ANTHEM FOR THE WOKE

by Geoffrey Philp

‘Stay Woke, Go Vote’ rally stirs spirited emotions, heartfelt pleas

—South Florida Sun-Sentinel, May 22, 2022

 

Where are the protestors from the summer of plague

who saw Black lives threatened, and marched to free

us from fascists and were greeted by an army of fear

mongers united in their cause to make sure change

would never happen, and began a campaign of lies

among the afflicted to sate the elites' lust for power,

 

that revealed their resistance to Black power—

the rising numbers in the cities they see as a plague,

so every cable series or news story is filled with lies

about Black crime—dire warnings that if we're ever free,

no one will be free, for we will have changed

America for the worse, and everyone will live in fear?

 

It's what Public Enemy was rapping about in Fear

of a Black Planet, especially in "Fight the Power,"

so we'd start the process of believing in the change

that must happen at the top, or else we'll be plagued

by doubters who will delay our quest for freedom

from their lies. For they lie. They lie. They lie.

 

But what if we stopped believing their lies,

the denials and gaslighting that keep them in fear

of shadows they've invented—that won't set them free

until they've given up their need for control, for power,

at the cost of the planet's life—before we're plagued

by circumstances, we won't be able to change

 

once the irreversible effects of climate change,

which oil company CEOs have labeled as a lie,

melts ice caps and releases viruses to plague

future generations, who will live in perpetual fear

of the next hurricane, heatwaves that disrupt power

grids, melt electric cables—when fresh air won't be free?

 

The ancestors' promise lives in the struggle to be free.

Ancestors like Marcus and Malcolm, who tried to change

our minds about the hold of the empire's power

over our people who have been educated with lies

about our past while others, paralyzed with fear

stare into the future as if it were a plague.

 

Rise, once again, and free yourselves from the lies

that keep us cowering in the dark. Rise, change your fear

from a plague of doubt into a power that liberates.

 

Geoffrey Philp is the author of the novels Garvey's Ghost and Benjamin, my son, five books of poetry, two collections of short stories, and three children's books, including Marcus and the Amazons. His forthcoming books include a graphic novel for children, My Name is Marcus, and a collection of poems, Archipelagos, which borrows from Kamau Brathwaite's "Middle Passage" lecture, Aime Cesaire's "Discourse on Colonialism," Sylvia Wynter's "1492," and Amitav Ghosh's thesis in The Nutmeg's Curse to explore the relationship between Christianity, colonialism, and genocide in the Plantationocene. He is currently working on a collection of poems, Letter from Marcus Garvey.

THE ARTIST

by Louise Wilford

Covered in red and blue graffiti, the toppled statue of British politician Edward Colston, who enslaved tens of thousands of people, stood in the city of Bristol, UK for more than 100 years before it was pulled down by angry protesters during a wave of Black Lives Matter protests across the country last summer—after the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police. Demonstrators used rope to tug the statue from its stone plinth and their bare hands to roll it through the streets and into the murky waters of a nearby harbor as onlookers cheered. Others chanted “Black Lives Matter,” in solidarity with those across the Atlantic dealing with issues of police brutality, systemic racism and complex histories. —The Washington Post, June 4, 2121

She painted Love on a garage roof,

in throbbing streaks of purple-red, the convolutions of a colon.

Sprayed Birth inside a canal bridge arch–metallic mist of bronze and copper,

cream and jungle green—its colours glowing loud as we moved

closer. Joy on a fire-damaged caravan, in orange streaks, fading

at their edge to silver fairy-dust against a woodland midnight.

 

Paintings drifted off around the tow –first drafts, discarded

—or maybe gifts, or threats. A wisp of air, she moved

about the streets, unseen save for the spores that trailed behind,

hand-prints on lamp-posts, splashes on a fence, office windows

and abandoned cars. Tragedy in a bus shelter, thick brown strokes

with an uneven brush; Bliss rolled up a shutter’s sides in jolting yellow

stripes; the turquoise-blue of Hope rubbed on the bricks of an abandoned

warehouse—and Innocence, black as a crow’s wing, sprawling, smug, along

a dry-stone wall.   

