled the sacks with sand. He stole the cows and pigs to be fed the soldiers, and gave a hair to each man. No barracks for the poor enlisted men in a bitterly cold winter; instead, hard labor all day to keep them sweating. Lumber for the construction of barracks was used for building the general's quarters. Spare parts for vehicles, uniforms, anthracite briquettes, monthly allowances, all were stolen. In accordance with military law, soldiers who deserted their units because of hunger and desperation were arrested, beaten and thrown into the brig, and harassed under orders. University students summoned for military service were assigned to the general's quarters as living toys for his wanton wife. While the general enjoyed his cleverly camouflaged life with an unending stream of concubines. Now the last bandit and his cronies step out: ministers and vice-ministers, who waddle from obesity, sediment seeping from every pore. With shifty mucuslined eyes, they command the national defense with golf clubs in their left hands, . . . And, when they softly write "Increased Production, Increased Export and Construction" . . . the woman murmurs "Hee-hee-hee, don't tickle me!" And they jokingly reproach: "You ignorant woman, do national affairs make you laugh?" Let's export even though we starve, let's increase production even though products go unsold. Let's construct a bridge across the Strait of Korea with the bones of those who have starved to death, so we can worship the god of Japan! Like slave-masters of olden times, they drive the people to work harder and longer, with the beating of bursted drums and the sounds of broken trumpets, with one aim in mind: to increase their own wealth. They buy a Mercedes in addition to their black sedans, but feign humility by riding in a Corona.16 They make their fortune by cheating the budget and further 466
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fatten it by illegal biddings, but chew gum to rid themselves of the smell of corruption. They shout loudly not to deal in foreign goods, while lighting up a Kent. They hastily write decrees to ban foreign goods and are pleased with how nicely the law was written. They deny their dishonesty to an "ignorant" journalist who, hearing of a big scandal, rushes upon the scene. And for an answer they smugly whisper: "What is your golf handicap?" Even the ghosts who watched the horrifying cunningness displayed in the contest grew alarmed and fled, for fear that they too would get caught and lose their bones. The ripened pumpkins of September and October waiting to be harvested were rotting in the fields. From beyond the blue sky a stern voice was heard rolling like thunder, commanding: "Arrest those bandits who disgrace our national honor!" And an answer was heard, saying: "Yes sir. They will be arrested at once." And now look at the prosecutor general, with his bumpy pig-nose smeared white with wine sediment, his catfish nose slobbering saliva! His whiskers are as wild as those of Changbi;17 his eyes are red with the blood of the dead; a dangling tumor as big as a fist grows on his forehead. With arms stretched out, roaring like a lion, he kicks and punches men around him at random, removing their skin, chaining them in dungeons. But listen with me to what was happening. The order coming from the stern voice behind the blue sky was not followed. The bandits were not arrested. Instead the keeper of the law of the land arrested in a different direction. Blowflies18 in Chongno 3rd Street; big flies in Myong-Dong; dirty flies in Yang-Dong; nasty flies in Mugyo-Dong and Ch'Ong-gyech'On; dung flies in Wangsim-Ni.19 All were collected and assembled in one place where they were beaten, struck, kicked, stamped upon, burnt, pinched, bitten, thrown away, flattened, crushed, punctured, twisted, broken, knifed, bayonetted; infringed upon and bent like the willow branches along the banks of the Nodul River.20 With six-angled clubs, three-angled iron bars, hooks, long and short swords, large and small swords, large and small knives, ropes, handcuffs, sticks, clubs and whistles. At hand were also dog-legged, cow-legged rifles, submachine guns, hand grenades, tear gas bombs, smoke bombs, dung bombs, urine bombs, dirty water bombs, and more of the latest sophisticated weapons. All neatly arranged. The prosecutor general roared arrest orders with a voice as loud as a tiger fatting. People dragged out from all parts of the country bowed deep and trembled. Peasants from Cholla-Do trembled like the others, as if shivering from severe cold. And he began his questioning: "You are the five bandits, aren't you?" "No, sir, I am not." "Then, who are you?" "I am a snatcher." 467
