Al Black's Poetry of the People featuring Bo Petersen

Cindi Boiter December 14, 2024

My last Poet of the People for 2024 is Bo Petersen. I have known Bo Petersen for several years, but had never engaged him as a poet until a couple years ago.

Bo is a kind, gentle and quirky (in all the ways quirky can be good) poet who has the gift of making his readers smile and want to become his friend. Hearing Bo read his work is to sit in his living room with a cup of hot chocolate, a plate of Oreos, and sharing the fragile beauty of being alive.

~Al Black

Bo Petersen is aimlessly good on his feet. Published since he was a child, relieving him of having to grow up. (Or if you have to: Wrote the non-fiction Washing Our Hands In The Clouds, Kachi, a book of verse and photography, Fezziwig Press, 2023. Also, Soldiers Stories - a book of vignettes about World War II veterans, published by the Gaston Gazette. Short stories and verse in nearly four dozen journals.)

Aurum

“Know who you are. Know the mystery you celebrate”

burnishing,

burnishing

tongues

ice rill fingers puckered numb, the steel sieve

sun

“he’s his own worst enemy”

a crude pan in a cold hand

burnishing

new blaze

who has sinned so he is blind? neither

is he blind or do we see

all it takes is spit

a little humility

“well, theoretically it’s a good scenario

but there’s a practical impediment”

so i glean

fool’s gold

flecked

insensibility

civilization demands emancipation, demands

or all is intrigue

the grave weight of this given earth frees

into Whose hand we

sieve, despite what we believe spirit agleam a particle stream

shook of space, dust

shining

spirit

is beauty, beauty is

spirit

all we know of earth

imperfect

cultivate

create

love

perfects

or all is just creed

o i’d like to be Learn’d, i guess

adeptly key in a daunting Op-ed

screed a piece out of Poetry to bleed their heads

o i’d learn’d to be like, i guess

all i yearn is beauty,

simply,

beauty

suffices

go on, ask

what it is i dream

in chanting streams, in ulule tongues, ulule

reeds,

i am stealing wings.

as dismissive as these

radiate coals in the cold

i leave

flights of white ibis flashing dawn

egret in pairs lifting in shine

from a shook pan in mist freeze

(who died waiting sale)

gone, gone, no mournful white

joy

8,000

souls unslaved

off Gadsden’s pitch dock

to the salt harbor

splayed

blanched bones scraping hissing sands

with no grave

- for the IAAM, Charleston

Nativity

ignorant would it be to whisper

Lord

we’ve blasted past

the purpled robes, the mock angelic

thinlit candle in the cold sepulchre

of our souls

light years

we are weaned

past pretense

past dwarf planets

swelled of gravid moons

out the far womb of what we now know

pulses

I tell you

yet

push

not in the patinas you don’t see

the blood, the spew

bowels

the dread in the eye of the man who had been told

there is nothing like this

to be

the strangely agape sheepherders

the magical jangles

of robed wanderers of stars

nothing, he must have thought, nothing

like this

you could conceive

(the point)

poetry,

the point is,

where

metaphor becomes parable

song,

sense.

Poetry of the People featuring Elizabeth Leverton

Cindi Boiter December 8, 2024

This week's Poet of the People is Elizabeth Leverton. I first met Elizabeth several years prior to COVID where she was a frequent attendee at music venues I also frequented. As COVID restrictions were lessening we met again and she was in the process of having her first book of poetry published. She can now be found at poetry venues and readings in Columbia and around the state of South Carolina.

Elizabeth is a multi-talented creative and is an insightful poet.

~Al Black

Elizabeth Leverton is a poet, an acrylics painter, an amateur musician, and a sewist of functional art. An academic writer and editor, she earned a BA in English Lit and an MA in English: Writing and Editing at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Elizabeth has been writing poetry for 35 years. Her first book of poetry, Peace, Rhododendron (2023), was published by Mind Harvest Press in Columbia, SC. A more recent, home-printed chapbook regarding the complexities of love and grief, called A Mad Dash to Tell You, circulated in 2024. Elizabeth lives in Columbia with two part-Siamese sister cats, Silo and Weaver, who are patiently welcoming their new sister, a five-year-old Shepherd mix named Crush, into the family.

Generations, Words of Love, and a Turtle Called Myrtle

1. A two-storey, five-bedroom ranch house, at the top of a driveway.

Two women sit in the dimly lit dining room.

One of them is blind.

The other reads aloud the love letters of the blind woman’s World War II romance.

2. The pen-pals, Shorty and Rose, will marry and raise six children.

Years prior to retirement from 5K-teaching, Rose will take a fish aquarium, formerly housing one

male Betta fish (deceased),

& deck it out with rocks and a lamp, dirt, green plants, and muddy water.

No bigger at first than a handful of nickels clutched in a child’s hand—

A baby turtle called Myrtle will sunbathe there, and swim; dig at the sand; and eat leafy greens,

earthworms, feeder fish, & snails.

Myrtle and Rose will age together toward retirement: both dreaming of bigger worlds.

One June day, Rose will drive away from school for the last time, breathe in the summer air,

lurch up the driveway in her paneled station wagon, park, and carry Myrtle in a cozy box to a

nearby pond.

“Whelp,” Rose will say, surprised by tears: “goodbye, my sweet old friend.”

3. Ten years later, Shorty and Rose’s youngest son, Dale, meets a Sadie Hawkins who asks him out to

see a jazz band.

Mississippi born Rose finds Sadie forward, lacking dignity,

but slowly warms to their friendship.

Within a year, Sadie will sit with Rose in the dining room… and read Shorty’s letters to

her.

Sadie will observe the couples’ proper greetings, colloquialisms, tendernesses.

She will think of Shorty’s mission overseas, and about Rose, with her head tucked in Chemistry books,

working in a laboratory, waiting.

Sadie will think of Dale, Little smiling boy—Little towheaded boy,

growing up with his folks’ love letters

tucked away somewhere in a drawer.

4. At night by firelight Dale tells Sadie stories about Shorty and Rose.

Sadie listens half-distracted with Dale’s deep-set eyes, inscribing one takeaway in her imagination:

Rose, left without children at holidays, sinking to the floor, breaking bones in protest.

One time, a femur. Her left wrist. New knees. And now her hip.

Her new wheelchair creates two needs: Dale builds a ramp to the door, and Sadie becomes Rose’s

caregiver.

The bed where Sadie sleeps at Rose’s house is in a warm, wood-paneled room

with a brick-stacked fourth wall, in the basement of this ‘ranch house on a ranch house,’

as Dale describes it. The home is Rose’s Dream House.

Shorty was the dream who made sure it happened.

5. One morning Sadie wakes to scratching at the windowsill, ground level above her head.

When she investigates, she finds a turtle rustling in the leaves and grass, digging in the sandy

soil.

“Oh, haven’t I told you?” Rose asks,

“That’s Myrtle, come to lay her eggs. She always comes home.”

6. Another year, some snow, & Rose is now dreaming visions of choirs singing to her from the yard in the

freezing night; while

Alzheimer’s sinks into her mind, a slow-setting sun. Rose begins, gently at first, to walk back through

memories,

with soon-urgent concern that the gate to her childhood farm has been left open,

and Bessie the Cow is roaming the streets again. This, while Rose is out of feed, and the

chickens are ruffled.

Months later, Rose will stop remembering conversations and start truncating the names of favorite

things…

She will laugh at, not with; and insist on wheelchair adventures into the yard in search of

Bessie and the chickens.

Rose will forget things, but Myrtle will remember,

traveling through half-awakened blades of winter grass that beautifully light the morning with dew.

Myrtle will make her way deliberately, from the small, muddy pond, lurching back up the hill

to the sandy flower bed.

“Didn’t I ever tell you?” Rose will ask again.

“Yes, it’s Myrtle,” Sadie will repeat quietly.

“She returns every year,” adds Rose.

7. The Alzheimer’s Days tick heavily on, while

Rose eats less, and moves less, finally succumbing to time and her illness.

