Friday, July 29, 2016

Poems that Speak Out Against Violence and for Embrace - Natalie Solmer

If the back & arms you carry riddle with black
spots & marks made by birds who don’t want us here—
I will remind you: There are people who did this before us,
brown & black-spotted, yellow, with rattails,
born from what others did not want & loathed & aimed
to never let belong, & so, we are here today—
the field is wide. We make saliva from root & light.
Our spikelets grow, & do you feel the wind?
       - Joe Jiménez, Smutgrass



Orlando. Dhaka. Istanbul. Baghdad. Medina. Nice. The killings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, and the murder of police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge. This summer, terrible bigotry and violence have rent our global community. The killings must end, and we in the poetry community must contribute in any way we can. As we search for answers to these horrors and for ways to combat hatred and prejudice, we are reminded of poetry’s capacity to respond to violence, to help us regenerate, like spikelets sprouting in a contested field, claiming our public spaces for everyone.

In solidarity with all those targeted at home and abroad, from the LGBT community in the United States to devastated families of Baghdad, Split This Rock is offering its blog as a Virtual Open Mic. Over the next couple of weeks, from July 14 to 28, we are requesting poems in response to and against violence toward marginalized communities. After the Virtual Open Mic closes, we hope to print out and mail all of the poems to Congress and the National Rifle Association. 


***


All Day I’m Glued To This World
by Natalie Solmer

can’t look away from its screens—the blood
running out of the man’s body while the lover

watches, records and prays and knows
she could be one second from next, knows

her child could be next. My child, age six, this night
will ask, Is this happening to white people?

(And then I try to explain racism.
Again.)

I finally go running down 25th, the air so wet
with each hot breath maybe I’ll be left

with something to transcend. Transcend the cop’s gun
fixed, trembling as the camera lens stays fixed, trembles.

A black man cannot reach, cannot hold a toy gun,
cannot sit next to a man with a toy truck, cannot

not incite terror in some imaginations. My son
will refuse to sleep this night, saying, I’m scared for daddy,

those bad cops would kill him. (his dad- 6’3”, dark skinned, muscular)
and scared for himself, Would they shoot someone

who’s mixed with black? What age do they shoot? (not usually
mixed. Tamir Rice. No toy guns that look real. Your orange nerf

guns are OK, I think) He says, Tell me more of these stories.
Are there more stories? (That’s enough now)

Back to that afternoon and our street, a street often
washed in siren. I’ve jogged a mile from our apartment

and see my neighbors—three college age boys who sometimes
smoke marijuana and cigarettes on the balcony, who remind me

of the old days, hanging with my (mostly white) college boys—
but these boys—one dark skinned, one light, one mixed—

they are running toward me in street clothes, not athletic shorts.
One cradles a pizza box. I smile, Hey! They half-wave. Serious.

As we sprint past each other, the traffic swishing, the sun hid,
I can’t bear to ask, What are you running from? Where are your mothers?

Poems that Speak Out Against Violence and for Embrace - Amoja Sumler

If the back & arms you carry riddle with black
spots & marks made by birds who don’t want us here—
I will remind you: There are people who did this before us,
brown & black-spotted, yellow, with rattails,
born from what others did not want & loathed & aimed
to never let belong, & so, we are here today—
the field is wide. We make saliva from root & light.
Our spikelets grow, & do you feel the wind?
       - Joe Jiménez, Smutgrass



Orlando. Dhaka. Istanbul. Baghdad. Medina. Nice. The killings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, and the murder of police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge. This summer, terrible bigotry and violence have rent our global community. The killings must end, and we in the poetry community must contribute in any way we can. As we search for answers to these horrors and for ways to combat hatred and prejudice, we are reminded of poetry’s capacity to respond to violence, to help us regenerate, like spikelets sprouting in a contested field, claiming our public spaces for everyone.

In solidarity with all those targeted at home and abroad, from the LGBT community in the United States to devastated families of Baghdad, Split This Rock is offering its blog as a Virtual Open Mic. Over the next couple of weeks, from July 14 to 28, we are requesting poems in response to and against violence toward marginalized communities. After the Virtual Open Mic closes, we hope to print out and mail all of the poems to Congress and the National Rifle Association. 


