MY WHITE FRAGILITY

by James Brock

The New Yorker Daily Cartoon, Feb. 23, 2016

                     

“I have a great relationship with the blacks.”—Donald J. Trump

Rather, I will reboot this poem about the blacks
with a quote from Virginia Woolf:
For she was a child, throwing bread to the ducks,
between her parents who stood by the lake,
holding her life in her arms which, as she neared
them, grew larger and larger in her arms, until
it became a whole life, a complete life,
which she put down by them and said, "This
is what I have made of it! This!"
And what had she made of it? What, indeed?

And thinking of the blacks, their mattering
lives, I look at my whole white life, my bookshelf.
See?  There’s Audre Lorde and Harriett Jacobs
and Kevin Young and Yusef Komunyakaa and Richard
Wright and Ralph Ellison, all their February words!
And I look at my white, complete life, and say,
“I have done nothing wrong.”

In Florida, the best hanging tree is the live oak,
with its big low-limbed girth.  At the Lee County
Courthouse a live oak has been made into a chainsaw
sculpture of an American bald eagle in flight.  On my commute
to school, with my black president and my black
boss man, I go along Michigan Avenue,
right through the black heart of Dunbar.  My neighbor
is anxious.  Someone has given the Asian food
delivery guy the building’s passcode.  He’s
probably on probation.  Our Sheriff shaves
his head, wears his green uniform, says how
we are not willing to face our problems.
He says I should have a registered gun in my glove
compartment.  I should keep a gun in my desk
drawer, packing heat in my classroom.  The evangelist
at my university shouts through his bullhorn
how my students are going to hell, all of them
texting their next booty call.  I think how language
is dripping in the blackness.  It’s like that tar baby.
Elvis’s hips, Beyoncè’s X, are they not black, too?

When I think black I think cinder black.  Or my
one black kiss—Jesus, she was a cheerleader at Idaho
State, straight out of Pocatello—which was for me
for being sweet. I am a nice guy. I like
Kendrick Lamar.  I like his pyrotechnics. When I think black
I think the earth cindered, all that burning,
my life cindered, desiccated, to the whitest, white ash.


James Brock has published four books of poetry, and he is currently writing plays for Ghostbird Theatre Company in Fort Myers, Florida.  He also teaches writing and literature at Florida Gulf Coast University.

HOME

by William Marr

Art by Banksy

with wings
anywhere can be home

yet all this starving refugee can do
is drag his tired feet on the ground
and watch the shadows
of a flock of flying birds
while fiercely swallowing
his dry saliva


William Marr has published 23 volumes of poetry (3 in English and the rest in his native Chinese language), 3 books of essays and several books of translations. His most recent book, Chicago Serenade, a trilingual (Chinese/English/French) poetry anthology, was published in Paris in 2015. His poetry has been translated into more than ten languages and included in over one hundred anthologies. Some of his poems are used in high school and college textbooks in Taiwan, China, England, and Germany.  He is a former president of the Illinois State Poetry Society and has received numerous awards, including three from Taiwan for his poetry and translations.  A PhD recipient and a retired research engineer, he now resides in a Chicago suburb.

NOT WANTING TO TALK POLITICS WITH THE CHECK-OUT GUY

by Patty Mosco Holloway

I came to buy just milk and whole grain bread.
The chips, the dips, free samples make me sick.
No chocolate kale for me until I'm dead--
Was that a voice in Health Aids I heard click?
"Have you tried ever in your life a 'cleanse'?"
Please, take me out of here, just let me pay.
It's more than my shy colon she offends--
Oh, no! Now Check-Out Guy cites the Debates.
I don't care what you think about Herr Trump,
won't listen to your "done is Hillary."
It's mum I'll be, on my own log, a bump.
But do tell Ted my bread is gluten-free.
   Now hurry, bag my stuff. I'm in a rush!
   "At least Mark Rubio is nice," you gush.


Patty Mosco Holloway is a writing teacher.  She lives in Denver, Colorado. She often "hears" the starts of poems in conversations.  Advice:  Don't talk to her.

SWAGGER

by Herb Kauderer

not understanding
that presentation
is all about posture

the presidential hopeful
offends the interstellar alien
with a proffered hand

his campaign ends painfully,
his promise of war fulfilled


Herb Kauderer is an associate professor of English at Hilbert College, and the author of over a thousand published poems, including ten books.

IT'S KALAMAZOO'S TURN,THE FACEBOOK POST SAYS

by Elizabeth Kerlikowske

A man is shooting people from his truck, just

any people. Four old friends. A father and son.

A mother walking with her kids. A teenager

now on life support. Our town is such a nice

town, this hurts us all. We are not perfect, but

we are a town that tries. I stayed home the day

after the shootings. I didn’t want to see anyone.