 

On the beech-tree avenue in the park, she painted the stretch of Life,

from gold to god, each stage a different tree. Her colours startled

like a kestrel’s swoop, on bollards, awnings, road signs, multi-storey

concrete car-parks. On a crossing, she painted the white stripes shocking

pink. She filled the holes of letters with tiny dots like grains inside an hour-glass;

 

scrawled a Nightmare on an underpass, a Daydream on a council refuse bin;

Ambition on the tall side of a Tesco van, Destruction on the shovel of a JCB.

Peace, soft as sand, perched on picnic tables. She spread her peacock tail

so the hues that churned inside her could escape, Tenderness like a swirl

of oil on a puddle, blood-red Anger, bile-green Envy, the pewter-grey

of Misery, and the sharp vermilion ache of Fear, vinegar shiny as a magpie

feather. Shades and shadows, grit and silk and dust and grease, stirred

and shifted, blended and erased.

 

Until one day, she drenched with the fishbone-white of Death,

a statue of a man whose alchemy created gold from blood and bone.

This man of stone had swaggered in that square for a hundred and fifty years.

Her colours now were spent. She hiccuped out a final few beige coughs,

a gentle sneeze that left a cloud of baby-pink dancing in the sun—and then,

with a flap of her wings, she left.

 

Louise Wilford lives in Yorkshire, UK. Her work has been widely published, most recently in Bandit, English Review, Goats’ Milk, Jaden, Makarelle, POTB, The Fieldstone Review, and Parakeet. In 2020, she won the Arts Quarterly Short Story Prize, the Merefest Poetry Prize, and was awarded a Masters in Creative Writing (Distinction). She is working on a children’s fantasy novel.

BLACK MAN RUNNING

by L. Smith

"At the end of the day, the evidence in this case will prove that if Ahmaud Arbery had been White, he would have gone for a jog, checked out a cool house under construction, and been home in time for Sunday supper," Assistant US Attorney Barbara Bernstein told the jury [in an opening statement of the federal hate crimes trial of Arbery’s killers]. "Instead, he went out for a jog and ended up running for his life.” —CNN, February 14, 2022

“A White father and son in Mississippi were charged this week after they were accused of chasing and shooting at a Black FedEx driver in an incident that the driver’s attorney says was a “copycat crime” of the murder of Ahmaud Arbery. FedEx driver D’Monterrio Gibson said he was delivering packages on his route in Brookhaven, Miss., on Jan. 24 when two White men with whom he had not interacted chased him in a pickup truck for about seven minutes and fired at least five shots at the van he was driving.” —The Washington Post, February 12, 2022

Inhale, exhale. Red blood pumping.

He was a black man running.

Running for what? For leisure?

For health? For fun? For fit? In pursuit of dreams?

He was a Black man running, running until the gun, the threat, the them,

the father and the son—they both pointed that gun and

Black man running now running from that gun

from the threat

of the ones

in pursuit

of him.

 

Black man running, for what? For leisure?

For health? For fun? For fit? In pursuit of dreams?

(Nah, they don’t do that. Not the black man, huh?)

Black man running run from himself, from his shadow,

run from his responsibilities, from his family, from his integrity,

at least that’s the lie they try and try again to tell me. Black man running from

something that he did, that he ain’t supposed to do, ain’t supposed to have done, and

Black man running with something he stole, like their wealth, like their women’s innocence,

running with something he ain’t supposed to have like self-pride and self-confidence,

that’s what they wanna feed my conscience, but nah—

Black man running running b’cause he gots to run.

He gots to run to keep from crying, from screaming, from loosing.

He gots to run to keep from coming loose.

He gots to run to keep from the noose.

He gots to run to keep the noose loose.

 

(That uppity nigga there got the audacity to run with entitlement.)

 

Hell yeah, that black man running. He running from that gun.

Black man running always been running from the gun,

from the one with the perceived power, from the wretched one with the will to

kill his potential, stifle his legacy, ruin his reputation, claim his coins and his creations.

Black man running, he run from the pain, from the fear,

from the frustration, and he can feel all those running who

ran before him, running with him now, running inside of his chest—

making his heart beat harder and his lungs fill faster and legs run rapid.

Inhale, exhale. Red blood pumping.

 

Black man running been running a long time. Black man running is

tired of running—not of feeling tired, not the bottom of his feet feeling tired, not the soles aching,

but the bottom of his soul, tired and aching, from all those souls running inside his chest keeping his

blood pumping red.