There is always Memory, though,

now yours:

of Bessie the Cow, the open gate, the hens that need feeding—

and the great returns:

of Myrtle the Turtle.

___________________________________________

Stars Fall, Sand Falls: A Shout-Out to God

1. A reader who appreciates slowness,

nature, and starry nights.

Cool temperatures, sunshine,

and animals.

Always a seeker, more interested in observing,

in becoming, in growth—that inner work,

more urgent than a need.

Not trying to sway the opinions or dreams of others.

A survivor of aggression, sternness, and criticism—

carefree reactions will irritate Judges.

Carefree reactions might cause or be caused by tuning out,

an absentmindedness.

Still,

a love for equality—a basic, buck-stopping humanity, an arrogant compassion—is carved into

that blank slate.

2. Darkness appears before the turning of the hourglass,

then light in that darkness: falling bits, sand,

shadows of memory pass like ghosts across attic floors.

Philosophies are different hats, new clothes, loved-to-bits mantras.

No scaffolding of beliefs around the mind-house: but a seat at the buffet of wisdom.

& Mindful, when possible.

Physically far away from the past. There is more freedom to make decisions;

and less aggression to contrast them against, too.

“I’m never going to be…” must stretch; must grow; must become.

3. Years later, even a lunch menu becomes heavy when one is frantic for an answer.

But there is visual art, and it feels breezy

to love Van Gogh’s “Starry Night,” or Picasso’s “Paul in a Clown Suit”—with pencil-mark

leftovers— feeding generations delight.

Every brushstroke is exemplar play. Carl Jung proved it to heal trauma.

4. Philosophy, an arrogant parent, through winters of confusion,

questions intentions, demands accountability, and posits preferences.

What church trusts intentions?—Nature.

Gather

where green is… same, browns and blues…

Clouds drift and neighbor each other in shapes of dog, rabbit, heart, tree.

The answers are the answer:

5. “Love,”

comfort, Love—

freeing, Love.

Love is humanity’s shout-out to God.

_________________________________________

Lone Girl versus the Darkness

1. I have stood terrified for a lifetime

of you.

I have worst-case scenario’d

my way through books and books

without light;

have hidden my heart from you;

have sat on that fence with cowgirl legs so you would think

I do not take sides.

Now I see you face to face—

& there is comfort in knowing

how small you really are.

You

are finite,

for hearts of darkness

never grow.

2. I have patched the holes in these jeans

worn threadbare on

barbed wire—

& I am riding now aside

into the sunrise in my mind

that you cannot draw from,

that you cannot dim,

that you cannot envelope

with sinister clouds,

& I do not care

anymore

of the fancy tricks

that you will try, because

being terrified is

behind me now.

___________________________________________

Car Radio, Fourth Amendment

Chronologically before the terror-

filled memories I cannot repeat are

filed the inside jokes from the Holy Spirit.

I have sat across from wide-eyed friends on cat-torn sofas, tapping cigarette ashes into ashtrays, telling unbelievable tales. My 30s was a dark decade, to mid 40s, dark years; much hidden, much unable to be revealed. (It would break both of our hearts.)

Up to the Grande diagnosis of 1990, I have not much recall, until wrecked thin by frustration,

I began to conquer Memory Failure via Mathematics.

The beautiful Geometry: Of music. Of art (and lack of art).

At five years old, I received a clock radio for Christmas, and looking back, I date memories according to songs I waited up for on the radio—at six, Barry Manilow’s “Copacabana (At the Copa).” By 1979, I stayed up watching the slightly glowing numbers flip on the clock

until the radio edit of Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall” played, a song that validated my boredom as a “mediocre” learner.

In fact I have longed to be mediocre,

somewhere in the middle,

Not at one extreme, the other:

I stayed inside for teachers’ coffee breaks, not for coffee;

and got into fights (however, tho,

I never meant for my friend Ursey to knock her chin on a rock when we were roughing each other up:

I was really a bumbling peacemaker

in the wrong place at the wrong time.) Still today,

I write mental apologies to Ursey, & bless her chin;

and to the

boy whose deltoid muscle I administered a sharp-pencil shot to in second-grade math class

after he called me stupid.

Otherwise nonviolent, my school antics and questionable midterm evaluations were for the most

due to being overly chatty with friends (something I have come to call my enthusiasm—for stories must

stretch).

Aside from Ursey’s bumps, and a potentially lingering grey polka-dot

on the math genius’s arm, I escaped trouble throughout my school years due 100%

to a very

awkward

shyness

in public.

& so,

I desired,

to be never mentioned in my ninth-grade English teacher’s spontaneous roll calls

that

he might direct at anyone; asking the loud, the late, and the unlucky

from the front of a room filled with laughter…

“Do you have something you would like to share with everyone, Poopsie?”

His thick rims, thick glasses. His gray curly hair. The softness of his humor.

Poetry of the People with featuring Richard Garcia

Cindi Boiter December 1, 2024

This week's Poet of the People is Richard Garcia. Richard Garcia is one of the stalwarts of poetry in the low country of South Carolina. I knew of him long before I knew him. He is a wonderful advocate and mentor for other poets as well as a wonderful award winning poet in his own right.. I encourage you to buy his books and attend any of his readings in your area - he will not disappoint.

~Al Black

Richard Garcia's poetry books include The Other Odyssey, Dream Horse Press, 2014, The Chair, BOA 2015, and Porridge, Press 53, 2016. He has received a Pushcart Prize, and been in Best American Poetry.

Then

A knock on the front door,

but no one is knocking.

My mother is upstairs again

threatening to jump out the window.

And there is my best friend Tito.

The swish-swish of metal roller-skates.

Father Harris from All Saints Episcopal Church

crosses the street holding my book

with two hands as if it were heavy.

He wants an inscription, something clever,

for his future granddaughter—should I tell him

that my book has not been written yet,

that he is dead now, and I am dead now,

that my mother's house

and All Saints Episcopal Church have taken wing

like two swans made of smoke,

swans that I might have imagined?

But that was now and this is then.

Tito says, Let's go back to Buena Vista Park,

let's go cardboard-sliding down the musical sand dunes.

•

American Gothic

My grandfather was the captain of a tall ship that sailed around the horn bearing rum and whiskey and always, just for me, a barrel of rock hard candy from the isle of Madagascar. My grandfather told me stories that made me dream of pirates, nice pirates that never hurt anyone. My grandfather waved goodbye to my grandmother as his ship sailed away with the tide. My grandmother and I waited for the sails of Grandfather's ship to reappear on the horizon. Tell me again, Grandma, What was the name of Grandpa's ship. It was called, she reminded me, The Constellation of Falsehoods. OK, I lied. I never knew my grandfather or my grandmother but I recall their picture on the wall. They appeared to be sad farmers. He was holding a pitchfork. She looked like she had just swallowed a large sour ball.

•

Message from Garcia

My brother was the rain.

He was also the sun.

My brother was a sun shower.

We used to sleep in the flames

of the gas fireplace when it was turned on.

but, since my brother was the rain,

the fire never harmed us.

My brother sang to make the moon come out.

He read to me from the pages of sand dunes.

Sad stories, always, sad stories.

Back in the olden days, television

was not invented yet.

We would cut a hole in a box and stare at it.

My brother was the first Mexican-American

basketball star. San Francisco

News Call-Bulletin—Headline:

message from Garcia:

He breaks the record for points in a game.

Next game, double, triple guards on Garcia.

Me, I was an expert at dying.

I would clutch my chest and slowly spin

to the sidewalk. I would lie there

for a long time, twitching spasmodically.

The players from the other teams

complained about my brother.

That Mexican, they said,

he slips through us like rain.