At home I could pretend things were the same,

that my KIA dealership was not the one that . . .

that the close by restaurant was not where . . .

but today, I left my sanctuary under overcast

skies.  I remember when JFK was killed how

the clouds were gray and girls said even the sky

was crying. We were young and made meaning

from it and now, we are old and know there is

no meaning, only the terrible coincidence of living

your life as if it was yours to keep instead of

target practice for some killer. Kalamazoo is so

small, I know someone who knows him.  I want to

drive by my dealership. I don’t know why. Instead

I head downtown to retrieve a lost umbrella.  No

easy smiles on the street. The sky, if it’s not already

crying, will be soon.


A retired professor of English at Kellogg Community College in Battle Creek, Elizabeth Kerlikowske served 25 years as president of Friends of Poetry in Kalamazoo.

BUNDY@MALHEUR

by Isaac Mason

“Let's make sure I read this correctly: Cliven Bundy requested a federal public defender from the big, bad government? You've got to be kidding me! For 20-plus years, Bundy has shamelessly been grazing his cattle on the taxpayers' dime, and now that he's in cuffs, he'll take more government/taxpayer help? My only comment: Please call me for jury duty!”  —Bill Taylor, Letter to the Editor of OregonLive.com, Feb. 21, 2016; Photo via OregonLive.com: The Multnomah County Sheriff's Office released the mugshot from Cliven Bundy's arrest.

When the elders
of the Burns Paiute nation
included in the 1868 treaty
by which they
ceded tribal lands
around Malheur Lake
a provision guaranteeing
"protection against bad men,"
it would be pleasing
to imagine they foresaw
the occupation of Malheur
by Ammon Bundy
and the Oregon Militia
158 years later.

When Bundy and Company,
strutting and fretting
on YouTube,
declared themselves
advocates of the public's right
to free use of the public lands,
it would be pleasing
to imagine they meant
something beside the right
to burn where you like,
to graze where you like,
to ride your four-wheeler
wherever you like,
and to bury your shit,
as the Militia at Malheur did,
at an ancient Paiute
cultural site.


Isaac Mason is the name assumed by a person working under false credentials at a major Chicago law firm. He lives with many cartons of books in a neighborhood where you would not feel comfortable. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Duende, Steel Toe Review, Polychrome Ink, and elsewhere.

TO:

by Sarah Stern

Roger Harvell Cartoon

Boil seven brown eggs in water
Turn off the kitchen light as the day begins
See the sparrows perched, earrings, on winter trees
Miss you—all of you—always
See the banner headlines and hope still
Know that we are here now
Forget not what makes us happy
Pee clear with no pain
Love you forever, even when I'm gone.


Sarah Stern is the author of But Today Is Different (Wipf and Stock, 2014) and Another Word for Love (Finishing Line Press, 2011). Her poems have appeared in numerous publications, recently in The American Dream, The Man Who Ate His Book: The Best of Ducts.org, Epiphany, Freefall, and Verse Daily. She is a four-time winner of the Bronx Council on the Arts' Poetry Award. She graduated from Barnard College and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. She is the Acting Director of Communications at the EastWest Institute and lives in New York City.

AMERICA'S DIVIDES

by Gil Hoy

Centre of equal daughters, equal sons, 

All, all alike endear'd, grown, ungrown, young or old, 

Strong, ample, fair, enduring, capable, rich, 

Perennial with the Earth, with Freedom, Law and Love . . .  

Embedded into this video is a 36-second wax cylinder recording of what is thought to be Whitman's voice reading four lines from the poem "America:”  Recording: Copyright Eric Forsythe, 2012–2013. Made available on the Whitman Archive with permission of the rights holder. Audio may be reused for non-commercial purposes, with credit to Eric Forsythe and the Walt Whitman Archive. For more information on this recording, see Ed Folsom, "The Whitman Recording," Walt Whitman Quarterly Review, 9 (Spring 1992), 214-16.

                         I.

I see you, Walt Whitman---an American
Rough, a Cosmos!  I see you face to face!

I see you and the nameless faceless
Faces in America's timeless crowds of men
and women who you saw in your mind's eye.

I see you crossing the river on your ferry.
I see you walking down the public road

Where everyone is worthy. Neither time,
Place nor distance separates.
     
                         II.

You once saw the currents of corruption,
Fast flowing into the land that you loved.
You once saw that which had departed

With the setting sun, half an hour high,
For when another is degraded,
so are you and I.

You once saw what had flowed in with the
Rising flood-tides feverishly pouring---

Tides saturated and soaked with exploitation,
Bribery, falsehood and maladministration.