He is so tired; he is soul-tired of blacks running.

Tired of being a black man running.

Tired of them chasing him while he’s chasing his dreams.

Tied of them chasing him while he’s slowing down.

Tired of them chasing him while he’s doing no thing. At all.

Inhale exhale, inhale exhale. Red blood pumping.

 

(This nigga here got the audacity to be running and funning.)

 

But what happened to black man running?

Black man running with his red blood pumping? Well,

they forced him to stop running. Inhale, inhale.

 

But what if black man running was running toward somethin’?

Well, black man running was forced to fight those in pursuit

of his portion, in pursuit of his promise. Inhale, inhale, inhale.

 

Black man running had to stop his run, to stop his fun, his fit, his leisure,

had to quit his pursuit of his kingdom, of his dreamdom

to fight those in pursuit of his freedom,

those in lust of his life, jealous of his journey, envious of his evolution,

not that one, but of the magnanimous way he was created

by the Creator, and how their pursuit to stifle him never seems to really win,

they—them other theys—literally shackled his ankles a time or twelve million,

amputated his manhood for sport cloaked as social order, for hate hooded as justice,

and black man—well, he just keeps running, keeps evolving,

so they—these theys—saw this black man running

and decided for him that he would run no more.

 

Inhale, inhale, inhale. Red blood pumping.

 

Black man running would have run on, would have won on, had he kept on running.

He would have been winning, had he kept on running, but they—the jealous, the fearful, the hateful—

they jolted his journey.

Inhale, inhale. inhale. Red blood pumping.

 

The father and the son—they both had that gun.

The wicked and the wretched—they both wrestled his run, and when it seems like

black man running wins with his wrestle, with his hustle, with his bustle, and

when it seems like black man running is making gains with his grind and with his grit, and

just when it seems like black man running might get the glory,

what they know

is that black man running

can’t win ‘gainst no gun.

(This nigga here ain’t gone outrun this gun.)

 

Inhale, inhale, inhale. Red blood pumping.

 

The gun wants no fun, no fit for the black man running.

                No gaining, no glory for the black man running.

                No playing, no pleasure for the black man running.

                No leisure, no living for the black man running.

(Black man running, you gets this gun.)

                The kingdom not coming for the black man running.

(Black man running, this gun got your gallows.)

                No dreaming, just drumming for the black man running.

 

Exhale. Red blood spilled.

 

He was a working black man running

running at work.

He was a running black man running

who went for a run.

L. Smith, a New Orleans native, is a writer, an English teacher, and a Johns Hopkins University graduate who has freelanced for local newspapers. She has an anthology of poems and prose set to publish spring 2022 that her mother and daughter created space for her to write. She also has begun the blog Writer Teacher for writers teaching writers.

FOR KAREN, MOTHER OF AMIR

by Jennifer Hernandez

An officer with the Minneapolis Police Department SWAT team shot and killed a 22-year-old man early Wednesday morning during the execution of a no-knock raid, reinvigorating debate around a law-enforcement tactic that many say is ripe for abuse. The victim, Amir Locke, who appeared to be asleep on the couch that morning, was not named on that warrant. In a matter of about three seconds, body camera footage shows the man—buried under a thick white blanket—stirring to the sound of the cops' entry with his hand on the barrel of a firearm. Officer Mark Hanneman then shoots him three times. Interim Minneapolis Police Chief Amelia Huffman initially said that Hanneman shot Locke because Locke pointed his gun "in the direction of officers." But the footage released by the government appeared to contradict that: Locke's gun was pointed to the side, and his hand was on the barrel of the weapon, not the trigger. He owned the gun legally and had a concealed carry permit, according to his family's legal representation. "My son was executed…and now his dreams have been destroyed," said Locke's mother, Karen Wells, at a press conference Friday. "They didn't even give him a chance," echoed attorney Ben Crump. —reason, February 4, 2022. Photo: USA  Today, February 5, 2022

My child is also a deep sleeper.

 

If he crashes on the couch

at the home of a friend

after a night at the club or

making music or playing COD,

his head covered by a blanket

so he doesn’t see or hear

the door open, the strangers

enter the room, the strangers

kick the couch to rouse him

in the pre-dawn darkness—

 

If he wakes in fear at strangers—

If he grabs a weapon for protection—

 

will my son be shot three times

in nine seconds? Will I be left

to wail over his young body?