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"Aah, good. Snatcher, pickpocket, robber, burglar, and swindler. They are the five bandits." "No, sir, I am not that kind of snatcher." "What are you then?" "I am a pimp." "Aah, good. A pimp is better. Pimp, prostitute, madam, hoodlum, and informer. You're the five bandits, aren't you?" "No, no, I am not a pimp." "Then, what are you?" "I am a peddler." "Aah, peddler! Much better. Gum peddler, cigarette peddler, sock peddler, candy peddler, and chocolate peddler. They are the real bandits living on imported goods." "No, no, sir, I am not that kind of peddler." "Then, what are you?" "I am a beggar, sir." "Aah, if you are a beggar, it is even better. Beggar, leper, ragpicker, pauper, thief, all these together are the five delinquent bandits. Shut up, you dog: to the big house with you!" "No, no, I don't want to go. I am not the five bandits, I am a peasant from Cholla-Do. I came to Seoul to earn my livelihood because I couldn't feed myself by farming. The only crime I committed was stealing a small piece of bread because I was hungry last night." But nobody listens to him. The rope around him is tightened, left and right, up and down, and he twists hopelessly, listening to the squeaking noises. The tortures used are compressing, beating, water torture, fire torture, tanning, branding, hanging upside down, swinging in the air. Soapy water, to which red repper and vinegar are added, is poured on him. But his answer remains the same: "No, sir. No. No sir.21 That is aline says. The prosecutor general is at his wits' end. He needs a confession! Unable to wring one out in spite of infamous tortures, he decides to persuade the victim gently. He suggests that he make a guess as to who the five bandits might be, promising to spare his life. Hearing this, the countryman, more dead than alive, answered: "The five bandits are five animals called Tycoons, Assemblymen, Government Officials, Generals, and Ministers, who are now staging a banditry contest in Tongbinggo-Dong."22 "Aah those names sound familiar. Are they really animals?" "Yes, they are very ferocious brutes!" "I am glad to hear that, my boy! You should have told me before." The prosecutor general, over-joyed, slapped his knees so hard that he cracked one of the bones. "Hey, boy! Get up! Take the lead! Let's find them and hack them to pieces. I will be a success! I will be famous!" 468
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The young peasant in the lead, the prosecutor general sets out on his mission with dignity and determination, his eyes shining brightly like those of a tiger tensing for the kill. Shouting continuously: "All of you, stand aside! Out of my way! I am going to arrest the bandits!" he marches on: Tarum tarum tarum-tum-tum, tatum tarum tatum-tum-tum, tatum tarum tatum-tum-tum. Leaping over Nam-San, he overlooks Tongbinggo-Dong. The large crowds who had followed him are clapping their hands. To them it seems that General Yi Wan23 has been reborn. The prosecutor general rushes into the battlefield roaring: "Bandits, listen! You nasty beasts who live by sucking the people's blood. "Your traitorous acts have defamed our national honor! "People's complaints are heard everywhere! "By the order of the King, you are under arrest." The bandits stared at him without blinking an eye. Remember they were animals in appearance, luxurious, colorful animals. The prosecutor general couldn't believe his eyes. He wasn't sure whether he was dreaming or awake. A paradise before his eyes! The clear blue swimming pool full of naked fairies. In the garden, trees and foreign dogs worth a million won, large and small rocks, stone lamps and Buddha statues worth ten million won, carp and bream swimming in the pond, and sparrows and quail sitting in cages worth a hundred million won. The doors were automatic, the walls were automatic, drinking was automatic, cooking was automatic, women were performing automatic wanton acts, and everything was automatic, automatic, automatic. The housemaids were college girls, the accountants were doctors of economics, the gardeners were doctors of forestry, the house managers were doctors of business administration, the tutors were doctors of philosophy, the secretaries were doctors of politics, the beauticians were doctors of aesthetics, doctors, doctors, and more doctors. For fear that the grass might freeze, a steam heating system had been installed in the lawn and the ponds were temperature-controlled. Heaters were placed in the bird cages so that the birds would not feel cold, and a refrigerator was placed neat the dog house so the dog food would not rot. Korean tiles covered the roof of the western-style, marble-walled residence. The columns were Corinthian and the center beam was Ionic. Truly a palace. The glass rooms had double doors. Artificial grass had been put on the stone walls. The second story had a tiled roof garden with folding windows·decorated with the old Chinese character for "bandit." The inner and outer gates were built in Persian style, the bath in Turkish style, and the pig styes in pure Japanese style. A pond and an artificial mountain had been created nearby. Standing on this mountain he peered into the house through the opened door and saw a cabinet decorated with pearls, a chest decorated with the carving of a Chinese phoenix, a larger chest decorated with carvings of dragons, and an enormous chest decorated with the carving of a carnation; a dish decorated with precious stones as large as an 469