***

Hashtags
by Amoja Sumler

Ours is a people
so magical

They can turn from skin
to hashtag

in less than the time
it takes for a police cam to fall.

When this happens
(and it will)
(and it does)
(there it goes again)
(magic)

see to your smile.

Rage
but quietly

This is a bully beyond slaying.

Do not go sacrifice.
Do not go fists and hammers.

Do not go mouthful of demand and salt.

We must go quietly.
We must Go.

See to your senses.

Wave at the sun.
Wave at your sons.
Wave at brown curly hair.
Stare at the majesty of your daughters.
Kiss them both (if they consent).

But you must relent.
for a hashtag could never hold this much
humanity.
And they are holding one for you.

Hot and ready, like fast food.

This is how they slay.
They'll call it 'justice'.
Lemons for lemonade.

There will be a video.

There's always a video.

Do not watch it.
We know how Lethal Weapon ends.

Cry
if you have the tears.

And love
and love
and love
even while you hate

even as you are breaking
even as they justify
even as they deny

Do not go empty
even as they pour us like blood.

Ours is a people
so magical
we still believe.

We hope
pretty as autumn leaves
deep in the falling.

Ours
is a people so magical
that some could sing through slavery.

Bravery is Black joy
Black love is Black joy
and she is all ours.
Watch us wear her
like a superpower.

Do not go wanting
drink and be filled.

Drink till it spills
from your cheeks.
Drink until the kill

it is coming.

Make peace with certainty
so that when you and the violence meet
you will not go meek.
Look into the cameras
Show them the threat of your impotency
There may be some slight discomfort
but it will all be over soon.

Like a magic trick.
Poof
It's happened again
another hashtag is ready.

Poems that Speak Out Against Violence and for Embrace - Lisa DeVuono

If the back & arms you carry riddle with black
spots & marks made by birds who don’t want us here—
I will remind you: There are people who did this before us,
brown & black-spotted, yellow, with rattails,
born from what others did not want & loathed & aimed
to never let belong, & so, we are here today—
the field is wide. We make saliva from root & light.
Our spikelets grow, & do you feel the wind?
       - Joe Jiménez, Smutgrass



Orlando. Dhaka. Istanbul. Baghdad. Medina. Nice. The killings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, and the murder of police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge. This summer, terrible bigotry and violence have rent our global community. The killings must end, and we in the poetry community must contribute in any way we can. As we search for answers to these horrors and for ways to combat hatred and prejudice, we are reminded of poetry’s capacity to respond to violence, to help us regenerate, like spikelets sprouting in a contested field, claiming our public spaces for everyone.

In solidarity with all those targeted at home and abroad, from the LGBT community in the United States to devastated families of Baghdad, Split This Rock is offering its blog as a Virtual Open Mic. Over the next couple of weeks, from July 14 to 28, we are requesting poems in response to and against violence toward marginalized communities. After the Virtual Open Mic closes, we hope to print out and mail all of the poems to Congress and the National Rifle Association. 

***
 

A Day In The Life of A Black Man
by Lisa DeVuono

I

He wakes up to his wife’s honey skin
lighter than his own midnight
the smell of their children between
them in bed. There’s a sun spot on the ceiling,
it widens its opening
depending on the deepening of the dawn.
Skin wraps around the tightness in his chest,
a hand on the belly of his loneliness. And he remembers
to breathe in, that life is good.

His children are moving,
a tumbling on the floor, a cry from the crib.
The untangling of a family begins.
His eldest son, now seven
watches him from the top of the toilet seat,
as he shaves back his shadow.
The mirror reminds him of his strength.
He lingers in the truth of this,
moved by the memory of majesty. And he remembers
to breathe in, that life is good.

Over breakfast and the spilling of milk, and tying of shoes,
he manages to play with his daughter, in diapers. He calls his
mother for barbecue on Sunday. The refrigerator is full,
and from his window, he hears the sounds
of his neighborhood. He thinks to mow the lawn,
the neighbor’s cats are drowning in it. And he remembers
to breathe in, that life is good.

