THE FIRST 100 DAYS

by Akua Lezli Hope

AI-generated graphic by NightCafé for The New Verse News.

I rebuke calm voices sitting around tables 
decatastrophizing recontextualizing, 
explaining this inexplicable harm
incalculably mounting, betraying trusts, alarming allies
banishing wards, destroying safeties, conscripting civilities
this insanity this madness, this indifference that grabs
that disrupts, that destructs as if our prior state flawed
as it was somehow merited this manic monstrous mayhem
that peace we knew 100 days ago,
somehow called to be smashed and spat upon
as if any of what was wrong then,
called for the dismantling of all our frameworks
leaving us frail exposed unprotected unprotected,
this dire daily detonation of assistance, food banks,
literacies, the hows of how we made do, made it through,
assured ourselves our air would be clean and the hungry
could be fed and access gained and opinions expressed
and why are the town criers, these well-fed talking heads
not running screaming through the streets
with hair on fire and why are these transgressions
relayed piecemeal in calm tones
bit by disassociated incoherent bit
without anyone saying it’s all torn up
it’s all torn down, you may not see the whole
but it’s falling down yes yes the sky is falling
by eccentric emergency, executive fiat
by a rapacious, murdering, lying, orange clown
and now rush out dearies to hold the exploded
earth, the shattered reality, floating away in this
inverted gravity, hurry citizens to grapple with these
fragments and hold them, before all is lost, hold them
hold them down.
 

Akua Lezli Hope is a paraplegic wisdom seeker who uses sound, words, fiber, glass, metal, and wire to create poems, patterns, stories, music,  sculpture, adornments, and peace whenever possible.

EXPANDING OUR KNOWING

by Akua Lezli Hope

Listen to the waltz at The New York Times, October 27, 2024.

new Chopin waltz found

unearthed discoveries heal

fix our view of truth

 

new Chopin waltz found

other discoveries heal

reframe our old truths

 

fix our view of truth

unearthed discoveries heal

new Chopin waltz found

 

new discoveries

heal our discordant truths

new Chopin waltz found

Akua Lezli Hope is a paraplegic creator and wisdom seeker who uses sound, words, fiber, glass, metal, and wire to create poems, patterns, stories, music, sculpture, and peace.  Her honors include the NEA, two NYFAs, NYSCA, SFPA, Elgin, &  Rhysling awards. She created the Speculative Sundays Poetry Reading Series. Editor of NOMBONO, the first BIPOC speculative poetry anthology, she is working on an anthology of disability focused speculative poetry.

SPINNING THE CYLINDER

by Akua Lezli Hope

Sonya Massey (above) ducked and apologized to an Illinois sheriff’s deputy seconds before he shot the Black woman three times in her home, with one fatal blow to the head, as seen in body camera video released Monday. An Illinois grand jury indicted former Sangamon County Sheriff’s Deputy Sean Grayson, 30, who is white, last week. He has pleaded not guilty to charges of first-degree murder, aggravated battery with a firearm and official misconduct. —AP, July 23, 2024

Because I am disabled, black and female in an under-resourced part of the world
Because I have called for help in the past and got harm
Because in a recent need for assistance I wept to 911 confessing my fear
Because Sonya Massey said on meeting the cop at her front door, “Don’t Hurt Me”
Because I saw her neat yard, glimpsed flowers, the vacuum cleaner in her kitchen, her robe over t-shirt and pj pants, her slippers, her neatly wrapped head
Because someone prowled around her white house, like mine, and cops found 
a black SUV with busted out windows next door
Because she was right to call and wronged
Because I saw her shot to death in her kitchen after apologizing, “I’m Sorry” on PBS
Because I couldn’t weep again and again and again but I haven’t slept for days
Because some of you will see this as anomalous, I testify that it is not
Because I am not dead from my bad encounters, only wounded and afraid 
Because my friends rescued me 
Because I live in a small town and don’t know how those chosen to police were chosen
Because there were all these red flags
Because, for those like me, asking for help is playing Russian Roulette
Because I never know if there’s a bullet in the chamber and if it’s pointed at my head


Akua Lezli Hope is a creator and wisdom seeker who uses sound, words, fiber, glass, metal, and wire to create poems, patterns, stories, music, sculpture, and peace. A paraplegic, third-generation New Yorker, her honors include the NEA, two NYFAs, NYSCA, SFPA, Elgin, & Best of the Net, Rhysling & Pushcart Prize nominations. Editor of NOMBONO, the first BIPOC speculative poetry anthology, she seeks work for a new anthology of disability themed speculative poetry at disabilitypoetics.com.