Will I be forced to fight

for justice? Will I?

Editor's Recommended Reading: "The Burden of the Black Mother"

 

 

Jennifer Hernandez lives in Minnesota with her husband and three sons. She teaches immigrant youth and writes poetry, flash, and creative non-fiction. Publications include Radical Teacher, Rise Up Review, Writers Resist, and This Was 2020: Minnesotans Write About Pandemics and Social Justice in a Historic Year. Her poem "Taco Love" was also featured in Poetry in the Park in the Dark sponsored by the Saint Paul Almanac.

ONCE AGAIN REALITY

by Buff Whitman-Bradley

Source: Puzzle Warehouse

Once again reality

Has collided with fantasy.

Once again the truth

About America

Has crashed into 

Our pretty beliefs

About the basic goodness

Of our nation under God.

And once again 

All the old cliches

Will be hauled out—

“Sure, we’re not perfect,

We make mistakes sometimes,

But at the end of the day

We’re still lucky to be living

In the Land of the Free

The Home of the Brave

From Sea to Shining Sea

Amen.”

And little by little

Memory of the latest grotesque injustice

Will fade.

We will go to the movies,

Watch the Super Bowl,

Have dinner with friends,

Take our kids to the park,

And recede back into 

The collective dream

Of America the Good.

And we will be shocked 

All over again

The next time a cop murders a black kid,

The next time a governor

Poisons a whole city with contaminated water,

The next time a hospital 

Throws an indigent patient 

Out onto the street,

The next time

A vigilante gets away with murder.

Buff Whitman-Bradley’s poems have appeared in numerous print and online journals.  His most recent book is At the Driveway Guitar Sale: Poems on Aging, Memory, Mortality, from Main Street Rag Publishers.  He podcasts poems on aging at thirdactpoems.podbean.com and lives with his wife, Cynthia, in northern California.

DUNCAN AND BRADY

by Julian O. Long

after the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict

 

Speaking of ’lectric cars,

once at a Fort Worth stop sign

a lowrider lifted a fender

like a dog might lift his leg to piss

and flipped me the bird as he took off

laughing around the corner.

That was long ago, but he knew what

he meant—and he loved it.

 

As the uptight white boy I was

in those days, I may have deserved

his contempt. These days I’d like

to blow him a kiss on the wind he stirred,

as he spun out that souped-up Chevy.

Would it were so, amigo,

would it were so.

 

Staggerlee remembers Xmas

but King Brady, he lies dead

and the ghost of old St. Louie

flew past my naked bed

when the rage for George Floyd started

up and down my street,

and the high-tailed carriages

came and went all night

breaking in the windows

knocking down the door

startling me in bed on the second floor... 

 

Busy now, containing Russia,

smug in my alabaster pink

pragmatism, I rejoiced in my country’s

apparent arrested decline. Cop who murdered

Floyd will go to jail, I thought. We threw out

the bastards who stormed the Capitol, I said—

forgetting only too eagerly

Republicans’ settled intention

to lynch the rest of us, La Migra still

lording it up at the border, catching runaways

jury finding Rittenhouse ‘not guilty on all counts.’

 

Nothin’ for it but the blues?

James Baldwin’s Staggerlee let pent up anger, blues remade,

hiss out of him like rancid air from some hack’s

rubber tire.

 

Seem like King Brady never died,

Duncan shot him,

doctor found him dead

but he just raised his hammy fist, took that doctor by the throat

and growled, “Sumbitch, you know I cain’t be killed!”

 

We’ll not overcome this last lynch mob—they’re us;

we’ll watch polite and passive as the Good Old US steals

away down Dixie one last time; no matter clawhammer steels

 

ring out from edges of fields

to tell it again

how we’ve all of us been—

 

yeah, we’ve been on the job

too long... 

Julian O. Long is a previous contributor to The New Verse News. His poems and essays have appeared in The Sewanee Review, Pembroke Magazine, New Texas, New Mexico Magazine, and Horizon among others. His chapbook High Wire Man is number twenty-two in the Trilobite Poetry series published by the University of North Texas Libraries. A collection of his poems, Reading Evening Prayer in an Empty Church, appeared from Backroom Window Press in 2018. Other online publications have appeared or are forthcoming at The Piker Press, Better Than Starbucks, The Raw Art Review, and Litbreak Magazine.  Long has taught school at the University of North Texas, North Carolina State University, and Saint Louis University. He is now retired and lives in Saint Louis, Missouri.