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athletic field; candlesticks of gold and bronze as high as the ceiling, an electric clock, an electric rice bowl, an electric kettle, an electric bag, glass bottles, woodenware, celadon and white porcelain. A Piccaso was hung upside down, and a Chagal was hung sideways. The picture of an orchid in a golden frame shone brightly. There were about four hundred vertical scrolls on the walls, and numerous other paintings of mountains, lakes, flowers, birds, butterflies, and people were displayed. There were vases, Tang Japanese vases, American vases, French vases, Italian vases; a TV set covered with a tiger's skin, a Sony tape recorder encased in a decorated chest, a Mitchell camera on the desk, an RCA movie projector beside the desk, and a Parker pen in an amber pen holder. Candle-lit chandeliers and castor-oil lamps dazzled the eyes with their direct and indirect rays. Look at the women's accessories! Sapphire hair-pins decorated with white precious stones, ornamented shoes, golden broaches, white gold false teeth, amber ear plugs, coral anus plugs, ruby navel plugs, golden buttons, pearl eatings, diamond nose rings, violet quartz necklaces, sapphire bracelets, emerald anklets, diamond belts, and Turkish eye-glass frames made of stone. And yet the five bandits wore brass rings worth a measely three won on their pudgy fingers, for didn't they shine like torches in the night! The prosecutor general turned around, peering through another open door. And what did he see: great quantities of delicious foods piled high on large tables. Cow hair steaks, fried pig snouts, fried goat's whiskers, boiled deer antlers, skewered and roast chicken legs, dried pheasant fin, fried sea bream fin, salted claws, seasoned raw ears of croaker, sea bass, yellow tail, flatfish, sweetfish in soy sauce, broiled scales of octopus and sea slug, beef cutlets made with pork, pork cutlets made with beef, globefish soup, chestnuts (raw and boiled), apples, pear seeds dried and wrapped in gold paper, bananas, pineapples, sweetened fig petals, rice candies containing methadone, frog egg soup, green bean jelly, vegetable gelatin, Field-fruit wine, Suntory, cinnamon flavored distilled spirits, champagne, pine wine, dry gin, plum wine, aralia wine, Johnny Walker, White Horse, Napolean Cognac, refined and unrefined liquors, distilled spirits, Sake, Chinese liquor, vodka, and rum. Forgetting to shut his mouth and with spittle drooling out, the prosecutor general sighed: "Aah, such good fortunes are the rewards of banditry! If I had but known this, I would have joined them long before. My conscience has surely been my worst enemy." One of the five bandits sidled up to the prosecutor general inviting him to eat and drink with them. Never had he tasted such delicious food! Never had he drunk such good-tasting wine! At first he ate and drank in moderation, but soon without control, like a pig. Becoming drunk, but still master over his tongue, he scrambled to his feet to make a speech. Chewing, spitting and making a lot of noise, he nevertheless spoke in a grave and dignified voice. 470
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"Dear fortunate and honorable bandits! "I believe that you should not be punished for your crimes. Instead our society should be blamed and held responsible for the deeds you have committed. "You are not bandits, but respectable robbers who are the faithful servants of our society! It is my deepest desire that you should continue on your trodden way." The bandits responded with shouts and laughter, slapping each other on the back. The prosecutor general ran out and arrested the young peasant, binding his hands behind his back and saying: "I arrest you for having falsely accused these five servants of the people." Twilight had come. With the sun setting on the western hill, the lonely wild goose had found her partner and the waxing moon cast its light over the earth. Pushing the helpless young peasant, who had starved in Cholla-Do, who had come to Seoul to seek his fortune, who had been oppressed by everyone, who was ending up in jail, the drunken prosecutor general returned to his office with unsteady steps. There was nobody who would help the young peasant. There was nobody who could help the young peasant. Good luck! Good bye! The five bandits thanked the prosecutor general for his courage. They rewarded him with a house guarded by dogs next to their own residences. With a deep sense of achievement, the prosecutor general had the most sophisticated weapons at his disposal to guard the bandits' properties, while enjoying his life in a grande style. But one beautiful late morning, stretching himself out luxuriously in bed, he was struck dead by a lightning bolt. The five bandits were struck down at the same time, and bled from the six orifices of the body.24 Such incidents have been occurring for a long time and are on everyone's lips. I, a poor poet, merely attempt to pass the story on.