                         III.

When you saw the motionless wings of
Twelfth-month sea-gulls, When you walked

Along Manhattan Island---When you watched the
Ships of Manhattan, north and west---

Could you see Wall Street banks
Seizing the homes of your beloved countrymen,
Voyaging in their fragile ferryboats? The carpenters,

Quakers, scientists and opium eaters; The immigrants,
Squaws, boatmen and blacksmiths; The farmers,                        
Mechanics, sailors and priests?                                                

                          IV.

Could you see the monstrous megaton corporations
Feasting on America's flesh blood bones, those
Nameless faceless parasites

Sucking the soul from your loved land,                                            
Like a malevolent disease?                                                              

                            V.
For you saw quite clearly the political and
Economic malfunctioning mutant ties that connect us.
Neither time, place nor distance separates.

And you saw very clearly the sickly green sludge
Secreted by lobbyists to their bought and sold

Henchmen soldier baby-kissers, to slow and
Stop the flow of nourishing rushing sea tides
Into your dear, revered democracy.

                            VI.

You saw the evil dark patches---the clinging selfish
Steadfast pernicious grasp of the flourishing one
Per cent oligarchs, Who lusted, grubbed, lied, stole--

Were greedy, shallow, sly, angry, vain, cowardly,
malignant--Seeking only to hold onto their fool's
Gold and preserve the status quo.

                           VII.

Each still furnishes its part towards the death of
America's democracy. Each still furnishes its part

Towards destroying her soul. The mocking bird
Still sings the musical shuttle to the tearful

Bareheaded child, and the final word superior for
America may still be her death, death, death,
Death. The sea has whisper'd me, too.


Gil Hoy is a Boston trial lawyer who is currently studying poetry at Boston University, through its Evergreen program, where he previously received a BA in Philosophy and Political Science. Hoy received an MA in Government from Georgetown University and a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. He served as a Brookline, Massachusetts Selectman for four terms. Hoy started writing poetry two years ago. Since then, his work has appeared in Third Wednesday, The Write Room, The Eclectic Muse, Clark Street Review, TheNewVerse.News , Harbinger Asylum, Soul Fountain, The Story Teller Magazine, Eye on Life Magazine, Stepping Stones Magazine, The Penmen Review, To Hold A Moment Still, Harbinger Asylum’s 2014 Holidays Anthology, The Zodiac Review, Earl of Plaid Literary Journal, The Potomac, Antarctica Journal, The Montucky Review and elsewhere.

GOVERNANCE

by Michael Cantor

You start by just ignoring there’s a brake,
or anything that might intrude to take
your mind off never thinking how to make
a final, saving, unexpected snake-
like motion; but instead remain opaque
within your fierce intensity and stake
that rubber to the center line, forsake
eye contact, floor the monster – see them quake –
and watch it all become a piece of cake,
the coward’s headlights sure to bow and shake
because they realize it’s not a fake –
you’re in your zone, your mind is set, you ache
to see them crawl and beg to compromise.
And if they don’t? Well that’s the risk we take.


Michael Cantor’s full-length collection, Life in the Second Circle (Able Muse Press, 2012), was a finalist for the 2013 Massachusetts Book Award for Poetry.  A chapbook, The Performer, was published in 2007; his work has appeared in The Dark Horse, Measure, Raintown Review, SCR, Chimaera, The Flea, and he has won the New England Poetry Club Gretchen Warren and Erika Mumford prizes.  A native New Yorker, he has lived and worked in Japan, Latin America and Europe, and presently divides his time between hurricane-threatened Plum Island, MA, and drought-threatened Santa Fe, NM.

SCALY QUESTION

by Marcus Bales

Cartoon by Matt Bors via Daily Kos, Feb. 17, 2016

Scalia's gone ahead;
I'm bearing up dry-eyed.
I didn't wish him dead,
but I'm not sad he died.

At every human turn
within the legal fray
he mocked humane concern
and stood athwart the way.

He even said don't spend
on innocents' defense:
procedure's proper end
is killing innocents.

A creature of the right
he's now the devil's minion --
and say, who's going to write
Thomas's next opinion?


Not much is known about Marcus Bales, except that he lives in Cleveland, Ohio, and his poems have not been published in The New Yorker or Poetry.

THE MADELEINE ALBRIGHT VILLANELLE

by Pedro Poitevin

From this week's New Yorker.

There is a special place in hell
(a little sad, a little scary)
where chickenhawks and vultures dwell.

Not far from where good Dante fell
some godforsaken February,
there is a special place in hell.