THEY CALLED HIM A "F-ING N—"

by Rémy Dambron

Ahmaud Arbery's aunt, Theawanza Brooks, says, "Nobody has the decision to make as far as being the judge, jury and executioner." Her nephew was shot and killed in 2020. The trial is set to begin Monday in Brunswick, Ga. —NPR, October 18, 2021. Photo: NICOLE BUCHANAN FOR NPR

Once again, it falls 

on Georgians to guide the way

to be our nation’s conscience,

filtering out the noise, the hyperbole,

the lies.

Once again, it falls

on Georgians to decipher the truth

to act not on our prejudices or partisanships, but on our collective

humanness.

Once again, it falls

on Georgians to rise,

to stand as one and affirm 

that this man was not a thief,

was not burglar, was not a prowler, was not a criminal, was not a threat,

just a jogger.

Once again, it falls 

on Georgians to convince the courts

not to fear him for his skin,

not to judge him for their rage,

but to picture them standing over his bloodied body, shotgun still smoking

with the gall to call him that horrible word.

Once again it falls,

on Georgians to uphold the law,

to make right the wrongs 

of centuries of recklessness,

of supremacy.

To make good on the little remaining scraps of a social contract we used to

cherish.

Once again it falls,

on Georgians and a jury of their peers 

to demand that justice be done 

but never done,

screaming one more time

into the void of voids

enough is enough.

Rémy is a teacher and Portland-based activist whose work focuses on denouncing political corruption and advocating for social and environmental justice. With the help of his loving wife and chief editor, his poetry has appeared in What Rough Beast, Poets Reading the News, Writers Resist, Society of Classical Poets, and The New Verse News. 

A BRIEF GEOGRAPHY OF GOODBYES

by Mary K O'Melveny

"Red Composition" by Jackson Pollock

Everyone who knows grief as it settles onto chests,

humid as a jungle, thick as fog on a heath,

understands that goodbyes can be a gift. A brief

cushion to ease the long emptiness ahead.

 

As I write this, my friend’s husband is dying

in hospice care in New York. He surrendered

after waging a fierce battle with leukemia that,

for a merciful time, he seemed to be winning.

 

Each arc of loss beams wider than celestial skies

on clear summer nights. His young grandchildren

gather at a grassy hospital garden to say goodbye.

Siblings fly from far-flung homes to do the same.

 

My sister and I stood at our mother’s bedside

watching lights on monitors fade and fizzle out.

Without evidence of audibility, we still sang to her,

believing emigration is aided by a sound track.

In Gaza, bereaved households are less blessed.

A fine whine of rockets the only warning before

a family’s cardamom tea and künefe splatters

like a Pollock canvas across living room walls.

 

In Delhi, breaths come to a close after failed searches

for oxygen – it seems there is no price that can be paid

for air though grieving loved ones would mortgage

their own lung capacities if currencies allowed.

 

In North Carolina, police kill a man as he tries

to drive away from death. His story forms a pattern

recurrent as an Escher etching. Each morning’s only

question – will this day mark memory’s final day.

 

COVID focused attention toward microscopic gestures –

the tensile strength of touch, the graceful creases

of a laugh line, the thrill of whispered thank yous.

Such gifts may allow us to survive our diminishments.

Mary K O'Melveny is a recently retired labor rights attorney who lives in Washington DC and Woodstock NY.  Her work has appeared in various print and on-line journals. Her first poetry chapbook A Woman of a Certain Age is available from Finishing Line Press. Mary’s poetry collection Merging Star Hypotheses was published by Finishing Line Press in January, 2020.

