THE SUPREME COURT COURTS ITS OWN SUPREMACY

A Modern Petrarchan Sonnet 

by Kimberly Russo

The Supreme Court on Friday reduced the authority of executive agencies, sweeping aside a longstanding legal precedent that required courts to defer to the expertise of federal administrators in carrying out laws passed by Congress. —The New York Times, June 28, 2024. Above is an excerpt from Justice Kagan’s dissent.

History names you as “Final Arbiter,”
To eagle-eye each branch, limit its power
and strike down laws in violation of our
country’s pact. You are humanity’s harbinger.
“EQUAL JUSTICE UNDER LAW” leans starboard
erasing civil rights from their ivory tower
with six of nine lying disavowers
dumb to the public’s dreams dearly harbored.

All women, surrender your uterus,
lovers and race and Affirmative Action
flee in disgrace and die in the closet.
What ill minds embrace rulings ludicrous?
Judges, pious in self-satisfaction
perished in politics’ pockets, I posit.

Kimberly Russo is an English teacher in Aurora, Colorado where she resides with her husband, Tony.  She is the mother of four children, Nicholas (Stephanie,) Audrey, Grace, and Maritza, and grandmother to Doc Wilder and Willa Cassidy. Kimberly spends her free time gardening & bird-watching. Much of her writing is dedicated to marriage/family, social issues, including the perpetuating inequality among genders/races, and the stigma associated with mental illness. Her poetry has appeared in River Poets Journal, Open Minds Quarterly, PDXX Collective, Sixfold (Summer 2016,) Sixfold (Summer 2018,) Sixfold (Winter 2022,) Cricket Media: Spider Magazine, ACM, Another Chicago Magazine, and Backwards Trajectory.

JUSTICE, CLARENCE?

by Geoffrey Philp

Justice Clarence Thomas, hailed as the “brightest

possible northern star“ and lauded as a “legal titan”

prefers the sobriquet of Originalist, a justice intent

on reversing laws not explicit in the Constitution.

And while he remained quiet during oral arguments,

he’d been preparing tortured briefs against abortion

and affirmative action, which he called a threat

to the “notion of equality,” in his considered opinion.

But I wonder what the other black-robed justices think.

For at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia

Clarence would’ve been reduced to 3/5 of a man—

His marriage would’ve been ruled as miscegenation

His home surrounded by hooded men on horseback:

“Don’t be scared, ma’am. We’re just here for the n***er.”

Geoffrey Philp is the author of two novels, Garvey’s Ghost and Benjamin, my son,, three children’s books, including Marcus and the Amazons, and two collections of short stories. He has also published five books of poetry. His forthcoming books include a graphic novel for children titled My Name is Marcus and a collection of poems titled Archipelagos. His forthcoming poetry collection 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. He is currently working on a collection of poems titled Letter from Marcus Garvey. He can be found on twitter and on instagram.

UNEQUAL PROTECTION

by Elbert Tavon Briggs

Evelyn Glover-Jennings holds a picture of her cousin Bettie Jones, 55, who was shot by the Chicago police on Saturday. Credit Joshua Lott for The New York Times, Dec. 26, 2015

and now 19 years-young

Quintonio LeGrier

his father and mother

loved and held him dear

outreach police call

to save their Son from stress

now We Chicago

are back in this mess

father tried to save his Son

from problems mental

why did police shoot

and kill him like a criminal

as a victim He had No Gun

another mother unarmed

helping that family

She was gun down like a criminal

8 shots fired during the Holiday Season

one for Her

seven for Him

father tried to save his Son

from problems mental

why did Chicago police

gun Him down like a criminal

first reactions from emergency responders

under oath to serve and protect

yet some ponder why my People

hesitate for law’s conflict resolution

when far too often

the solution

the solution

for stressed out Black college student with honors

is for the Family to bury him without honor

that 55 years-old Mother of 5

should still be alive

from a police call to serve and protect

my pen has to reflect

where was the Family conflict mediator

where were the non-lethal options like tasers

guess that’s for grand jury to question later

equal protection under what law

U.S. Supreme Court implies

Black citizens need access

to justice on a slower track

not Great Scott

legal rebirth of Dred Scott

this poem will not issue a retraction

maybe this is the face

of U.S.A. affirmative actions

on this morning

Chicago once again is mourning

Elbert Tavon Briggs was born 1952 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, raised in Omaha, Nebraska. Elbert studied at Northeastern Illinois University and currently resides in Chicago, Illinois.. Currently creating with the Randolph Street Poets at the Chicago Cultural Center and workshopping with Poets & Patrons. This poem reflects Briggs's lifelong commitment to incorporate poetry, music, art, dance, and drama, to give voice to the voiceless. Elbert graduated from Arizona State University and served two years in AmeriCorps fighting the war on poverty in the Lower Delta.

REPARATIONS

by Matty Layne

"There are those who contend that it does not benefit African-Americans to get them into the University of Texas where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less-advanced school, a less -- a slower-track school where they do well.” —Antonin Scalia, U.S. Supreme Court Justice

An audible gasp filled the court-
room—the last breath of the now
dead slave, & he’d been holding his
breath for centuries, before Jim

Crow & bus boycotts & affirmative
action in ’61, before Scalia said we
need to slow it down for him—more
white justice that knows what’s best

for a black man. This gasp will never
end. No breath could ever fill the void
in the dead slave’s lungs, no admission
can affirm the carnage when we lock a

race in leg irons for centuries & think
taking off the shackles can cover the
weight he’s bore on his ankles, on his
skin. The weight, heavy like the words

that cause the gasp, links in the chain
still holding him back from the chance.


Matty Layne is an MFA candidate in Creative Writing & Environment at Iowa State University. His poems and prose on social justice have appeared in This Week in Poetry & The Harbrace Guide to Writing.