MEDUSA

by Akua Lezli Hope

AI-assisted images by the poet.

First lady Michelle Obama considered wearing her hair in braids while living in the White House. But then she thought of the American people. —The Washington Post, November 17, 2022

U.K. Tells Schools They Can’t Ban Afro Hairstyles. School rules about what styles are allowed that mostly affect Black and mixed-race children are likely to be illegal, a government rights commission said. —The New York Times, October 27, 2022

Almost half of Black and mixed-race women have experienced race-based hair discrimination at school, according to a new study. Of these, more than half (57 per cent) say they continue to deal with hair-related trauma today. —Independent (UK), October 7, 2022

Medusa was the serpent-goddess of the Libyan Amazons, representing "female wisdom". (Sanskrit medhas, Greek metis, Egyptian met or Maat ).  She was the Destroyer aspect of the Triple Goddess. Called Neith in Egypt, Ath-enna or Athene in North Africa.  Her inscription at Sais called her "mother of all the gods, whom she bore before childbirth existed." —Barbara G. Walker, The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets

You think god cursed me, 
that this morphing nimbus petrifies beholders
when it is only your eyes seeing snakes 
and being struck by a beauty you cannot decipher 
 
These S&Z curved electric antennae 
are defense against the gray arts, 
channeling, channeling ancestral energies 
an armor of creation’s forcefield and being 
 
Remove your transgressive hands 
or feel the casual, stinging shrapnel
from misbelief shattering against truth

 
Author's Note: I ache for the children who have been abused for their hair styles. I had a corporate career and wore my hair in what is now called protective natural styles, along with my suit, pumps and—a tie from 1979, until I retired in the 21st century. Here it is another century and the same old stupidity.
 

Akua Lezli Hope is a creator and wisdom seeker who uses sound, words, fiber, glass, metal, and wire to create poems, patterns, stories, music,  sculpture, and peace.  A paraplegic, third-generation New Yorker, her honors include the NEA, two NYFAs, NYSCA, SFPA, Elgin, & Best of the Net, Rhysling & Pushcart Prize nominations. 

IF I HAD A HAMMER

by Akua Lezli Hope

AI image… assisted by Akua Lezli Hope

all over this land oh over this Land all over this land/ we are dissolute and

unwise we are fractured and fracturing we are falling failing falling/ into an

exegesis of convenience/ of a grasping not at straws but at unreason/ creeping

decrepitude in our body politic/ a petulant dementia/that sanctions Breaking

and entering Breaking and entering    harm/ waging one million tiny Wars

inflaming warped hearts/ causing this conflagration that burns votes and

batters husbands in their homes/ endangering everything in this too late

hour/where we teeter totter slip on blood  blood pooling  bleeding

everywhere/ the deaths of our defenders responders resisters/ our climate

screaming at us slaying us/ flooding the water-full drying the drought stricken

shaking the fractured earth burning tinder-full  forests/ all at once  all fiercely

now/ and somehow I weep for that old man alone at home/struck in the head

and falling                down

  

Author's Note: On October 28, Paul Pelosi, 82. was attacked by a man undertaking “a suicide mission” to kill his wife, speaker of the house, Nancy Pelosi.  The nightly news has been assaultive, as 33 million Pakistanis face despair UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, “I have seen many humanitarian disasters in the world, but I have never seen climate carnage on this scale.”  1.3 million in Nigeria are displaced by floods. Somalia, like much of the Horn of Africa, is facing its worst drought in 40 years. Following the failure of four successive rainy seasons more than 7 million of the country’s 15 million people are experiencing severe hunger. Experts warn that the next rainy season between October and December will also likely fail, pushing several parts of the country into famine before the end of the year, unless aid efforts are urgently ramped up.