II

He is the last to leave the house. His tie straightened,
his hair smooth, he waters the cactus. He checks his wallet,
car registration and driver’s license on top ready for
delivery at a moment’s notice. His paycheck is high enough
but his car is older still. His invisibility returns. And he remembers
to breathe in, that life is good.

III

Before the subway turnstile now, he waits,
missing the first train, better to go through it alone.
The platform is teeming,
he seeks the spot by the last car..
Walking to work, he looks straight.
White woman on up ahead, he crosses the street. And he remembers
to breathe in, that life is good.

IV

At the bank, the line is long and he shifts his largeness,
one foot on the other. He thinks to pass the time, he’ll say
hello to the man in front, the white man in front,
and he moves two steps back, one bus length long. And he remembers
to breathe in, that life is good.

At five pm he thinks to stay to six, not too long past
the rushing hour. There’s a new
security guard down front. He leaves instead
and carries work inside him. And he remembers
to breathe in, that life is good.

VI

He reaches his home, unraveling the daily dirt from
underneath his skin. His children lean into his knees,
his honey haired wife wraps herself
around his upper back.
He slips off invisibility, his large black self returns.

He throws away the traffic ticket,
levied two blocks away, this time. And he remembers
to breathe in, that life is good.

Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Poems that Speak Out Against Violence and for Embrace - Catherine Kyle

If the back & arms you carry riddle with black
spots & marks made by birds who don’t want us here—
I will remind you: There are people who did this before us,
brown & black-spotted, yellow, with rattails,
born from what others did not want & loathed & aimed
to never let belong, & so, we are here today—
the field is wide. We make saliva from root & light.
Our spikelets grow, & do you feel the wind?
       - Joe Jiménez, Smutgrass



Orlando. Dhaka. Istanbul. Baghdad. Medina. Nice. The killings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, and the murder of police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge. This summer, terrible bigotry and violence have rent our global community. The killings must end, and we in the poetry community must contribute in any way we can. As we search for answers to these horrors and for ways to combat hatred and prejudice, we are reminded of poetry’s capacity to respond to violence, to help us regenerate, like spikelets sprouting in a contested field, claiming our public spaces for everyone.

In solidarity with all those targeted at home and abroad, from the LGBT community in the United States to devastated families of Baghdad, Split This Rock is offering its blog as a Virtual Open Mic. Over the next couple of weeks, from July 14 to 28, we are requesting poems in response to and against violence toward marginalized communities. After the Virtual Open Mic closes, we hope to print out and mail all of the poems to Congress and the National Rifle Association.

We are accepting poems through July 28; for more information, read the initial post here.


***


Reckoning
by Catherine Kyle

You pick up your gun to do violence,
malice clenching its five nails into atrium,

into ventricle. Pumping fervent, scarlet
hatred into every vein. You are a network

of violence. A canopy for rage. You move
with heavy feet toward what offends your

eye. However, this is not your day. This
immune response will not have it. You

stumble on a briar. Vines nautilus your leg.
Enormous leaves shuffle down and lift

away your rifle. Its gleam ascends into the
green as if a silver bird. Your face drains

with terror now. A luminous angel approaches.
Its face shifting from man to woman to elder

to child to light. Its face shifting skin and
hair to reflect all those taken. Its face shifting

to reflect those you would seek to take.
The angel approaches on silent feet. And we

are behind it, singing. And we are behind it,
holding hands, singing, Never again.

Poems that Speak Out Against Violence and for Embrace - Gregory Luce

If the back & arms you carry riddle with black
spots & marks made by birds who don’t want us here—
I will remind you: There are people who did this before us,
brown & black-spotted, yellow, with rattails,
born from what others did not want & loathed & aimed
to never let belong, & so, we are here today—
the field is wide. We make saliva from root & light.
Our spikelets grow, & do you feel the wind?
       - Joe Jiménez, Smutgrass



Orlando. Dhaka. Istanbul. Baghdad. Medina. Nice. The killings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, and the murder of police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge. This summer, terrible bigotry and violence have rent our global community. The killings must end, and we in the poetry community must contribute in any way we can. As we search for answers to these horrors and for ways to combat hatred and prejudice, we are reminded of poetry’s capacity to respond to violence, to help us regenerate, like spikelets sprouting in a contested field, claiming our public spaces for everyone.

