A SONNET FOR GEORGE FLOYD AND MANY MORE

by Scot Slaby

Old white knights sit atop white steeds
believing blindly that their deeds
are God-ordained—a Christian right-
ness coupled with systemic white-
ness—ancient notions from the West.
They claim their weapons are the best.
Their helmets shield us from their faces.
Do they protect and serve all places?
Black knights have seen this all before:
refusing to bow before a Moor,
white knights wage wars to hold their power.
They raze our homes; their flames devour.

We must resist. We know it's right
to kneel. To raise one fist. To fight.

Scot Slaby's chapbooks include The Cards We've Drawn (Bright Hill Press, 2013) and Bugs Us All (Entasis Press, 2016). His poems have appeared in The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics Including Odd and Invented Forms, Arcana: The Tarot Poetry Anthology, Like Light: 25 Years of Poetry & Prose by Bright Hill Poets & Authors, unsplendid, and elsewhere. An international educator, he divides his time between Shanghai, China and Minneapolis, Minnesota.

VANILLANELLE

by Susan McLean



Consistency is our delight.
Don’t make us try exotic flavors.
We want it plain; we want it white.

We think that blend-ins are a blight.
Your nuts or fudge do us no favors.
Consistency is our delight.

Our preferences are watertight.
Our love of sameness never wavers.
We want it plain; we want it white.

We shun sensations that excite
odd leanings or untoward behaviors.
Consistency is our delight.

We’re not repentant or contrite.
Change isn’t what the public savors.
We want it plain; we want it white.

Enough!  We have no appetite
for new ideas or dusky saviors.
Consistency is our delight.
We want it plain; we want it white.

Susan McLean is an English professor at Southwest Minnesota State University.  Her satirical poems have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Light, Lighten Up Online, and The Spectator (UK).

CIRCLES

by Jenna Le

Image source: CP4

Once, I was so young

that, like a raw onion,

my concentric circles reluctant

to relax their grip on

one another’s whiteness,

a whiff of me could make you cry.

I had so much power,

but all I wanted

was to see people smile

when I walked into a room.

So I kept mum about

my real opinions

so that people would like me.

And it worked. I began to

feel smug about my popularity.

When I saw a rabble-rouser

hoisted on the gallows,

I sneered,

thinking he would not

be hanging there

if, like me, he knew

the secret to being liked.

When I saw a man

with six circular gunshots

in his face and chest

sprawled on crimson cement,

I did not say, “There but for the grace…”

I did not believe

in favors. I believed

I had carved my own niche

in the world using

my smarts, my likability.

I had a vivid memory

of myself with a penknife

in my hand, carving,

never thinking to ask

how that bloody knife

ended up in my hand,

or whose blood it was.

Jenna Le is the author of Six Rivers (NYQ Books, 2011), which was a Small Press Poetry Bestseller. Her poems have appeared in AGNI Online, Bellevue Literary Review, Massachusetts Review, The Southampton Review.