Akua Lezli Hope is a creator and wisdom seeker who uses sound, words, fiber, glass, metal, and wire to create poems, patterns, stories, music,  sculpture, and peace.  A paraplegic, third-generation New Yorker, her honors include the NEA, two NYFAs, NYSCA, SFPA, Elgin, & Best of the Net, Rhysling & Pushcart Prize nominations.

ANOTHER COMPRADORE

by Akua Lezli Hope

Original photo at Esquire

Stop talking about him. Stop giving him play.

Turn your back. Make him disappear

off our feeds, our tvs, allay our fears

Let the diseased thing fall in the forest, unhear

Let the one hand not connect

with either cheek or other hand            no sound

Don't believe and thus disempower this winged,

wicked thing so that it unappears—

don't cheer it back to flickering life.

Don’t untie its knots or reinterpret its betrayals

Don’t crown its crap with gravitas

Toss holy water on it. Make it melt away.

Stop all attention allowing it to last

Best left alone, shunned, rebuked, undone,

its name I will not say

Akua Lezli Hope is a creator and wisdom seeker using sound, words, fiber, glass, metal, & wire to create poems, patterns, stories, music, sculpture, & peace.  A paraplegic, third-generation New Yorker, her honors include the NEA, two NYFAs, NYSCA, SFPA & Rhysling & Pushcart Prize nominations.

SCREE

by Akua Lezli Hope

The five-justice Supreme Court bloc that overturned a half century of women's abortion rights on Friday had coalesced less than two years. But they had found their moment and they seized it. 

—CNN, June 25, 2022

This is insane, jackboot, psychic rape

The Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade

another way the inane U.S. of A

reminds it's not for most of us

already thrown under the careening bus

of a twisted, hegemonic, male patriarchy

 

We’re flattened again into oppressed dust

made to adhere to perverted needs

the worst of pornographic politics

their insatiable soul-robbing greed

to control another’s body

There's no daycare, scant maternity leave,

 

and yes, human trafficking is on the rise… 

as are rates of suicides, which could be

assuaged by an increase in minimum wage

 

They are on the take, ensuring innocent’s demise

States have their say over our reproduction

 

Those who don’t give a damn, limit our care

already so much less than what is fair

I pay 5 grand a year for nothing,

fight each and every month for access

to protective gear, bandages, dressings

 

Regressive, life threatening government decisions—

we feel the genteel violence of head in sand inaction

the incessant roar of entertainments’ self-indulgent distractions

who cares if one multimillionaire berates another

 

They build on sliding mountaintops and buy

their own fresh water, their own fresh air

their wild caught this and free range that

we communicate instantly these mounting tragedies

ever less and less and less free

Akua Lezli Hope is a creator and wisdom seeker who uses sound, words, fiber, glass, metal, and wire to create poems, patterns, stories, music,  sculpture, and peace.  A paraplegic, third-generation New Yorker, her honors include the NEA, two NYFAs, SFPA, Rhysling and Pushcart Prize nominations.

LINGUICIDE

by Akua Lezli Hope

 

No elder bids are there to sing

Regent honeyeaters’ male song

So young ones copy other things

their bird culture nearly gone

 

Regent honeyeaters’ male song

tells females if they are strong and fit

Their bird culture is nearly gone —

we play old recordings to fix it

 

Tells females if they are strong and fit

if they sing the right song

We play old recordings to fix it

fearful they won’t last long

 

If they sing the right song

extinction will be kept at bay

We’re fearful they won’t last long

as their habitat shrinks away

 

Extinction will be kept at bay

when females hear the strong songs

As their habitat shrinks away

we strive to correct our invasive wrongs

Akua Lezli Hope is a creator and wisdom seeker who uses sound, words, fiber, glass, metal, and wire to create poems, patterns, stories, music,  sculpture, and peace.  A third generation New Yorker, her honors include the NEA, two NYFAs, SFPA, Rhysling and Pushcart Prize nominations. 

