ANANSI: A PARABLE

by Steve Zeitlin

Inspired by the traditional Ghanian tale “Anansi and the Box of Stories”

Anansi was not an itsy bitsy spider

but a trickster from Ghana

who asked the Sky God for some stories

 

God supplied only an empty story box

so the tricky, spindly spider

traveled the world gathering tales

till the spider stole all the stories ever told

and stored them neatly, categorically,

searchably, in the box.

Then Anansi scrambled tales, fabricating
new ones, till we, the tellers, grew superfluous 

 

We pleaded with the Sky Gods to help us

take back the box of stories.

stamp out the spider 

give the tales back to those who lived them. 

 

We confronted the arachnid –– 

you’re not the real Anansi,

ancient figure of legend and lore

tell us your real name! we cried!

AI, the scorpion replied.

Steve Zeitlin is the Founding Director of City Lore, New York City’s Center for Urban Folk Culture, and co-founder of the Brevitas poetry collective. He is the author of two volumes of poetry, I Hear America Singing in the Rain (First Street Press, 2002), and How Do You Wear the Universe? (2026, Mediacs Press) as well as twelve books on America’s folk culture. In 2016, he published a collection of essays, The Poetry of Everyday Life: Storytelling and the Art of Awareness (Cornell University Press).  In 2022, he published JEWels: Teasing Out the Poetry in Jewish Humor and Storytelling (JPS/U. of Nebraska Press).

UNDER

by Jenna Le

Political Art is a painting by Gull G

Under the politician's monument,
there was a grub twisting in the topsoil,
and a topsail from an ancient ship
folded nine times,
and a mole with pale human-like fingers
prodding a tree root,
and under this,
a chest seething with stolen coins,
and an aquifer dank with depleted water,
and a cave system beading on for miles
and miles, and a vein of gold ore,
and a cache of diamonds, and a hoard
of sapphires, and under this,
a corpse moaning the name of its child.

Jenna Le is the author of Six Rivers (NYQ Books, 2011),  A History of the Cetacean American Diaspora (Indolent Books, 2017), and Manatee Lagoon (Acre Books, 2022). Her poetry appears in AGNI, Denver Quarterly, Los Angeles Review, Massachusetts Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Pleiades, Poet Lore, Verse Daily, and West Branch. 

WHEN ASKED WHAT SKILLS WE GAINED FROM SLAVERY

by MEH

how to run [from slave catchers, the klan, crooked cops,

especially when finding the distinction difficult]. how to

keep our own counsel. to code-switch. to sing songs

in mother-tongues they will emulate and sharecrop

in blackface or while ignoring their origin—jazz, blues,

rock and roll, R&B, rap. how to hide our babies from

[see original list], christening them with names proper

to replace stolen drums, lands, gods. how not to list

the skills we already possessed, were compelled to

employ—navigation, cultivation, curing smallpox—

knowing they will fall on ungrateful ears. how to turn

our every cheek. to be more Christ-like than those who

disgraced the religion they forced upon us. to embody

the fruits of the spirit—especially patience and self-

control—in arms, legs, backs chiseled in cottonfields,

defined by bearing the lash of injustice. how to refrain

from calling down a legion of angels, or easily poisoning

their food, or slitting an oppressor’s throat in their sleep,

at least for now.

Matthew E. Henry (MEH) is the author of six poetry collections including Teaching While Black (Main Street Rag, 2020) and the Colored page (Sundress Publications, 2022). He is editor-in-chief of The Weight Journal and an associate poetry editor at Pidgeonholes. MEH’s poetry appears or is forthcoming in The New Verse News, Cola Literary Review, The Florida Review, Massachusetts Review, Ninth Letter, Pangyrus, Ploughshares, Poetry East, Shenandoah, and The Worcester Review among others. MEH’s an educator who received his MFA yet continued to spend money he didn’t have completing an MA in theology and a PhD in education. You can find him at www.MEHPoeting.com writing about education, race, religion, and burning oppressive systems to the ground.