NOTES 2. The legendary forebear of the Korean people, said to have founded Korea on Mt. Paektu in the year 2,300 B.C. 3. A murderer who received wide news coverage after killing a great number of people in the outskirts of Seoul. 471
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4. A new Seoul suburb. 5. Wealthy districts of Seoul. 6. The most prestigious streets of the city. 7. The mountain situated at the center of Seoul. 8. A legendary animal, huge and tough-skinned. 9. The poet spells out the Korean words for tycoon (chaebol), Assemblyman (Kukhoeuiwon), government official (kogup-kongmuwon), general (changsong) and minister (chang-ch' agwan) using old Chinese ideographs that are homophonic with the Korean pronunciation but which denote "a pack of mad dogs," "hunchbacked foxes and dogs snarling at monkeys," "meritless pigs seated on mountaintops," "gorillas," and "mad·dogs winking at the rising sun," respectively. 10. Somewhat more than 50 tons. 11. U.S.$1 = 396 Won 12. A great magician referred to in Chinese literature. 13. An ancient Chinese warrior of evil ways, whose eyes were little more than narrow slits and have become synonymous with slyness. 14. The collapse of Wawoo apartments in April 1970 was attributed to cheap and faulty construction on the part of Seoul's Bureau of Construction. Seoul's mayor was relieved of his duties as a result of the accident, which claimed some 128 lives. 15. One Chong In Suk was murdered by her brother early in 1970 because of her alleged immorality. It was later discovered that she had been on intimate terms with various high government officials and was privy to a great many state secrets. 16. A small Japanese-made car assembled in Korea. 17. A Chinese general famous for his heavy whiskers. 18. A diminutive used to underscore the Korean people's helplessness. 19. Chongno 3rd Street and Yang-Dong are centers of prostitution, Myong-Dong is a luxury center, Mugyo-Dong is an entertainment center, Ch' onggyech'On is a slum, and Wangsim-Ni is a human-waste disposal area in Seoul. 20. A legendary river along whose banks men are said to live happy lives. 21. The poet uses the polite and vulnerable Cholla-Do dialect. 22. A newly built Seoul suburb for wealthy military officers. 23. A general known for his courage who defended Korea against Chinese invasion in the seventeenth century. 24. A miserable form of death believed reserved only for the most evil of men.
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“The Gunshot” by Fiona Guest I heard the shot behind the hill, Pausing to log the dull report, Thinking that death - or deaths – unseen Were manifested out of sight, Not mind. Swift shocks of rising birds Spoke of events my mind inferred. A feathered body writ in flight Spirals into closer view. Fluttering quills, the uttering beak, The watchful eye, the scribing claw. But all of it has come to ground – On the verge, a body, found In dull and heavy silence. This Is not the body I heard shot But an old kill. The blood Dried up, the eyes tight shut, Half-open beak eternally Clamp-locked in silent cry.
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“Making Our Clowns Martyrs (or Returning Home Without Chauffeurs)” by Jack Mapanje We all know why you have come back home with no National colours flanking your black Mercedes Benz. The radio said the toilets in the banquet halls of Your dream have grown green creepers and cockroaches Which won't flush, and the orders you once shouted To the concubines so mute have now locked you in. Hard luck my friend. But we all know what currents Have stroked your temper. You come from a breed of Toxic frogs croaking beside the smoking marshes of River Shire, and the first words you breathed were Snapped by the lethal mosquitoes of this morass. We knew you would wade your way through the arena Though we wondered how you got chosen for the Benz. You should have been born up the hills, brother where Lake waters swirl and tempers deepen with each season Of the rains. There you'd see how the leopards of Dedza hills comb the land or hedge before their assault. But welcome back to the broken reed-fences, brother; Welcome home to the poached reed-huts you left behind; Welcome to these stunted pit-latrines where only The pungent whiff of buzzing flies gives way. You will find your idle ducks still shuffle and fart In large amounts. The black dog you left still sniffs Distant recognition, lying, licking its leg-wounds. And Should the relatives greet you with nervous curiosity In the manner caved in somebody's image, There is always across the dusty road, your mad auntie. She alone thinks this new world is going foul. She Alone still cracks about why where whys are crimes!
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“On The Color Yellow” by Sydney Queen I am all want. Every inch of my skin is covered in fire ants, I'm sure of it. You've got a voice like a gunshot and a tangerine mouth. I am completely sunblind. All I see is carnal yellow. I could live in it. I could love in it. I would use a time machine to go back and meet you sooner. You turn my spine into magma; writhing and fusing to whatever dares come this close. The heat of it makes me smile younger and care harder. I love you with the windows thrown open. I tell you like you tore it out of me. The air is an inferno but we keep breathing in; I take a long look at your hands. I think about religion.
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Bonwell “Kadyankena” Rodgers
A Poem is a piece of writing in which the expression of feelings and ideas is given intensity by particular attention to diction (sometimes involving rhyme), rhythm, and imagery. Some poetry types are specific to particular cultures and genres and respond to characteristics of the language in which the poet writes. Learn about some of the worlds best poems done by great artists.