In solidarity with all those targeted at home and abroad, from the LGBT community in the United States to devastated families of Baghdad, Split This Rock is offering its blog as a Virtual Open Mic. Over the next couple of weeks, from July 14 to 28, we are requesting poems in response to and against violence toward marginalized communities. After the Virtual Open Mic closes, we hope to print out and mail all of the poems to Congress and the National Rifle Association.

We are accepting poems through July 28; for more information, read the initial post here.



***


Prayer to St. Ibuprofen
by Gregory Luce

Spirit in the tiny brown pills:
Dissolve and work fast, I pray.
My head aches, my body aches,
I'm 62, I spent all day on
my bike in the sun, then stood
for an hour in Dupont Circle
praying for the dead in Orlando,
though I'm a Buddhist
and don't actually pray,
I prayed with Muslims, Jews,
Christians, pagans, and who knows
what else, I'm tired and still need
to meditate, the world presses in
even here where I'm finally
alone with the cat.
Thank you blessed anodyne.

Poems that Speak Out Against Violence and for Embrace - Donna Vorreyer

If the back & arms you carry riddle with black
spots & marks made by birds who don’t want us here—
I will remind you: There are people who did this before us,
brown & black-spotted, yellow, with rattails,
born from what others did not want & loathed & aimed
to never let belong, & so, we are here today—
the field is wide. We make saliva from root & light.
Our spikelets grow, & do you feel the wind?
       - Joe Jiménez, Smutgrass



Orlando. Dhaka. Istanbul. Baghdad. Medina. Nice. The killings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, and the murder of police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge. This summer, terrible bigotry and violence have rent our global community. The killings must end, and we in the poetry community must contribute in any way we can. As we search for answers to these horrors and for ways to combat hatred and prejudice, we are reminded of poetry’s capacity to respond to violence, to help us regenerate, like spikelets sprouting in a contested field, claiming our public spaces for everyone.

In solidarity with all those targeted at home and abroad, from the LGBT community in the United States to devastated families of Baghdad, Split This Rock is offering its blog as a Virtual Open Mic. Over the next couple of weeks, from July 14 to 28, we are requesting poems in response to and against violence toward marginalized communities. After the Virtual Open Mic closes, we hope to print out and mail all of the poems to Congress and the National Rifle Association.

We are accepting poems through July 28; for more information, read the initial post here.


***


prayer after the first week of July
by Donna Vorreyer

I huddle in unfounded panic
slam the windows, catching tufts
of bright flowers, flattening them
with the weight of the sill

while the ghost house brims with
those who have lost trials by
existence and generations
wait for the code to switch

I dream a circle of priests--
a hundred collars, a hundred glimpses
of white peeking out from under
black bodies --

help me not to be the collar
help me throw the window wide

Poems that Speak Out Against Violence and for Embrace - Cheryl Snell

If the back & arms you carry riddle with black
spots & marks made by birds who don’t want us here—
I will remind you: There are people who did this before us,
brown & black-spotted, yellow, with rattails,
born from what others did not want & loathed & aimed
to never let belong, & so, we are here today—
the field is wide. We make saliva from root & light.
Our spikelets grow, & do you feel the wind?
       - Joe Jiménez, Smutgrass



Orlando. Dhaka. Istanbul. Baghdad. Medina. Nice. The killings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, and the murder of police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge. This summer, terrible bigotry and violence have rent our global community. The killings must end, and we in the poetry community must contribute in any way we can. As we search for answers to these horrors and for ways to combat hatred and prejudice, we are reminded of poetry’s capacity to respond to violence, to help us regenerate, like spikelets sprouting in a contested field, claiming our public spaces for everyone.

In solidarity with all those targeted at home and abroad, from the LGBT community in the United States to devastated families of Baghdad, Split This Rock is offering its blog as a Virtual Open Mic. Over the next couple of weeks, from July 14 to 28, we are requesting poems in response to and against violence toward marginalized communities. After the Virtual Open Mic closes, we hope to print out and mail all of the poems to Congress and the National Rifle Association.

We are accepting poems through July 28; for more information, read the initial post here.