SERVE

by Akua Lezli Hope

via GIPHY

Her smirk

not a quirk

an expressive face that moves

knows the dance in a glance

an intellectual twerk

displays the staunch resilience

of the endowed but denied

civility’s proprieties

resistance to a jerk

who made exchange real work

those demeaned, those denied

who manage but won’t hide

constraints placed on contempt

silence endless drumbeats to genuflect

accommodate, excuse, cow-tow

duck and shamble, indulge the ruse —

all ignored in the arch of her brow

skew of her lips, pursed

and parsed along the narrow band

of behavior deemed seemly

she could not unmean what she meant

nor unintend the message sent, she would

proffer her passion extolling another

yet not relent and we, her many

cousins laugh and apprehend this

semiotic vent, who know well

the sly, deliberate tell

 

 

Akua Lezli Hope is a creator and wisdom seeker who uses sound, words, fiber, glass, metal, and wire to create poems, patterns, stories, music,  sculpture, and peace.  A third generation New Yorker, her honors include the NEA, two NYFAs, SFPA, Rhysling and Pushcart Prize nominations.

A ROCK IS NOT A RIFLE

by Akua Lezli Hope

A rock is not a rifle
a jackass is not a genius
hysterical raving is not fact
might is not right

a caravan is not an invasion
a child is not a commodity
a refugee is not refuse
a rock is not a rifle

resentment is not democracy
fear is not strength
denial is not affirmation
a rock is not a rifle

commitment is not a joke
accords are not accidents
science is not opinion
a rock is not a rifle

abuse is not a right
hate is not a right
murder is not a right
a rock is not a rifle

a rock is not a rifle
though you be goliath
and we are david
a rock is not a rifle

Akua Lezli Hope is a creator who uses sound, words, fiber, glass, handmade paper and wire to create poems, patterns, stories, music, adornments, sculpture and peace whenever possible. She has published 125 crochet designs. Her new Word Works poetry collection Them Gone is now available.

MEMORIAL

by Akua Lezli Hope

The National Memorial for Peace and Justice . . .  is dedicated to the victims of American white supremacy. And it demands a reckoning with one of the nation’s least recognized atrocities: the lynching of thousands of black people in a decades-long campaign of racist terror. —The New York Times, April 25, 2018

We are constrained by the smog
created by this history
between slavery and civil rights
something obscures understanding
death, maintaining status quo
pain of the unrequited
failed promises, justice denied
no explanation for why
assassinated aspirations
the tumult and terror of
long enduring enslavement
large jars of soil from profane sites
of murder, disinter witless tragedy
to forget is to disable
to forget is to cripple
steel pillars are mute towers
piercing witness, carved remembrances
aligned, mass incarceration now
wrongfully convicted prisoners
presumptions of guilt for those
summarily dispatched unarmed,
whose names are known and multiply in
bleak countings of perpetuated loss
to forget is to repeat

Akua Lezli Hope is a creator who uses sound, words, fiber, glass, handmade paper and wire to create poems, patterns, stories, music, adornments, sculpture and peace whenever possible. She has published 125 crochet designs. Her poetry collection THEM GONE will be published by The Word Works Publishing in June, 2018.

AGAIN, A GUN

by Akua Lezli Hope

As Stephon Clark’s death shows, we live in a time when the term “unarmed” is becoming inconsequential—and, for a black man in certain settings, meaningless. —Jelani Cobb, The New Yorker, April 5, 2018. Photograph by Max Whittaker / NYT / Redux via The New Yorker.

Whose cell phone is a gun
Whose frown is a gun
Whose toy is a gun
Whose today is a gun
Whose smile is a gun
Whose tomorrow is a gun
Whose wallet is a gun
Whose loud is a gun
Whose soft is a gun
Whose CDs are a gun
Whose silence is a gun
Whose protest is a gun
Whose stop is a gun
Whose go is a gun
Whose yes is a gun
Whose no is a gun
Whose pipe is a gun
Whose hand is a gun
Whose stand is a gun
Whose advance is a gun
Whose retreat is a gun
Whose plea is a gun
Whose kneel is a gun
Whose showerhead is a gun
Whose question is a gun
Whose answer is a gun
                         is a gun
                         is a gun

Akua Lezli Hope is a creator who uses sound, words, fiber, glass, handmade paper and wire to create poems, patterns, stories, music, adornments, sculpture and peace whenever possible. A paraplegic, she has founded a nonprofit paratransit firm. Her poetry collection Them Gone will be published by The Word Works Publishing on June 1, 2018.

THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT, ALRIGHT

by Akua Lezli Hope

Thank you for taking up the cause
for taking on bright lights and not freezing,
for seizing the issue and not flinching
and not folding, for moving through our tears
and your fears which must be there
which are there, ever present behind closed eyelids
and dreams and even waking moments
you carry them through words you must say,
you swim through that treacle that could
embalm, could preserve could choke even as it feeds
you could stay stuck and yet you gather
and you plan and yet you clear your throats and
call us to listen how even choked and choking
heartsore and stumbling you move forward
you coalesce you make arguments that cleanse
that sear that burn obfuscating debris, clear dross
of entrenched rationales of life-taking, of warped
permissions of deranged access,
don’t listen to the naysayers, don’t,
ignore their percussive braying about
what’s become reasonable, their platforms
boom loud, are hollow bleating, you inherited a world
that has made the unthinkable usual
don’t listen to them betting against you
they always bet against you when you say no
to what prevails, when your fresh eyes refuse
to see the unseeable, foreseen, predictably
tragic, decrying the inevitability of senselessness
don’t let their demeaning misnomers distract you
whose lives are on all the lines and ransomed for
profit, whose lives underwrite the very notions
that steal them. we grieve for you we grieve for you
we’ve forgotten we’ve forgotten we’ve forgotten
to think twice about it, about the shortest distance
about straight lines, so thank you for giving
us back to ourselves who called for peace
years ago, who cried for parity, who marched and
moved and were not stuck, or tired, or worn or weary
or silent, who fought for our lives, who sometimes won

Akua Lezli Hope is a creator who uses sound, words, fiber, glass, handmade paper and wire to create poems, patterns, stories, music, adornments, sculpture and peace whenever possible. She has published 117 crochet designs. Her poetry collection Them Gone will be published by The Word Works Publishing in 2018.

WHO

by Akua Lezli Hope

Illustration by Tom Bachtell for “Trump’s Confusing Strike On Syria,” The New Yorker, April 17, 2017.

Who calls for walls and not for bridges
whose thoughts line his head in ridges
who calls for denial not acceptance
whose platform was a new intolerance
who launches air strikes and not aid
whose debts have often gone unpaid
whose employees are perforce, afraid
who creates chaos and alternate facts
who baits and switches at the drop of a hat
who denies sanctuary and bans entry
who sends bombs without strategy
who fuels fright and exploits uncertainty
who refuses immigrants and denies refugees
who despoils and blasts the citizenry
who defends perfidy and pretends to care
who launches Tomahawks over there
who keeps a bevy of madmen near
who slow dances with the cold Russian Bear
whose tax filings are still not shared
who starts war and exploits fear
who starts war and exploits fear

Akua Lezli Hope is a creator who uses sound, words, fiber, glass, metal, and wire to create poems, patterns, stories, music, ornaments, wearables, jewelry, adornments and peace whenever possible. Her work appears in many anthologies and magazines: most recently in Sexuality Anthology,  Revise the Psalm: Work Celebrating the Writing of Gwendolyn Brooks Dozen, the Best of Breath and Shadow, Faerie Magazine and Andromeda Spaceways #66.

STANDING ROCK RESISTANCE

by Akua Lezli Hope





Hey-ya Hey-ya Hey Hey O O

where is it that you go
cars stopped and searched
on their way to the gathering
where others sing and pray
land protectors, land protectors
sing and pray, police, police
stop intrusive machines
that churn holy ground
that plow the sacred into memory

Hey-ya Hey-ya  Hey Hey O O

gather all ye tribes to save
life water in North Dakota
Standing Rock Sioux
started in prayers in April
avert the threat to sacred earth
defend clean streams
at this end of the fossil fuel era
battle pipelines which burst
which quench an alien thirst for profit
trespass on treaty lands

Hey-ya Hey-ya  Hey Hey OO

a german shepherd pants with blood on his mouth
his nose drips with Indian blood
his handler yanks him this way and that
other dogs snap at horses’ legs which dance away
charge protectors, bite and wound
other handlers advance, spray the eyes
of protectors, mace Indian faces

Hey-ya Hey-ya  Hey Hey OO

come all defenders
stand by those whose land
has been blooded by slaughter
drowned by dams, washed away
confront the threat to who remains
from 17 banks, $3.8 billion
arrayed to transgress, to dig under rivers
dirty the clean, desecrate holy places,
intruders threading poisons
through the precious warp of earth
to steal again First People’s land

Hey-ya Hey-ya  Hey Hey OO

this is prayer ground
this is sacred water way
this is where First Peoples stand
this is where protectors stay.