•

Freedom

You are sitting up in bed reading a detective novel. Your eyes are open but you are asleep thinking you are awake. In this novel you are at Roosevelt Middle School with your girlfriend at your first sock hop. You have never been to a sock hop, and don't know how to do the bop, the dance the white kids are doing. So you do the steps taught to you by your Black friend, Felton, although at that time he was a Negro. The dance he taught you was called the Texas Hop. Soon all the white kids in the gym are dancing the Texas Hop. But your mind is flowing backwards. It's the case you are working on: The Case of the Missing Tar Baby and the Pillsbury Doughboy. Where they stolen, lynched, or did they run away together? The Tar Baby and the Pillsbury Doughboy have escaped from a chain gang. They have built a raft and are drifting down the Mississippi river toward freedom.

•

Jasper's Poetry of the People Featuring Brittany Jones

Cindi Boiter November 23, 2024

This week's Poet of the People is Brittany Jones. Brittany has been writing poetry for quite some time and has recently started performing spoken word. Spoken word has expanded her depth and reach as an artist. Her recent performance at Mind Gravy was a well accepted success and we look forward to her future on the spoken word and poetry scene.
~Al Black
Brittany Jones, also known as Shai (pronounced “shy”) Moonlight is a Columbia based poet, host and artivist. After over two decades as a strictly page poet, Brittany began performing spoken word in March 2024. Now a member of the Poetree Family and New Danger, she works as a healthcare professional by day and is the mother of three amazingly unique kids. She feels her purpose in poetry is to be an ever-changing and ever-present light.
_______
Momentary Distraction
There
Is extra femininity in my stride
When I walk by
A HARD working
Black man
It is instinctual
I see him and feel my posture correct
Subconsciously straighten stray locs
Anticipating potential admiration
He may not be my type
And I don’t have to be his
But maybe
He’ll be drawn to my melanin
Or my proportions
BUT…if I am his type
I want him to enjoy watching my hips sway freely
The see the subtle jingle and bounce that naturally reverberate with each step
And, I don’t need to see him
Watch me walk by to know that he might
So I
With my head held high
Nod, smile
Find something to compliment
“Have a blessed day, handsome!”
And go on about my business
And him to his
I hope you appreciate
This momentary distraction
As much as I
_____
Jahzara Nicole
On April 8th, 2007
The prettiest little girl we laid on my chest
I had seen her big brown eyes in my mind
Before I knew she was in my womb
And at that moment
I chose to mother her
Despite offers and ours
I
Chose
Raising her to be who she was called to be
Over the potential of what my life could have been
Mind you — I was a child
Just 6 months into adulthood
More years then I could imagine away from womanhood
Yet thrust
By my own hand
Into motherhood
At least two statistics
Teen & Single
Now
Throw in “Black”
And the fact that her father would die before knowing that she would be born
So I named her in an effort to combat all of that
‘Jahzara’
It is Ethiopian for ‘blessed princess’
Because despite my immaturity
Or his non existence
She would be
Blessed
My Ace is now 17
Less than one year from my age I was when
She was conceived
And she
Had grown to be
My very best friend
The first person to know me through and through
She’s
The reason I can never give up
Beautiful in heart, mind and spirit
She has my face…
Copy. Paste.
She is
The coolest chick with
Signs if my personality
Like interests discovered daily
The best big sister
More like the “little mama”
And every time I look at her
I see those
Big, brown eyes
I’d seen in my mind
Before I knew she was…..
_____
Now. Then. Again.
Every now & then
My mind runs so fast
I almost lose it
In fact
I have a time or 2
But
Grace & mercy allowed me to catch up
I am
Educated, medicated, therapized
And still
I’ve found myself sinking
Again?!
Longing for non-existence
Teetering the fine line between coping and addiction
Why won’t this thing loose me!?
After all the alter calls…
I’m still finding more peace in alcohol
and I’m tired
Butttttt
My therapist says she’s proud of me
That I’ve made so much progress
And I agree…
Today
But what about tomorrow??
When my chemicals get to “imbalancing” again
When
Focusing on
Mindfulness, gratitude and moon phases
Make no changes
And all I can do is……
Ruminate on
What could have been
And what should have been
Or what would have been
Seemingly, blind to my blessings
Just Praying
“God please, let me make it through this feeling…
Again…”

Poetry of the People featuring Lisa

Cindi Boiter November 7, 2024

This week’s poet of the people is Lisa McVety-Johnson, a gentle soul, who I first met at an exhibition of her husband's artwork. It was a while before I became aware that she was finding her voice through poetry at the 2021 release of Fall Lines. Her work is kind, understated and revealing. I look forward to her continued blossoming and coming into her own as a poet.

Al Black

Lisa Johnson-McVety is a non-fiction writer whose work was previously only heard by college professors, or friends and family at funerals. Born to a southern patriarchal family, her work focuses on the transformative healing from traumatic events in her life and is dedicated to those before her who had no voice. In 2018, at the age of 49, during lunch breaks and evenings after work, Lisa graduated from the University of South Carolina with honors earning a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Creative Writing. Lisa was awarded her first publication in 2021 Fall Lines, where you may read her poem, Sad Feet. Lisa’s poem, It’s 4 a.m., was awarded publication in The South Carolina Bards Poetry Anthology 2023.

In my fall

The leaves crunch

beneath

my feet

and yet remain,

only changed

in form.

This season brings

a shedding,

a new stage,

and with it, new buds form

on the landscape

of my page.

I choose my response

to both the blooms

and the blight.

I’m a work in progress

an eternal dreamer

a student of this life.

Earth Angel

I was living with no clue

until I saw him for the first time

through new eyes,

the cataracts of my past removed.

Hardened tree limbs

for arms and legs

that engulf and protect

my wilting self.

I soar so very high

knowing not what the future brings.

He holds my cares, my cries

in the comfort of his wings.

I find relief in him

from the heat of the flames

for in his cool breeze

I live again.

I allow myself to float.

Expansive sky above

sun on my shoulders

safe in the sea of his love.

Shhhh

I am the devil

I am man himself

I am father

His words echo in my head

as his hand presses my face

deep into the bed

my jaws wrenched

out of place.

He always screamed “hush!”

He’s still trying to quiet me

He’s dead

The Box

The year 2028.

Abortion, firmly in our past.

No more bi-partisan hate.

New policy on the scene.

New government to intervene.

Email provides a link

to our portal.

Your fate sealed

as your date of birth will reveal.

If male, press the circle.

Minimally invasive,

it touts to be of great appeal.

A quick nip and tuck

no need for drugs.

Just a slice at birth, and home to heal.

And so, ends

the divisiveness

of this quarrel.

History books speak of

our barbaric acts,

how our young society suffered.

Don’t worry about these cracks.

For under our reign, we shall recover.

No more unwanted births.

The burden no longer on her.

Absolution founded by a mother.

Apply inside once notified

we deem you worthy to give life to another.

Thank god for a woman

I think God is a woman

Don’t worry. Whether you like it or not, we’ll protect you.

Join the Jasper Project and SCAA for a Reading and Launch Celebration of Southern Voices – Fifty Contemporary Poets Edited by Tom Mack and Andrew Geyer

Cindi Boiter November 6, 2024

By Cindi Boiter

Poetry and place come together beautifully in Tom Mack and Andrew Geyer’s (editors) new book, Southern Voices – Fifty Contemporary Poets (Lamar University Press) Which launched on October 1st on the campus of University of SC at Aiken, where Mack is a distinguished professor emeritus and Geyer serves as chair of the English Department. The two previously worked together editing the fiction anthology, A Shared Voice: A Tapestry of Tales (Lamar University Press, 2013), and have joined forces once again to bring us a new and intriguing look at contemporary poetry from the South.

“Because of the overwhelming success of that collection of paired tales, the folks at Lamar University Literary Press wondered if we could put together an equally attractive book of poems,” Mack says. Mack also edited Dancing on Barbed Wire (Angelina River Press, 2018) which Geyer co-wrote with Terry Dalrymple and Jerry Craven. “We knew from the outset of the multi-year project that we wanted to cover the whole South from Virginia to Texas, from Arkansas to Florida; and we thought that 50 would be the minimum number of poets (4-6 poems by each) that we would need to do justice to the complex geography and culture of this distinctive region of the country.”

