May - Poem 3
anthem / M. Anne Avera
my eulogies, my eulogies.
they sing to me. they whisper, wet against my lips, forked tongue flicking against mine.
taunting with what I will never hear.
they warm their frigid bellies on my back. come closer, come closer.
fingertips on their satin scales, pouring wine through their jaw.
they tell riddles that I know by heart.
about the one who tells lies and the one who tells truth and
the woman who will die without tasting it all.
I am giving the life I never had back to the Earth. back to Her soft, white eggs.
I am coming home to the dog that only ever knew love from me
and pressing my nose to her ribbon fur.
since birth,
I have been my own witness.
Our Beautiful Lives / Desirae Chacon
You rise
uplifted on a new sunrise
pain bleeeeds..away
i rise
to stars
speckling the skies
glowing like radioactive radium
you pour
your favourite coffee
the filigree scrolls
unfolding
above your mug
i take a nightcap
bourbon neat
as a turn to look out the window
overlooking the night
a view to wherever you may be
you stretch and yawn
your beautiful eyes open
and are fresh
to the newly minted
rays of sunlight
you look out your window
a longing of solemnity parallel
with a warm hope for a new day
we miss each other
you go
i go
dawns rise
dusks settle
and time collects
as our hearts countdown
like clockwork
as every moment we have
brings us a day closer
to our reunion
For Amanda Schoenberg: Flowers and Politics / Heather Frankland
Flower Child, I was nicknamed in high school
wearing my favorite tie-dye
every Halloween, wearing
Lennon-like sunglasses, letting
my long hair stay long and loose—
my forever costume I could pretend
I just happened to wear,
and it just happened
to be Halloween.
Or it could have been my politics, leaning left,
even more left than they are now.
I would get in debates
in high school hallways
over kitchen tables, on walks home
in playgrounds where we would go
to swing at night and pretend
we were old and wise
so much different
than the children who enjoyed
playgrounds in daylight.
Then Flower Child felt peaceful
like a field of daisies and no threat of poison ivy
like dandelion or clover chains
before they dried up and were thrown away;
it was being cautious in discussing politics
careful in who you let in, who got to see
the soil, and not just the pretty flower
that wouldn’t offend.
And decades later, Flower Child became Flor,
my forever-nickname in Peace Corps,
my identity for years—Flor, brave Flor
who made jokes in another language
who memorized cumbia songs
who listened to stories and politics
who felt alive at night, no playground in sight
just a bunch of people, sitting together
in the cool sand, laughing
and looking up at the full moon.
The Bullet / John Hanright
In honor of the 54 slain at the Pulse and Club Q massacres
“If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door.”
- Harvey Milk (1930-1978)
What is the trajectory of a bullet?
Made in the U.S.A., exports of our shores.
What is the trajectory of a bullet?
Shipped around the world, some circle back to our doors.
What is a human life worth?
Roughly 35 to 55 cents, or $500 for 1,000 rounds.
What is a human life worth?
A chocolate bar costs less per pound.
What is a closet like?
Inside: dark and dank, full of mothballs and regrets.
What is a closet like?
Outside: around 24” x 75” – fit for a casket.
What is the price of hatred?
A brief, tormented life.
What is the price of hatred?
Death, suffering, and strife.
What is the shape of Hope?
The size of lovers’ timeless shadows.
What is the shape of Hope?
Ask Harvey, he knows.
What is the aim of a dance club?
Community moving in time and space.
What is the aim of a dance club?
Eyes crowded with lust; hearts keeping pace.
Bear / Jillian Humphrey
On my birthday
I imagine
I am a brown bear
eating wild blueberries
in the sun
after playing in the river.
No one sees me.
Not a fish, not
a bird.
I leave no trace.
Just one bush
missing this summer’s berries,
and a bit of river
sticking to my fur.
I return to an empty den,
sleep with a full belly.
I die having lived
a little life,
like a secret tv show
made only for God.
WILL WE EAT BEYONCE? / Shane Moran
Still on their feet, the favorite
of millions working—
poor or over-worked rich.
Poor ones rubbing the feet
of the enemy of millions
or their oily bodies.
It is easy to confuse
a friend and an enemy
when you are hungry.
Watching dancing feet or lying
at their feet—both will fry
in the same grease
after the revolution.
If we are imprecise with our tastes—
we will lose Beyonce.
DEVOTION / Hali Sofala Jones
A cardinal
fell in love
with a red bird
in a cracked mirror,
abandoned
beside the barn.
She sang for days,
warbled face-to-face,
tapped her beak
against broken glass.
Waited in the hush
of a stooped tree,
its limbs stripped bare
by winter’s blade—
believing
she could coax
that silent thing
into flight.
What should we name
such an act of return—
of calling beauty
to the ruin?
To the fractured face,
the shattered wing,
left for no one
in the wild—
A Mother Walking Home In The Dark / Christina Vagenius
sounds like footprints in the sand
drained of the shore, two steps from
a tide turning back. Birds still singing
somewhere, cooing their babies
to sleep, wings levitating, leaving.
A star named for her transparency,
numbered by novelty, a catalogued card-
with sympathy. There, perched sideways,
dangling from the crumbling edge.
Even a dying star grows wings once
leaves me breathless,
every time.
Transgressive Y.O.L.O. / Sonya Wohletz
§ 1.1 Another milestone, another project finished—
And yet none the wiser, none the richer. My booty still jiggles though, wondering to itself where is my joy at? Got put off its perverse mission, perhaps. Now here I am stuck with the worst of contradictions, confusing it all with my “very cherished” dignity. No use wondering about it if you’re a single mother, poor, and part-time whore—and I happen to be [bless me] all three.
§ 1.2 Lacan, where you at during times like these?
Sliding between confusions like he knows how this will all end—my first guess. Or maybe intonando el canto sagrado de la Paquita, maldiciendo a los chumps that did her dirty—curing it all into pleasure with her throat, articulating a true thing of pearlified beauty. What a shame for you, inútil, she snarks—tres veces te engañé/tres veces te engañé/tres veces te engañé—I’m a goddamned goddess getting my glam on this Saturday night, and you can’t touch me.
§ 1.3 Today:
If I could hover myself over to the territory of the divine, I would seduce at least three people for breakfast, spew prophecies across the sky for lunch, and bathe in rosewater for dinner. I would dance down at the club and perhaps return in the early morning to crown myself in cactus flowers. Open new visions, sharpen strange implements.
§ 1.4 San Pedro, concédeme las llaves al cielo, alright?
Heavenly I think it would be to move through selves and into the gaze of anyone that ever beheld a real woman they’d underestimated and suffer the thirst of eros, of anyone who dared dance naked downtown in daylight, of anyone who claimed nothing in defense of their own failures, let alone insanity. Anyone who beheld the gatekeepers and knocked them with the swing of one luscious thigh to the other side of surrealism before clawing their way back into the delicate balance of
clean house—clean prayers—dirty delusions