VERDICT

by Donna Katzin

Demonstrators march towards Boston Police Headquarters to protest the police-perpetrated killing of 16-year-old Ma'Khia Bryant who was shot by Columbus Police on April 21, 2021. This march was initially organized to celebrate the life of George Floyd following the verdict of Derek Chauvin. Credit: ANIK RAHMAN / NURPHOTO via GETTY IMAGES via TRUTHOUT

There’s a reason why so many activists have insisted that the Derek Chauvin verdict — though it offers a measure of solace for George Floyd’s family — isn’t justice. Our current way of thinking about and doing justice does not and cannot meet the moment. If anything, the Chauvin verdict achingly demonstrates that justice as we know it is wanting. It’s time to imagine a new justice that does and can…  It’s about reckoning with and disrupting entire histories, legacies, and systems of racial terror and white supremacy that, like monsters who we think are dead but keep coming back, relentlessly replicate and reproduce themselves. —Fania E. Davis, Truthout, May 9, 2021

After a year of protests,

witnesses, testimonies, videos,

this time we see the scales balance --

a white perpetrator in blue found guilty

of squeezing the life out of a Black man.

 

For a moment the weight of planets

lifts from our backs, shoulders,

necks, and we can stand

a little straighter,

breathe again.

 

But still we hear

the ripping of the land

as more Black bodies fall, blood

oozing from crevasses

too wide to heal.

 

In the streets, the howl

of the original sin refuses to die,

roots like a relentless, toxic weed

in its shallow grave, waiting

to show its face again.

Donna Katzin is the founding executive director of Shared Interest, a fund that mobilizes the human and financial resources of low-income communities of color in South and Southern Africa.  A board member of Community Change in the U.S., and co-coordinator of Tipitapa Partners working in Nicaragua, she has written extensively about South Africa, community development and impact investing.  Published in journals and sites including The New Verse News and The Mom Egg, she is the author of With the Hands, a book of poems and photographs about post-apartheid South Africa’s process of giving birth to itself. 

TORNADO SIREN

by Julie L. Moore

Unmoored from its original empirical underpinnings, particularly with respect to African Americans...  ‘Blackness’ has become the symbolic assailant. 

—Jeannine Bell, Indiana University Maurer School of Law

 

Each Saturday at noon they practice the drill—

shrill shine in spring air like a child’s high-

pitch whine in a public sphere 

where everyone can hear—

so when the real storm

arrives, we’ll fly down 

basement steps or insulate

ourselves in inner rooms,

to save ourselves—

but what horn warned 

John Crawford III

                             that fiddling with a bb gun 

in the middle of a Walmart aisle 

while chatting on his cell

               would be his sirens’ song 

full of sound and fury signifying

assailant, that 9-1-1 wouldn’t 

bring aid but grave 

in a half-second flat? 

What bell rang 

for Breonna Taylor, 

who climbed into bed, reaching 

for her beloved, for a good night’s 

rest, not knowing it’d be eternal

& irredeemable?  

                                                          O, something wicked that way 

came, & keeps on coming: 

It knows no caution & hides 

in plain sight. Sly & slick,

it slithers through amber

waves of grain, through the rocks

of ages. Did you see it 

funneling all its strength 

as it chased 

Ahmaud Arbery 

on the road, 

nipping at his heels, 

mowing him down?

And after, 

did you see 

its twisted tail 

slide across his fallen 

flesh & hear

its overdue alarm 

roar like Chimera

used to snort, 

sense its 

white-

tipped tongue

wagging 

as it left?

Author's Note: The epigraph comes from Jeannine Bell’s article, “Dead Canaries in the Coal Mines: The Symbolic Assailant Revisited,” Georgia State University Law Review, vol. 34, no. 3, Spring 2018.

A Best of the Net and six-time Pushcart Prize nominee, Julie L. Moore is the author of four poetry collections, including, most recently, Full Worm Moon which won a 2018 Woodrow Hall Top Shelf Award and received honorable mention for the Conference on Christianity and Literature's 2018 Book of the Year Award. Her poetry has appeared in African American Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Image, New Ohio Review, Poetry Daily, Prairie Schooner, The Southern Review, and Verse Daily. She is the Writing Center Director at Taylor University, where she is also the poetry editor for Relief Journal.

ODE TO CARIOL HORNE

by Julie L. Moore

November 2006, Buffalo—

Cariol channeled

Fannie Lou, meeting white rage

dressed in blue that throttled

Black breath with bear hug 

headlock,

 

& yanked the uniform’s

manly collar, traded blow

for blow, throwing

her fists in rhyme

to the mantra keeping

time: by any means 

necessary.