South Carolina poetry aficionados will not be surprised by the list of distinguished contributors to Southern Voices, among them Jasper’s own poetry editor and inaugural Columbia city poet laureate, Ed Madden, along with Libby Bernadin, Marcus Amaker, Ron Rash, Glennis Redmond, and forty-five equally accomplished poets from across the region.

“Once we decided on how many poets to include in the book,” Mack says, “we divided the South in half. Because I had edited the South Carolina Encyclopedia Guide to South Carolina Writers (USC Press) and managed the USC Aiken writers’ series for over a decade, I volunteered to invite 25 poets from the Atlantic coast, the part of the South I know best. Drew (Geyer), a native of Texas and a member of the Texas Institute of Letters, focused on Southern states from Alabama to west of the Mississippi.”

The theme of “place” features prominently in this collection, Mack says. “It thus made sense to invite as many state and local poets laureate as possible since those individuals had already been selected by governmental entities to represent a particular locale. All of the Southern states have state poets laureate; and some states, such as South Carolina, have poets laureate who have been selected to represent cities and towns. Columbia, Charleston, Greenville, and Rock Hill, for example, have municipal poets laureate. Thus, we were expecting that most of the poems submitted by each invited poet would focus on place: physical, emotional, spiritual, or psychological. We were not disappointed.”

But the co-editors recognized early on that the representation of contemporary Southern poets looks increasingly different than in decades past, as it should. “From the very beginning of the process, we wanted to put together a book that reflected the changing demographics of the region, its growing diversity and burgeoning equality of opportunity. Thus, in choosing our invitees, we kept gender, ethnicity, and sexual orientation in mind,” Geyer says.

In his introduction to the volume Mack writes, “Perhaps no other region of this vast country is haunted more by the past. In the case of the American South, heavy lie the legacy of slavery and the specter of the Civil War. … Yet, the winds of change can be felt throughout the American South, due in large part to both a generational and demographic shift—the region is consistently being enriched by transplants from other parts of the country and other nations of the world.”

“This Southern Voices collection is a testament to how far we’ve come,” Geyer agrees. “The poets in this anthology are Black and white and brown, straight and LGBTQ+, native Southerners and northern transplants—a mélange of artists from across the Greater South most of whom have served as the poets laureate of their states and/or local communities. These are the poets whose work everyday folks living in the South chose to represent them. The diversity of voices that you’ll find in this incredible volume is reflective of the people who make the place what it is.”

Launch celebrations and readings for Southern Voices are scheduled throughout the state. The public is invited to attend the Columbia event, sponsored in part by the Jasper Project and the South Carolina Academy of Authors, from 6 to 8 pm on November 14th at All Good Books in Five Points. Poets scheduled to read from the collection include Ed Madden, Glenis Redmond, Libby Bernardin, and Ellen Hyatt.

A version of this article appeared in the Fall 2024 issue of Jasper Magazine - Available now throughout Columbia

Poetry of the People featuring Cynthia Francis

Cindi Boiter November 1, 2024

This week's Poet of the People is Cynthia Francis.

I met Cynthia through poet, Jane Zenger. She is a newly retired educator busy finding her voice through poetry. There is no ambiguity or trying to decide what she means; her poetry is refreshingly direct and unapologetically to the point. Zealous to hone her craft, she can be found actively participating in poetry readings and workshops. I look forward to her future involvement and development in our poetry community.

Al Black

Cynthia Francis began her teaching career at the Fort Jackson Schools 39 years
ago. She started as a second-grade teacher, then moved to pre-kindergarten, and
ended her career teaching kindergarten. She served on several committees and
organizations during her professional career. Chairperson for Professional
Development Schools with the University of South Carolina. Chairperson of the School
Improvement Council/Committee, President of the Fort Jackson Association of
Educators, Chairperson/Organizer of Multicultural Project at Pinckney Elementary
School. Member of Who’s Who, and Former President of SCECA(South Carolina Early
Childhood Association). She has recently supervised interns for the USC College of
Education.

Redone

Stop living in the shadow of memories,
plucking out pieces of sentiment
capturing thoughts and triggering emotions.
Stop dwelling in the spirit
relevant to feelings.
Life doesn’t come with guarantees.
You’re just a being
needing to make a stance.
Sometimes, you have to take a chance.
Just listen to the quiet!
It’s like the world stops
at the end of the day.
You, in your space,
moving towards a place.

____

Love Finds You

Love finds you when you’re never looking.
It sees you from the inside.
Things unseen,
no one watches for
through the quietness
which tells it all.
Listen carefully to unspoken words,
it lets you know the strength
and fortitude of your worth.
Love finds you when you’re never looking.
Connects the wrong,
yet, gives the sense you belong.
Half the duo, silent and strong.
A heart-filled love, free from loneliness
someone who shares, no more emptiness.
A life that cares, no broken promises.
Love’s a sanctuary gathers forth
a restless spirit from within
and brings peace which smoothly transcends.
Love finds you when you’re never looking.
It sees you from the inside,
a subtle moment catches like fireworks
then later subsides.
Love is everlasting, never-ending.
It ebbs and flows until time ends.
Love finds you.
It sees you from the inside
when you’re never looking.

____

Life

Life is a full circle.
Each day brings opportunities to learn,
grow from the past.
Memories are not to be ghosted,
put in jars, placed on shelves,
become forgotten, only to reinvent themselves
in the future as unwanted guests.
Life itself does not have an expiration date.
The idea of living holds tremendous weight.
Stand up, hold tight
living is not quite dead yet.
There’s still light.
With living comes discomfort, mess, discord, stress.
It also reminds you of those hard times
that leads to your best moments.
Life can express itself in the shadows of comfort
while pulling to the present those feel-good pleasures of self
connected to others in memories.
Joys shared, actions delivered, show we care,
relaxed in the company kept.
Life is a full circle,
but we allow it to slip away.
We give time the upper hand.
One side of the hourglass is full of sand.
We can’t recover, can’t reuse.
can only make new the time we have now,
so, let’s use until it’s gone.

____

Too Much

They moved shows from the stage
brought raggedy selves in our faces.
Tails throbbing, hips bobbing,
words flirting, asses twerking.
Someone shouting, “Back it up, gal!”
Everyone’s talking nonsense.
All done in constant pursuit
to screw consumers
of their dollars and cents.
Fill their drawers with lingerie,
bribe young girls to cover their lips
with filthy named gloss
cosmetic stores won’t sell.
Put your name out there, show who’s the boss.
Your name on the latest perfume,
that’s how you can sell it.
Nothing soothes the soul like being told you’re at the top.
At some point, this bullshit has to stop!

Poetry of the People Featuring Lisa Spears

Cindi Boiter October 18, 2024

This week's Poet of the People is Lisa Spears. I first met Lisa at Aiken County Library for Art of Words. Her poetry blew me away. Since then, she has featured at Mind Gravy and I have heard her read in Charleston; I am hungry for more.

She teaches English to marginalized high school students in Charleston; her book, Releasing Birds, is must read material for those who have triumphed over the trauma of living - "At first, it felt sinful"

-Al Black

Lisa Spears is a poet who resides in Charleston, SC. Her debut book, Releasing Birds came out earlier this year. It is written in memoir fashion–giving a personal testimony to her journey and healing from traumatic experiences. Often images from her work are stark, yet painfully beautiful. Spears moved to Charleston from the Midwest to follow her dream of writing while living by the ocean. She also teaches high school English to students experiencing trauma. She can be reached at Follypoet63@gmail.com

Hope to the Brim

When grief for the world assails me,

and words avail me none,

and rockets rain in succession in day blind wars

and the amputee and the orphans cry

and a lone woman pushes the grocery cart filled with a home,

and there’s a bad accident on I-78

and an Aunt Ida is ill,

and the family cat ran away,

And all hope is at the bottom of the barrel,

I must cleave hope to remain

steadfast and standing

in my heart’s recall for,

Somewhere a baker is whistling to the day’s fresh start,

and geese are flying south,

and a boy is rejoicing to ride a two wheel bike,

and a sliver of light passes through the curtain,

and a toddler dances with a kite and they are twirling,

and seagulls frame the beach

and a grandpa baits the hook,

and sheets dry on the line,

and a child makes a wish with a dandelion flower,

and a niece is in remission,

and fall leaves keep falling,

and wild horses run so free,

and Morning Glories frame a white front porch,

and church bells ring come Sunday morn’,

and the people thereof keep on singing

And they keep singing,

I keep singing,

we keep singing,

until we know the words again,

filling hope to the brim,

And the cat came home.