***


Another Name for Fire
by Cheryl Snell

Mourners fill the church where a boy's broken
mother lights a candle. Its glow ignites,
halting as first steps, radiant as a halo.
The flame stammers above the mother's hands
as she cups heat that will never warm her
again. When sparks fly, they throw shadows
against the walls. They gutter, and the shapes
slump to the floor. The mother tries to call back
the light, to pinch it into being. It's exactly
the wrong thing to do, and the church goes dark,
erasing the ghosts of young men who once
sprawled in the pews, their startled faces lit
in the flicker that just moments before
they hoped they'd never have to see again.

Poems that Speak Out Against Violence and for Embrace - J. Barrett Wolf

If the back & arms you carry riddle with black
spots & marks made by birds who don’t want us here—
I will remind you: There are people who did this before us,
brown & black-spotted, yellow, with rattails,
born from what others did not want & loathed & aimed
to never let belong, & so, we are here today—
the field is wide. We make saliva from root & light.
Our spikelets grow, & do you feel the wind?
       - Joe Jiménez, Smutgrass



Orlando. Dhaka. Istanbul. Baghdad. Medina. Nice. The killings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, and the murder of police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge. This summer, terrible bigotry and violence have rent our global community. The killings must end, and we in the poetry community must contribute in any way we can. As we search for answers to these horrors and for ways to combat hatred and prejudice, we are reminded of poetry’s capacity to respond to violence, to help us regenerate, like spikelets sprouting in a contested field, claiming our public spaces for everyone.

In solidarity with all those targeted at home and abroad, from the LGBT community in the United States to devastated families of Baghdad, Split This Rock is offering its blog as a Virtual Open Mic. Over the next couple of weeks, from July 14 to 28, we are requesting poems in response to and against violence toward marginalized communities. After the Virtual Open Mic closes, we hope to print out and mail all of the poems to Congress and the National Rifle Association.

We are accepting poems through July 28; for more information, read the initial post here.


***


Orlando
by J. Barrett Wolf

We are Orlando.

We are Sandy Hook.
We are Charlie Hebdo.
No.
What we are
is
allowing this to happen.
Again.

Poems that Speak Out Against Violence and for Embrace - Jennifer Maritza McCauley

If the back & arms you carry riddle with black
spots & marks made by birds who don’t want us here—
I will remind you: There are people who did this before us,
brown & black-spotted, yellow, with rattails,
born from what others did not want & loathed & aimed
to never let belong, & so, we are here today—
the field is wide. We make saliva from root & light.
Our spikelets grow, & do you feel the wind?
       - Joe Jiménez, Smutgrass



Orlando. Dhaka. Istanbul. Baghdad. Medina. Nice. The killings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, and the murder of police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge. This summer, terrible bigotry and violence have rent our global community. The killings must end, and we in the poetry community must contribute in any way we can. As we search for answers to these horrors and for ways to combat hatred and prejudice, we are reminded of poetry’s capacity to respond to violence, to help us regenerate, like spikelets sprouting in a contested field, claiming our public spaces for everyone.

In solidarity with all those targeted at home and abroad, from the LGBT community in the United States to devastated families of Baghdad, Split This Rock is offering its blog as a Virtual Open Mic. Over the next couple of weeks, from July 14 to 28, we are requesting poems in response to and against violence toward marginalized communities. After the Virtual Open Mic closes, we hope to print out and mail all of the poems to Congress and the National Rifle Association.

We are accepting poems through July 28; for more information, read the initial post here.



***


Old Blood
by Jennifer Maritza McCauley

Before they tell us how to look
at our kilt brothers' bodies:

Tell them we already know how to see 'em.
Tell them we been mournin' bullet-warmed
blood long before they told us: now this is how
you interpret a death

Tell them we grew up learning how to
Dodgeshouthithurtlovegetquietbloodymove
Tell them we grew up learning how to run.

Tell them we been smearing our brothers'
dark wet stuff on our berry-black cheeks
long before those folks was mewlin' and baby-soft

Tell them our blood belongs
to all of them too.
Tell them to look at our wounds, still
hot and wide-open:

damn it, just
look look look

look