   

When IA cleared

Kwiatkowski,

not Officer Horne,

when he sued her

& won, when her

car became her home,

she sang I will 

overcome.

  And 15 years,

180 months,

65,700 days,

1,576,800 hours

later—

             after he

pled guilty in 2011

to civil rights

violations against

4 Black teens

whose heads

& torsos he shel-

lacked & shoved
into a cruiser, 

after he spent 4

months in jail—

 

after 12 year-olds

DeAunta Terrel

Farrow & Tamir

Rice bled out

with toys

    in hand,  

after Charleena

Chavon Lyles

& the baby

in her womb

were christened

with an ungodly

spray (she

thought police

devils & KKK),

 

after Terence Crutcher,

Philando Castile,

& Alton Sterling,

after matriarch

& Missionary Baptist

“Betty Boo” Jones

received

   an offering

of lead the day

after Christmas,

never to raise her voice

in the choir again—

 

after Sandra Bland,

after beloved Juniors,

Freddie Carlos Gray

& Michael Brown,

after John Crawford III,

after Eric Garner

could no longer savor

the flavor of American

air, after Miriam

Irish Carey’s wrong

turn

drew 26 bullets

from Capitol Police
(who didn’t hesitate

then), after Alesia Thomas

got kicked in her legs,

her abdomen, her groin—

barbarian at her L.A.

gate!—

 

after Aiyana Mo'Nay 

Stanley-Jones

caught a slug

in her seven year-old

skull, after Tarika Wilson

embraced her son

while a cop rendered 

a grotesque

       of Madonna & child,

 

after Botham Jean
& Breonna Taylor

learned a house

can become a noose,

after George Floyd

cried for his mother

with his last, agonizing

gasp,

after

Daunte Demetrius Wright—

 

finally, 

finally, 

finally,

this fierce

& beautiful Black

woman, with a law

now in her name,

heard the judge proclaim,

the time is always right

to do right.

A Best of the Net and six-time Pushcart Prize nominee, Julie L. Moore is the author of four poetry collections, including, most recently, Full Worm Moon which won a 2018 Woodrow Hall Top Shelf Award and received honorable mention for the Conference on Christianity and Literature's 2018 Book of the Year Award. Her poetry has appeared in African American Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Image, New Ohio Review, Poetry Daily, Prairie Schooner, The Southern Review, and Verse Daily. She is the Writing Center Director at Taylor University, where she is also the poetry editor for Relief Journal.

HE CALLED FOR HIS MAMA

by Laurie Rosen

When I gave birth to my son without the aid 

of narcotics or an epidural, pain searing, I called 

for my Mama. A grown woman, already a Mama 

and I called for mine. 

It wasn’t something I planned, the cry shot out 

my grimaced mouth, my husband sitting by my side, 

a nurse coaching me on. I shouted for my Mama 

because somewhere in my subconscious I believed 

no one else but my Mama could relieve me of my pain.  

Not even the man who loves me could do that. 

When I heard George Floyd called for his Mama,

(not his girlfriend or brother) I thought, Of course he did. 

Who else but a Mama might rescue a son from the grip

of a cop determined to strangle the life out of him?  

And when I learned Duante Wright called his Mama,

just before a cop shot him dead, I imagined him reaching

for his Mama. Who else but a Mama would lay their body 

across a son to shield him from the bullet 

they both knew was coming. 

Laurie Rosen is a lifelong New Englander. Her poems have appeared in The London Reader, Muddy River Poetry Review, Beach Reads (an anthology from Third Street Writers), Peregrine, Oddball Magazine, and other journals. 

FOR DAUNTE WRIGHT

by Rebecca Surmont

Video still from KARE 11 TV·via The New York Times, April 13, 2021.

Again. Again a gun.

When can we end what has begun?

Another day, another gun

goes off by “accident” but a gun

needs a hand ready on its silver gun-

metal finish to pour all its gun

fear into. so much fear we grab a gun

and run or hide, flip upside-down in gun-

smoke circling all those bodies. gun-

ned down bodies, dark as gun

powder and turned to ash. our gun

grey eyes stunned by gun

slinging guardians, a shogun

in blue who will protect me but not you. gun

dogs sniffing the streets and gun-

less dreamers snuffed to sleep at gun-

points undeterred in finding live targets. a gun-

fight never has a winner. i do not understand the gun-

ned down making hard history or gun

stock rising, the real people at the end of the gun-

play left to bow under a white curtain. Gun

again. Gone again. 