Somewhere, the cat is home.

“ Adverbial Pause”

Another boy was murdered by another boy

today, I got the news

when the principal calls

at six p.m.

on a Saturday

it’s never good at my school.

Where they share lunch

and high fives and still love

when I bring candy.

Now, I can’t teach them about adverbs

how splendidly, gleefully, beautiful

it could have been

to turn sixteen.

“The Crossing (Yam Suph & Almamanu)”

Jewish and Arabic translation

Deir-al-Balah used to glitter by the sea

there among palms

families sang songs

a fisherman could hear

upon the water

Today, for a son

the house a hollow tomb

to hold his Um (mother)

The boy will go now

on the far side of land

to find Ab (father)

at the line drawn in the sand

Following the rockets by night

a myriad of faces

eclipse in shuttered flame

A piece of bread

for a child

with no name

Slipping past soldiers

towering like false gods

At dawn he runs

to the great divide.

There a girl is weeping

for a bright, blue dress

Bobbe (grandmother) she cries

Beyond the expanse

there is no sky

He reaches her hand

across the world

of every side

Herein lies a Holy Land.

Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month by Supporting Local Hispanic and Latino/a Creators by Christina Xan

Cindi Boiter October 9, 2024

National Hispanic Heritage Month runs from September 15 – October 15 and highlights and celebrates Hispanic and Latino heritage and identity in the United States. Hispanic (those from Spanish-speaking countries) and Latin (those from Latin America) culture is rife with history that enriches the communities we dwell in. Columbia is one of these diverse spaces, and the art that emerges from this city, specifically, is inundated with a multitude of cultural perspectives. This Hispanic Heritage Month, Jasper encourages all patrons to seek out multidisciplinary art from Hispanic and Latino/a artists and to explore how the creators’ backgrounds affect their work. Don’t know where to start? Jasper talked with six Columbia-based artists about how their cultural identity affects their creative process. Learn about them and their work below.

Daniel Esquivia Zapata – Visual Artist

Describe the kind of art you make.

Daniel’s work explores ideas about historical memory, official historical narratives, and what he terms the politics of remembering. He does this through life-size figurative drawings that combine historical texts, the human body, plants, and animals to generate strong spaces that work as poetic imagery, probing the dynamics of narratives in history and historical memory. This represents an exercise not only of why and what, but also of how we remember, especially in societies with conflicting narratives, obfuscated historical memories, and legacies of colonialism. He uses a combination of traditional figure drawing techniques, liquid charcoal and fragmented print and hand-written texts to draw on several layers of mylar, creating life size drawings that combine representations of the human body, plants, and animals to create news bodies that work as metaphors for political bodies intersected by history, newspaper articles and archives. With these drawings Daniel seeks to unveil the "place of memory" within our bodies amid intersecting discourses, making tangible the essence of our collective past and present. His work has driven him to create images that replace the common container metaphor of memory with one that understands memory as something dynamic and interconnected; something alive, inhabited by ideas, narratives, and discourses that live, age, die (or are killed); something like an ecosystem of memories and narratives, and ecosystem that is inhabited by beings of texts.

Describe the role your cultural identity has in your work.

In Daniel's life, a multiplicity of narratives and multinational experiences has made him think deeply about the dynamics of discourse and narratives in our societies, especially as an Afro-Latino in the Americas. For Daniel, the intersection of different identities has profoundly influenced his work. His experiences as the son of a human rights lawyer and a social worker in a multiethnic and multiracial family in Colombia; as a victim of forced displacement from his hometown in 1989; as an Afro-Colombian who studied at a HBCU in the US South [Benedict College]; and as a citizen living in Colombia and grappling with the legacies and present realities of its civil war; these experiences have all presented points of encounter with the forces of history’s multiple faces—unofficial, alternative, contested, surviving—that build and situate someone’s identity.

Alejandro García-Lemos – Visual Artist

Describe the kind of art you make.

Alejandro García-Lemos is a visual artist based in Columbia, South Carolina and New Orleans, Louisiana. He holds a MA in Latin American Studies from Florida International University in Miami, and a BA in Graphic Design from the School of Arts at the National University in Bogotá, Colombia. His work focuses on social issues, mostly on aspects of immigration, sexuality, biculturalism, religion, and community. His works have been shown mostly in the Southeast. Alejandro is a former member of the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture (NALAC), as well as the founder of Palmetto & LUNA, a non-profit organization promoting Latino Arts and Cultures in South Carolina since 2007. Lately his work has been shown in Colombia.

Describe the role your cultural identity has in your work.

For this particular question I had to look up the exact definition of cultural identity … Cultural identity is a part of a person's identity, or their self-conception and self-perception, and is related to nationality, ethnicity, religion, social class, generation, locality, gender, or any kind of social group that has its own distinct culture. Therefore my cultural identity is omnipresent in my work, as I had mentioned many times before, I am three times a minority, I am Latinx, gay, and immigrant, how could you avoid those aspects as an intrinsic part of all your art?

Emily Moffitt – Visual Artist

Describe the kind of art you make.

The type of art I create boils down to what I have the most fun with. I'm still trying to make my way in and have my foot in the door of the Columbia art scene! Like most Gen Z artists, I got into art from a young age via immense media consumption: video games, anime, cartoons, comics, and the list continues. As a result, the kind of work I create typically falls under the "illustration" category. I go back and forth between illustration and fine art, and sometimes I still think the distinction shouldn't even matter! As a recent college graduate who has now experienced the adulthood rite of passage that is working a 9-5 while still having time for hobbies, as long as I take even 10 minutes of my day to get my hands moving and draw something in my sketchbook, it's a successful day for me.

Describe the role your cultural identity has in your work.

The "fine art" I created started with a body of work that explored my heritage and connected to it more after my grandmother passed away in 2021, and I aim to continue it either by maintaining the "dreamscape" title or by starting a new collection. My goal in the fine art world is to create a body of work that I'm constantly thinking about, called "My Mother's Kitchen," since the closest ties I have to my Puerto Rican heritage stem from cuisine, my relationship with my mom, and the amount of time I spent growing up in and around the kitchen watching my mother make the recipes she grew up making with my grandmother. At this point, it's just a matter of me finding the time, and holding myself accountable, that's preventing me from following through! I do find that my mixed heritage sometimes feels like an obstacle when I do work, however, and that's an internalized hurdle I try to overcome when I create, too. Taíno symbology persists throughout my heritage-based work, and I wanted to also focus on the importance of my relationships with my mom and sister. My Puerto Rican heritage has been driven and shaped only by women in my life, and I wanted to pay homage to that, especially since my sister and I feel the same internalized obstacle of sometimes feeling "not Latina enough."

Claire Jiménez – Author

Describe the kind of art you make.

Claire Jiménez is a Puerto Rican writer who grew up in Brooklyn and Staten Island, New York. She is the author of the short story collection Staten Island Stories (Johns Hopkins Press, 2019) and What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez (Grand Central, 2023). She received her M.F.A. from Vanderbilt University and her PhD in English with specializations in Ethnic Studies and Digital Humanities from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. In 2019, she co-founded the Puerto Rican Literature Project, a digital archive documenting the lives and work of hundreds of Puerto Rican writers from over the last century. Currently, she is an Assistant Professor of English and African American Studies at the University of South Carolina.