Akua Lezli Hope is a creator who uses sound, words, fiber, glass, and metal, to create poems, patterns, stories, music, ornaments, adornments, and peace whenever possible. She has won fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, Ragdale, Hurston Wright writers, and the National Endowment for The Arts.  She is a Cave Canem fellow. A crochet designer, she has published 114 patterns.  Her manuscript Them Gone won Red Paint Hill Publishing’s Editor’s Prize and will be published in fall, 2016.

MY PTSD, or 558 AND STILL COUNTING

by Akua Lezli Hope




Each new report reopens old wounds:
time we pulled off the Jersey highway to nap
police lights blinding as husband yanked me
awake that night, fear and fury urgent in his voice
uniforms on both sides yelling, you can’t rest
on this white shoulder, threatening me back
to 16 with sweet baby sister on the subway
the short uniformed man’s hand on his stick
did it matter that we were on our way to Natural History
that she was only four like Lavish Diamond’s
girl made to witness violence and her protector’s
vulnerability?  We thought no, no, never again
when grandmother Eleanor Bumpurs was shot
at home for no good reason, never again be killed
for art, for its denial, or repression like Michael Stewart
never again when Abner Louima was broomsticked
and never again when Amadou Diallo was drowned
in a hale of 41 mistaken, misguided missiles and before
that did we think ourselves lucky, nothing permanent
when it was only a night stick upside Doug’s head
at the protest, only blunt force trauma,
not a noose in a lonely cell like Sandra Bland,
not spine-severing vehicular lynching like Freddie Gray,
not bullets, bullets, bullets as in Delrawn Small,
a father angry at being imperiled, bullets for preteen
Tamir Rice playing alone in the park, bullets
in Alton Sterling selling CDs, number 558
to be shot and killed by police this year
and I tremble remembering, remembering
all the insults hurled, the bullets I’ve dodged

Author’s Note: Eleanor Bumpurs was an African-American woman who was shot and killed on October 29, 1984 by New York City police. Michael Jerome Stewart  was a graffiti artist, beaten into a coma by New York City Transit Police for graffiti on a subway station wall  and died September 28, 1983. Abner Louima, was tortured by Brooklyn police (1997) and won $8.75 million dollars. Douglass David Walker was the founder of Alien Planetscapes and an activist. Amadou Diallo a West African immigrant was shot 41 times by 4 policemen in the doorway of his apartment building (1999). Sandra Bland died in a Texas jail cell after a traffic stop. Lavish/Diamond, the girlfriend of Philando Castile, broadcast the aftermath of their deadly traffic stop. Delrawn Small, a 37-year-old father of three, was killed in front of his family at a traffic light by an off duty Brooklyn cop while on their way to see July 4th fireworks this year. See “The Counted” at The Guardian.

Akua Lezli Hope is a creator who uses sound, words, fiber, glass, and metal, to create poems, patterns, stories, music, ornaments, adornments, and peace whenever possible. She has won fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, Ragdale, Hurston Wright writers, and the National Endowment for The Arts.  She is a Cave Canem fellow. Her manuscript Them Gone won Red Paint Hill Publishing’s Editor’s Prize and will be published in 2016.

KOMAGATU MARU

by Akua Lezli Hope





Forgiveness,
                      an evolution
Apology
                is          
                     revolution
Acknowledgment
                               does not redeem
                               but embodies
growth                          maturity                understanding
re                                   cog                                nition            
               known
                                see            again
                                             grant permission        
 now                            better                        now now now    
the  denied
                       arrival
                              has landed
disembark

Akua Lezli Hope is a creator who uses sound, words, fiber, glass, and metal, to create poems, patterns, stories, music, ornaments, wearables, jewelry, adornments and peace whenever possible. A third generation Caribbean American, New Yorker and firstborn, she has won fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts,  Ragdale, Hurston Wright writers, and the National Endowment for The Arts.  She is a Cave Canem fellow. Her manuscript, Them Gone, won Red Paint Hill Publishing’s Editor’s Prize and will be published in 2016.