 

Rebecca Surmont is a poet from Minneapolis, MN, whose work has been in Silver Birch Press, The Southwest Journal, and the book Seasons by Trolley Car Press. 

FROM THE CORE OF OUR WORLD

by Angelica Whitehorne

The sad leaked like ripe fruit from the core of our world

The men in blue pepper sprayed a nine year old girl 

I don’t think the politicians, protected in suits, will save us

I don’t think these issues are something they’d care to discuss

 

We woke up to close the blinds against a wildfire world

The men in blue pepper sprayed a nine year old girl 

I don’t believe life ends at Black or starts at conception

I don’t believe in law enforcement’s redemption 

 

We live in the same country but different worlds

The men in blue pepper sprayed a nine year old girl

cops / defenders / bastards they’ll come for you too,

hit you hard in the streets if you step on their shoes

 

I sent a letter to the P.O. box of our homeless world

The men in blue pepper sprayed a nine year old girl 

We’ve been taught rights are something we can negotiate  

We’ve seen first hand our systems were contrived in hate

 

We stand outside and wave goodbye to a disappearing world

The men in blue pepper sprayed a nine year old girl

I wonder if there is a point where we’re past being saved 

If this marks a civilization too utterly depraved

 

I want so bad to rescue this reckless, refuge world

I want so bad to cover the eyes of the nine year old girl 

Open your own eyes and see where the real danger compiles

in our actions, in our violence, not in the fearful, backtalk of a child. 

 

What if we gather and release this knotted up, wounded world

and teach the next generation to protect all nine year old girls?

Am I too hopeful or can we confront it, our long past of disparity?

Am I too hopeful or can we grow them, our seeds of peaceful solidarity?

Angelica Whitehorne is a New York artist who writes poems, pieces of fiction, and stanza-formatted rants about the world we’re living in. She’s not creative enough to write about some other world, so this one is all she’s got. She has published or forthcoming work in The Laurel Review, The Cardiff Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Mantis, Ruminate, and Hooligan Magazine among others.

IN-SUH-REK-SHUHN

by Rémy Dambron

they said this man was just like them we said he doesn’t feel the same

they said he said that’s just fake news we said this is a dangerous game

they said he’s making us great again while we witnessed his power abuses

they diminished and deflected delivering his excuses

we called this pattern treacherous nefarious hateful nasty

they called him biblical 

patriotic bold and crafty

we said he’s promoting violence 

they said he doesn’t mean it

we showed them clips of footage 

they said we just don’t see it

we said hands up don’t shoot 

black lives matter me too

they said shut up and dribble 

all lives matter back the blue

we plead for justice 

but just us took a knee

so they beat us up with shields batons and false decrees

we said we have our rights 

they said well not today

we said these were our streets 

so they gassed us all away

we protested peacefully 

get your knees off our neck

they called us anarchists

then wrote themselves some checks

we turned out in record 

to win the election

they claimed there was fraud 

pledged their objections

we agreed to a recount 

they cried stop the steal

maskless they rallied 

refusing to heal

they threatened more violence despite our constitution

we said he’s propagating 

they called it lib delusion

then hundreds and hundreds 

with his flags and motifs

assailed the steps

of our nation’s top chiefs

we cried this is madness 

the building’s not secured

they said our take-back has begun and we will not be deterred

we said look at the police 

they’re like ushers in disguise

allowing them to enter 

with insurgency supplies

we saw gates open wide 

with a skirmish or two

then a lonely black cop

with just a stick and film crew

never drawing his firearm 

just clutching his baton

yelling and retreating

his leverage too far gone

they paraded their faces 

took selfies and stole files

besieged and disgraced

our nations state house defiled

they were released without consequence 

set free without question

acquitted of their felonies 

at forty fives direction

we watched in horror for hours

what we had known would come true

his fascist america 

executing their coup

Rémy Dambron is an English teacher, proud husband, and activist whose poetry focuses primarily on advocating for social justice and denouncing political corruption. His work has been featured on What Rough Beast, Writer’s Resist, Poets Reading the News, and The New Verse News.