Describe the role your cultural identity has in your work.

My writing is very much influenced by the work of past Puerto Rican writers, especially the Nuyorican poets. I am thinking of Pedro Pietri's "The Puerto Rican Obituary" and the work of Judith Ortiz Cofer. I remember reading Silent Dancing and "The Story of My Body" for the first time as a young person, who had a hard time finding books by any Puerto Rican authors in the bookstore in the nineties. These texts were inspiring to me as a young reader, and they definitely shaped me as a writer.

Loli Molina Muñoz – Author

Describe the kind of art you make.

I write poetry and fiction. I have just finished my first poetry chapbook manuscript in English, and I also have a feminist dystopia novella in Spanish, both of them searching for a warming publishing house.

Describe the role your cultural identity has in your work.

Being born and raised in Málaga, Spain, I grew up immersed in both Spanish and English language thanks to literature, music, and pop culture, which deeply influenced my work. However, I have also lived in Coventry (UK), Wisconsin, and finally moved to South Carolina in 2013. For this reason, my work explores themes of identity, feminism, migration, and the intersections between cultures.

[ALMA] SPANISH

Querida madre:

Estos días pienso mucho en usted.

Ayer me acordé de su guiso de

carne y quise hacer uno yo.

No me supo igual.

Me faltaba el sabor añadido de sus

manos y el olor de su delantal.

Los niños dijeron que estaba muy

bueno. Yo les di las gracias y sonreí.

Dos lágrimas que se escaparon

disimulando para no ser vistas.

Tampoco vieron las dos cartas del

banco avisando del desahucio.

Les dije que vamos a pasar unos

días en casa de Alejandra.

Les hizo ilusión pasar un tiempo

con sus primos y eso me alivió.

Luego recordé aquella vez que

usted me dijo que eligiera mi

muñeca favorita.

Crucé el desierto de la mano de

Alejandra con la muñeca pegada

a mi pecho como un amuleto.

Aún conservo mi muñeca.

Aún tengo a Alejandra.

Voy a estar bien.

No se preocupe.

[ALMA] ENGLISH

Dear mother,

These days I think about you all the time.

Yesterday I remembered your beef

stew and I made one myself.

It did not taste the same.

It did not have that extra flavor from

your hands or the smell of your apron.

The kids said that they liked it.

I thanked them and smiled.

Two tears escaped trying not

to be seen by them.

They did not see the two eviction

letters from the bank either.

I told them that we are going to stay

some days at Alejandra’s.

They were happy about spending

time with their cousins and that soothed me.

Later I remembered that time

you told me to choose my favorite doll.

I crossed the desert holding Alejandra’s

hand and the doll stuck

to my chest like an amulet.

I still keep my doll.

I still have Alejandra.

I’ll be fine.

Don’t worry.

Giovanna Montoya – Ballet Dancer

Describe the kind of art you make.

I’m a professional ballet dancer, so my art is dance. Ballet is a theatrical art form that integrates music, dance, acting and scenery to convey a story, or a theme.

Describe the role your cultural identity has in your work.

My cultural identity represents who I am; a dedicated, driven, disciplined, strong woman, which stands up for what’s right, and never gives up. I am always aiming to move forward, trying to do better every day, even if it is little by little, and working hard to achieve my dreams and goals. These have been imperative assets to possess, that have helped me to become a professional ballet dancer with 15+ years of experience. Ballet is a beautiful but difficult art form, which requires a lot of time, sacrifice, effort, love, endless hours of training, and a great deal of discipline and dedication. I would never have become a professional ballet dancer if it weren’t for the commitment, dedication, responsibility, and integrity that my parents showed and instilled in me from a young age. Coming into this country as an immigrant it’s very difficult, and you have to work very hard to achieve success. That’s something my parents made very clear to me from the beginning, and they led by example. Always working hard, never giving up and excelling in their fields. My dad is a statistician for the Mayo Clinic. My mom is a Veterinarian doctor and was a University Professor in my home Country Venezuela. I’m so thankful for my parents and my cultural identity that has shaped me, and played a pivotal role in the person that proudly I am today.

Poetry of the People with Evelyn Berry

Cindi Boiter September 21, 2024

This week's Poet of the People is Evelyn Berry. Over a decade ago, led by Evelyn Berry, an inspired group of Aiken High School students would pile in a car and journey to Columbia to attend Mind Gravy Poetry. I am fortunate to still know several of them through the wonder of Facebook—and Evelyn continues to lead and soar above us all. Some day, we will say we knew and were energized by Evelyn Berry on her way up and be grateful for the experience.

-Al Black

Evelyn Berry is a trans, Southern writer, editor, and educator. She's the author of Grief Slut (Sundress Publications, 2024). She's a recipient of a 2023 National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship and lives in Columbia, South Carolina.

Self-Portrait at Nineteen

All summer, I worked shifts at Old Navy

& snorted molly from an iPhone screen

in the backseat of a car parked nowhere,

a happy heathen not yet grief-plundered.

Once, I was a boy unafraid to die.

I would swallow almost anything meant

to kill me if, at first, it got me high:

pills left over from surgery pilfered

from my parents’ medicine cabinet,

coffee cups of dark liquor, gas station

feasts, bounty of grease, sugar, cigarettes.

How else to parachute from the body?

Aliveness, this useless extravagance

I have wasted once before, but no more.

prodigal daughter

what I know of sin, i learned in the sty

amid the swine, slurped mud and called it wine.

femme-fouled boy, faggot-spoiled sacrifice

offered at the altar and abandoned.

forgive my reckless want, lord, to belong

as more than soiled sacrament, fat sow

knife-split to gorge the prophets of gendered

violence. prayer, in their hands, a blade.

what do i know of penitence, patience,

except once the lord sent frenzied demons

into a drove of blameless pigs to drown?

how did we decide which beast to slaughter?

lord, i too am an impure animal.

i left home a son, return a daughter.

Eos

After Mary Evelyn Pickering De Morgan

Once, the goddess of dawn cried out, forlorn,

her son cast into dirt beyond the walls of Troy,

Achilles’ sword drawn through his chest,

his soul gone, replaced with a feathered flock.

Her tears poured graceless as swans,

like a vase overflowing with morning dew

until grief bloomed new gardens.

Describe to me the weight of this.

Mourning replenishes the earth, ushers

Soil into rebirth, new river traced

from the boy’s doomed blue veins.

What is a song worth without its wound?

Let me, for once, taste paradise without the tinge of blood.

Let me glimpse the cusp of dawn without the flood of night.

The Decoy

After John Collier

To be painted femme fatale, condemned fatal:

a woman’s beauty is a dangerous deception

in the hands of a man who demands

to own her like a plucked rose.

Let me be the decoy instead,

damsel in undress, glinting

luminescent like a knife

bound to my ankle.

Al Black's Poetry of the People with Duna Miler

Cindi Boiter September 15, 2024

This week's Poet of the People is Duna Miller. I first met Duna over a decade ago at a poetry reading. She can be seen haunting the poetry scene and the Mind Gravy mic when her church choir takes its summer break. Duna is a delightful human being and is a better poet than her humility allows her to project in our literary community. I am honored to call her friend.

-Al Black

Duna Miller began life in Vienna, Austria, as the first of eight daughters. When her father retired from the Army in 1964 their family moved to Columbia and she has resided in the Columbia area ever since. She met James Dickey in Fall 1969 at USC and continued to be his friend and student until he left for the starry place in 1997. Most of her working life was spent in education, and she retired from the USC School of Medicine in 2014.

____

To My Sister Bo

(1949-2024)

The sun left the sky

The morning you died.

I will always be sorry,

I will always be grateful -

You were part of my life

All the days of yours.

Inspiration

In the night, in the mind,

The untrained fingers find the keys -

Elusive harmonies,

Unwritten melodies unwind.

In the light, we are blind.

The pinpoint eyes behind us seize

Vague shadows through the leaves.

The unseen vision frees mankind.