BALL OF MIRTH

by Dick Altman

As if the fate of nations

hung in the balance,

World Cup enters its final laps.

Though it would bring a smile,

if my hometown America

took home the gold,

I neither hold my breath

nor torture myself

over the outcome.

 

Because, in my eyes, soccer

is less about winning,

than the friendships

that encircle the ball,

whatever color of foot,

language or nationality.

 

I motorcycle—

between grad school

and college—

across Europe.

On my luggage rack,

tied in a net,

a soccer ball.

On every beach,

every campsite,

the ball serves as the key

to a kingdom of friendships.

 

The night I visit Greece’s Delphi,

mythical home of the Oracle,

I doubt even she could

have predicted what would

happen as I slept.

Someone likely too poor

to own a ball of their own

burns—likely with a cigarette—

a hole in the net

and steals the ball.

 

This—after five-thousand

kilometers starting in Amsterdam.

I could only smile.

What they really stole

was the fun—and I,

kid of twenty-two,

on a fantasy trip

most my age

could only dream about,

could afford to share

a ball that would,

in days, months,

even years to come,

produce,

in every dribble and kick,

unyielding rounds of mirth.

Dick Altman writes in the high, thin, magical air of Santa Fe, NM, where, at 7,000 feet, reality and imagination often blur. He is published in Santa Fe Literary Review, American Journal of Poetry, riverSedge, Fredericksburg Literary Review, Foliate Oak, Blue Line, THE Magazine, Humana obscura, The Offbeat, Haunted Waters Press, Split Rock Review, The RavensPerch, Beyond Words, The New Verse News, Sky Island Journal, and others here and abroad. A poetry winner of Santa Fe New Mexican’s annual literary competition, he has in progress two collections of some 100 published poems. His work has been selected for the forthcoming first volume of The New Mexico Anthology of Poetry to be published by the New Mexico Museum Press.

MAXIMUM SECURITY, DENIED

by T R Poulson

Gary West is offering a $20 million reward to the owners of Country House, War of Will, Long Range Toddy, and Bodexpress if any of those horses finish ahead of Maximum Security the next time any of them race against the colt through Dec. 31, 2019. West will give the owners of Country House (the elevated winner of the Kentucky Derby), War of Will (placed seventh after finishing eighth), Bodexpress (placed 13th after finishing 14th), and Long Range Toddy (placed 16th after finishing 17th) $5 million each if they finish ahead of Maximum Security the next time they meet in a race. Kentucky stewards determined each of the latter three horses were fouled by Maximum Security in the Derby. West announced the reward May 17, one day before the Preakness Stakes (G1) at Pimlico Race Course. His horse crossed the wire first in the May 4 Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve (G1) but was disqualified to 17th for interference. Maximum Security is not running in the second jewel of the Triple Crown. —BloodHorse, May 17, 2019

The Derby runs, complete with roses,
and the list of things all banned.  Poles,
selfie sticks, confetti, balloons, frisbees,
banners, and umbrellas.  It rains again,
and those in the grandstands roar, wet
as horses on the track, unfrightened.

A bay horse with a question mark
blaze breaks clean, runs fast, leads, kicks
mud on the rest, until the final turn.

One hundred fifty thousand fans, drenched
with drink and rain, scare the bay with the blaze
(He’s a baby, his jockey will say after). He drifts
from his lane, unraveled, and then hooves,
shod with steel and nails, tangle, the next horse
somersaults, mane into the mud, legs bent
the wrong way, and more horses hurdle, tumble,
jockeys’ bodies flop into the slop.  Rain drops
drizzle silks and broken goggles.  Backs,
withers, and empty saddles leave impressions
turned to puddles, bright as mirrors. Would this
be better than a rose blanket, stolen?


T R Poulson is a University of Nevada alum and life-long racing fan.  Her work has appeared previously in TheNewVerse.News, as well as Rattle: Poets Respond, Verdad, Trajectory, Raintown Review, The Meadow, Alehouse, and J Journal.