The geysers and volcanos swell.
The lava tarnishes the prairie.
And chickenhawks and vultures dwell

over a crumbling citadel
devoid of prey or adversary.
There is a special place in hell,

just like she told her clientele
before she hit the cemetery.
There, chickenhawks and vultures dwell,

aligned as in a villanelle.
One greets her: “Madam Secretary—
there is a special place in hell
where chickenhawks and vultures dwell.”


Author's Note: After Madeleine Albright had her "undiplomatic moment," I gave myself permission to have my own. This poem is my attempt at imagining a special place in hell for foreign policy hawks and hedge fund managers.

A mathematician by profession, Pedro Poitevin is a bilingual poet and translator originally from Guatemala. He is a contributor to Letras Libres and Periódico de Poesía, the poetry journal of the National Autonomous University of México (UNAM). Poems in English have appeared or are forthcoming in Rattle, Angle, Mathematical Intelligencer, Everyday Genius, and Nashville Review, among other venues.

X GAMES

by Mark Danowsky

The BMX icon Dave Mirra took his own life last week, shocking those who knew him and those who simply admired him through his sport. The question immediately arose as to whether CTE – a degenerative brain disease that arises from concussions and is associated with impaired judgment and depression – contributed to his death. —The Guardian, Feb. 10, 2016

Death finds us
alone, guard down

                                    a step away

This is your purpose
they said, fly

                                 good trick

And then descent
pressure, lost

                                 time

A pass on
your future, gift

                                 in memoriam

Caution ourselves
fragile, fierce

                                 we step mindful


Mark Danowsky’s poetry has appeared in Alba, Burningword, Cordite, Grey Sparrow, The Lake, Mobius, Right Hand Pointing, Red River Review, Shot Glass Journal, Third Wednesday and elsewhere. Mark is originally from the Philadelphia area, but currently resides in North-Central West Virginia. He works for a private detective agency and is Managing Editor for the Schuylkill Valley Journal.

SABLE CLOUDS

by Gil Hoy

A candle is seen at the steps of the US Supreme Court February 13, 2016 in Washington, DC, following the announcement of the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Scalia, a fiery conservative who helped shape American legal thought, was first appointed to the highest court in the land in 1986 by President Ronald Reagan, making him the first Italian-American to serve there. Scalia was 79. (Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images via The Dallas Morning News, Feb. 13, 2016

Even the darkest
rain silver
when

religions
are freer
elections
are fairer

different fellows
making different
sounds

sleep more soundly

sickrooms are
open

women’s bodies are
their own

men and women
love who they
love


Gil Hoy is a Boston trial lawyer who is currently studying poetry at Boston University, through its Evergreen program, where he previously received a BA in Philosophy and Political Science. Hoy received an MA in Government from Georgetown University and a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. He served as a Brookline, Massachusetts Selectman for four terms. Hoy started writing poetry two years ago. Since then, his work has appeared in Third Wednesday, The Write Room, The Eclectic Muse, Clark Street Review, TheNewVerse.News , Harbinger Asylum, Soul Fountain, The Story Teller Magazine, Eye on Life Magazine, Stepping Stones Magazine, The Penmen Review, To Hold A Moment Still, Harbinger Asylum’s 2014 Holidays Anthology, The Zodiac Review, Earl of Plaid Literary Journal, The Potomac, Antarctica Journal, The Montucky Review and elsewhere.

MAKE-BELIEVE QUEEN BEY

by Matty Layne

many a gay have played Beyoncé
for a day. a night really. we drag our-
selves on stage, reach for revenge in
that paper—those ones & fives we tuck
under the seams. tuck, like everything else

between our thighs. down in the bayou,
I wove a weave into my own fair hair,
glued fierceness to my lashes, layered
my face w/ base after a close shave—
that green shimmering beneath my eyes.

how i filled nude hose with rice, tied two
knots for c cups so the boys could cop
a more natural feel—as if they would
know the difference. how i cinched my love
handles w/ a duct-tape corset, squeezed

into red sequin hot pants & stomped those
six-inch stilettos down the steps. Bootylicious.
i knew my audience. how they watched me—
bite by bite—down that pb&j on stage. they
weren’t ready for that jelly. you can’t serve

a crowd what they expect. but i’ll never be
the Queen. my body can’t fill those cups.
i’ll never wipe away the base & still carry
color on my face. no natural ’fro to tuck
beneath a black beret, & i’d never fit into

leather hot pants these days. i can’t afford
the golden rounds of ammo to drape over my
flat-chested fantasy of what it must be like.
but I do know that bullets look so much
better outside of a beautiful black body.


Matty Layne is an MFA candidate in Creative Writing & Environment at Iowa State University. His queer 'lil ditties on social justice have appeared in or are forthcoming from TheNewVerse.News, This Week in Poetry & The Furious Gazelle.