Set loose like cats at play,

Imagination’s day begins

Before the dawn sheds light,

Obscuring in that brighter way

The truth the darkness wins.

The webless spider spins by night.

Skyfish

A school of silver minnows turn

In unison against the clouds.

Here and there a jellyfish rises

To the surface and plummets with a blink.

Sometime during the differentiation

Of the fetal eye, bits of matter left over

From other structures lodged in the jelly

Between the lens and retinal wall.

When this debris floats into our field of vision,

And the retinal corpuscles twitch,

The sky becomes a motion picture screen

For an ocean of finite depth.

Dialectic

Angels are guiding my hand.

I stand in a clearer light.

There is no right way to go.

The shadow is always near.

I hear but cannot tell why,

Just follow my inner voice.

Choice is the dream of angels.

Al Black's Poetry of the People featuring Tre Fleming aka Poetré

Cindi Boiter September 7, 2024

This week's Poet of the People is Tre Fleming aka Poetré. Tre is an insightful poet and spoken word artist known professionally as Poetré. A multi-talented performer from Columbia; you should check him out the next time he hits the stage.

Poetré is a writer, comedian, poet, film producer, and podcaster from Columbia, SC. His works are inspired by his love of hip hop, mental health, social commentary, and self reflection. In 2024. He represented Columbia, SC as a part of the Tribe Slam team in the annual Southern Fried Poetry Competition in Florida, as well as competed in his first King Of The South Slam. He can be found on IG, and TikTok under @PoetreIsLife and for business inquiries at Poetreislife@gmail.com.

____

LIVING OUT LOUD

If I have to stand onstage and scream, I will.

Yes, my people have come a long way, but still.

This is about community, living in unity.

My country, my world, not just you and me!

I am a voice for the voiceless, ones not in the room

Ones who have passed on, and ones in the womb.

I am justice for those who feel like it's just us.

And my Tribe will fight, even if it's nobody but us.

We are a generation of speakers, activist, and thinkers.

Not longer waiting for the cue from our leaders.

We are about that action, standing on business

Waiting on the revolution to be televised?

This is the internet!

We want it instant.

We will put our foot on your necks, until you show us respect

No matter race, gender, religion, I need us to shout.

Cause no longer will the minority be quiet.

WE ARE LIVING OUT LOUD!

FACES IN THE STREET

The city is crowded, per usual.

Everyone busy in their own pursuit.

A homeless man asks for spare change, if possible.

A mother just got a call from her son in the hospital. A kid is lost.

He knows where he is, but not in life.

A man texts a woman that's not his wife.

Someone is late for their first day of work.

Just trying to make sure there were no wrinkles in his shirt.

Someone is just out for exercise.

Another person is smiling, but crying inside.

A couple is holding hands. They just got married.

A couple is holding hands. The wife just miscarried.

A girl scout is selling cookies, but people rarely stop.

A person is looking at a window of a store where they can't afford to shop.

A young teenager is looking for a place to stay.

The parents kicked him out because came out today.

A veteran is enjoying his first day home from war.

A lady holds her purse tight, cause she's been robbed before.

All these people around that I never get to meet.

Their stories untold. Just faces in the street.

BAD MEMORY

Remember when we first met?

It was on a day I'll probably forget.

It was raining,

Nope, it was sunny outside

Things get foggy as the days go by.

Remember that time we laughed till we cried?

Couldn't remember what was so funny, no matter how hard I tried.

Or how about that one trip you kept asking me to go?

I can't remember the name of the resort,

I just remember the snow.

Remember singing karaoke in front of everybody?

I forget what song we sang, but I remember you smiling.

Or when I tried comedy for the first time.

I remember you being so supportive, but what was the punchline?

Or what about the time we volunteered at the shelter?

I can't remember that one lady's name, but I'm glad we could help her.

I remember so many moments, I just forget some details.

I forget the exact words,

I even forget to make this rhyme.

So I'll make up for it some time.

I remember what is most important, not names, days, places, or what we wear.

I just ask that when you remember those times, don't forget that I was there.

HEAVEN

She looks like heaven

She's what angels sing about

She's what pastors scream and shout

She's my eternity

Cause being without her is hell to me

Those pair of eyes are paradise

And her smile cause from somewhere high

She's the reason why I sing

When she laughs, an angel gets his wings

On my mind, she's my halo

Her love is Gospel, cause she says so

Her voice makes me rejoice when I hear it

When I'm down, she's my spirit

She came from somewhere far above,

She's the world, she's my savior, she is Love

Everyone knows it, the choir, the deacon, the ushers, the reverend

I'll sacrifice everything,

Cause she looks like heaven

FIRST LOVE

The first time I fell in love was with a woman who loved other men before me.

Yet I was her first.

It took me a while to build myself up to meet her.

Even though she had fallen for me way before I could greet her.

See I was nothing but love.

I had to form into an entity from God before we could meet.

Because the pain that she went through to meet me was the gift with no receipt.

The first woman that held me in her arms was the first woman I loved.

I didn't pick a mother.

I was a choice she made and planned for.

And she prepared me for the women I would love.

What she did was traumatized me from light skinned girls!

Not, I'm just playing.

She taught me what love was through how she loved me and my siblings and to how she loved strangers.

She showed what caring about someone means in the late night phone calls, the 2 am Emergency room calls, one call from jail, the cosign on a student loan, the "hey I love you" texts at 11:42 on a Tuesday just because.

She taught me how to walk. Walk away from a fight that you don't need to win, walk away from a toxic relationship, walk away from a lie, and walk away with my head held high.

She taught me how to talk. Like literally talk. I could read before preschool. I am able to articulate what I want, how I want, to who I want. No just talking. She taught me how to speak. She taught me how to say something.

She taught me unconditional love.

She taught me was hustling was.

She taught me how to save.

And who not to save.

She never pushed my father out of my life.

She proved she'd never disrespect my wife.

I can never thank her enough.

And even though the roads been rough,

She's still my first love.

Poetry of the People featuring Amanda Rachelle Warren

Cindi Boiter September 1, 2024

This week's Poet of the People is Amanda Rachelle Warren. I met Amanda about ten years ago when she appeared at Poems: Bones of the Spirit with her poet, colleague/partner in life, Roy Seeger. She is a delightful and engaging read and an even better listen. She and her husband were recently included in Southern Voices 2024/25, Fifty Contemporary Poets.

-Al Black

Amanda Rachelle Warren's work has appeared in Tusculum Review, The Carolina Quarterly, Appalachian Heritage, Anderbo, and the Beloit Poetry Journal as well as other journals. Their chapbook Ritual no.3: For the Exorcism of Ghosts, was published by Stepping Stone Press in 2010. They are the 2017 recipient of the Nickens Poetry Fellowship from the South Carolina Academy of Authors. Their first full-length collection, Rituals for to Call Down Light, was published by Finishing Line Press in Spring 2024. They teach at the University of South Carolina Aiken.

____

Solus

Rain knocks pollen from the air.

Everywhere it hits: an o of yellow neon.

Everywhere it runs: a spot of clean smooth, nothing.

Nothing wakes me.

Not the warning sirens,

not the loud rumble, not the flash

of light outside the window.

The rain dampens everything with a soft hush.

I dream of water. Of the open window,

drops swelling the wood in its sash,

wrapped tight in my pink comforter,

the rain hits my upturned face,

and I pray the way a child prays,

though I know how pain cuts the self into paper dolls.

The light through the window does not wake me.

I am shielded by rain.

In this dream I am crying.

In this dream I am always crying.

What never happened will keep
never happening.

I am tired. The rain does not stop.

I want to sit in the closet and cover myself in wool sweaters.

I want to wash and dry everything in the house.

I want a cup of tea, so I make one.

He and I are, he and I are. A dirty lie.

He and I. The window cracked to let the rain in.

Drops pattern the left shoulder of my jacket;

fall with the weight of blossoms.

The rain makes me want to smoke.

Everything looks so clean. I want to

dirty it up. Smack it around a bit.

I drive. I gnash my teeth at the car in front of me.

Move motherfucker. Jesus Christ.

The smoke tastes like a bad idea. I want more.

I put my palm up to the sky, lick the pool that gathers there.

Angle my wrist. Roll my eyes and pray,

loving the syllables of submission.

Lord, I will do anything. Anything

you want Lord, anything. I will do anything:

I am stretched thin

I am not in a forgiving mood.

Something is coming for me, scratches towards me,

rain seeps through it, threatens,

wants me emptied, ready to fill again.

Tenure Track Appointment

By the time I print the directions to who knows where, they're already memorized. I've overlayed the map on the overlay of my brain. I've run through the turns and gauged whether I or Google know better.

I know better. But today I've nowhere to go. I wait. There's something I should probably be doing, but what is it? Someone tell me.

It is Tuesday and my husband is divesting the blueberry bush of its blossoms. It stands there in naked glory. If we pinch back the fruit this year the bush will grow fuller. I want to run.

This fall we'll be fruitless. And we'll feed the pecan trees. And we'll see how tall the tea roses he has gentled back from nothing more than a green stub grow. And should we wait on the strawberries too? We ask, and I imagine my teeth full of small seeds. Pick a direction. For fuck's sake.

Next year will be better, tomorrow will be better, has been my motto for so long. I'll just have to work harder. If I just work harder. Then I can rest. Then I can get back to that creek- side flecked with mica so the shore shines in sunlight. Then I can learn more complicated stitches so the scarves I knit for Christmas look less like a desperate attempt to offer something of worth if not value. Then I can figure out what everyone means by self-care. Who has time to put their oxygen mask on? I'm gasping here.

When the first real paycheck of my life arrives, I will buy a shirt not on sale to remind myself that the body exists, that it must be fed in many ways. Ways that are not cookies bought without coupons; save a dollar. Ways that are not just words.

If the inkwell runs dry, we fill the well. We dig deeper into the substrate, look for the water table. Here it's all sand that doesn't hold. Every time my husband mixes good dirt into the raised beds, the trees encroach, and the digging is harder. Some summers the tomato leaves crisp in the hard sun and offer nothing. Sometimes there is blight. Sometimes. Sometimes. Some.

Next year, maybe, I can keep my fucking hands off my fucking face like my mother says to and stop picking. Stop damaging myself because there's nothing wrong: food on the table, internet too. I can stare half-asleep at puppy videos, glut myself on other people's recipes and how-tos--never lift a finger. Next year, I'll paint the risers on the stairs. Each step a lighter blue so it looks like I'm rising with them.

And we'll do something about that railing, right? So many coats of thick cheap paint rounding the edges of good wood. But I haven't even refinished the cabinet I bought last year. I haven't even hung the pictures in the hall because first the hall needs painting and before that we've got to spackle the seams and make decisions. Hopefully not wrong ones. But paint is cheap, my husband says. Whatever decision you make it's fine. And “it's fine” is not meant as apathy. Don't tell me what I mean.

Maybe instead, I'll run...map each road from here to where with a good pen on blank newsprint rolled across the hood of my car like it's already full of someone else’s' directions. Fishcamps. Right of ways. An exclamation point in thin black ink where the cartographer suddenly realized that wayfinding isn't a competition. A circle near Level Church because that's where the local radio station cranked CCR's "Lodi" and where some ghost whispered the lyrics by heart through the speaker's rough crackle.

In two years, the lowest branch on the pecan tree by the front gate we do not use, will touch the hundred-year-old house it took us 20 years to afford.

There's a map to two years from now that I have neither printed nor read. But “the man who plants the date palm…” some wise jackass once said.

Tomorrow, I'll convince myself to stay until the goddamn blueberries arrive. Right now, my hip hurts. Right now, my hair is a mess. Right now, I am afraid to get in the car because I don't know if I'll stop.

In the fall, I will move into my second-floor office and worry about birds throwing themselves suicidally against the windows that do not open, and I will wonder if the smell of my bare feet will carry to the faculty office next door, or should I need a shawl to cover my arms because I've heard the offices are cold, and I am disgusted by the idea of a fucking shawl of all things nesting in my brain.

Already this is changing me. Jesus. What will it mean to not be angry? What will it mean to not humble myself before myself? What would it mean to think I somehow earned something? I hope I don't know. I hope I never know. And that this doesn’t mean that this right here is as good as it gets.

The Dead are the Worst

Oily coffee from the gas station because

why not stay up all night?

The dead rattle on while I try to sleep,

so I rise, pick a road, ride it out, I guess.

Rain makes the sodium lights hiss like a directive:

Shut your mouth. Danger. Drink up. Remember.

The root of vulnerable is wound.
Suicides are speaking from the tree line.

Something haunts my oil pan.

I keep the radio low.

So the dead don’t surprise me.

So I can still write them off as interference.

The laughter of one gone brother leaves trails on my eyelids

like the trail of reflectors in the side view.

His memory is scar like the road is scar. How?

Like the car is hot metal, machine. Facts.
Brake dust darkens the seam of his pockets. Wait.

The dead lie through the tinny speakers. Below the wah-wah.

Tonight, one is explaining the afterlife as matter-of-fact

as baseball plays beneath the chorus. How I’m

stuck in the middle with you.

This car feels like a church in disrepair.

The chorus likes to point out

the things I already know. Jokers to the right.

I drive to the top of the ridge to make things clearer and fail.

I try to find some direction in the mid-station static,

where the dead hiss and crackle their EVP. I find

one word: Sincere. Piercing, and loud. Then, Stupid.

Well, fuck you too.

I’m down to a quarter tank.

The moon is completely gone.

Which of the dead is saying Break a leg, boys?

Which is just repeating sorry?

One of them slips his foot on the gas beside mine,

in a voice all slick with temptation says:

We could really make this sucker fly.

Brother, You Don’t Even Know

In his wallet, he carried

a stack of business cards: coal black, no

text, no nothing, on either side. We

in our confusion, passed

them between us, forgetting

momentarily, that Uncle Hugo is

what we quaintly call "gone."

We will try to ignore the symbolism

of cards that convey nothing

found in the pocket of our dearly

departed. Dear Gertie holds

the cards to the light

expecting some meaning to shine

through the coal black dark.

Cousin Ansel wonders silently if

this is all a consequence of war,

some trauma never pinned to language.

Shake before using,

read the poison bottle

Uncle Hugo slit

his throat with.

The note in his pocket,

jammed beneath

dusty peppermints, read:

forget the cognac, I didn’t think

this was a kindergarten.

Uncle Hugo would have

rather died like a wind-chime,

clunk-clunk, in the linden tree

which grows nothing but shade,

but someone, perhaps Darling Frieda,

perhaps Little Hannah, returned

the step ladder to the shed and for once

locked it.

Nothing is ever where it should be.

Except, perhaps, Uncle Hugo

sprawled casual and cold in the pantry

in his good brown suit.

Blood congealing around the jars

of blueberry jam Great Aunt Delilah-Jean

so patiently canned wishing some small

summer sweetness spooned, come winter,

over her award-winning buttermilk biscuits.

Paul will grab the mop.

When the sweet, baby-headed

undertaker comes to lift

Hugo's stiffening body,

Hugo’s false teeth will clatter

to the ground and never be found.

Hugo, a tough nut, never cracked

a smile once he, what we quaintly call "returned,"

from the war, which he never did.

He told Aoife once that his dreams

were filled with jam-thick blood.

He told Aoife that once, when Aoife was small.

He never smiled. But we hope

he’ll have gold teeth in heaven to do so.

After Die Brücke (1959)

No Peach Pie in Barstow

On Coolwater Lane my phone goes dead. Over 3,000 miles

on a single charge because I don’t talk much that way.

I just want to sink into the small kidney-shaped pool

at the Motel 8 and wash the day from me. Five fights

in fifty miles, my co-pilot finding fault in everything:

sky, mountains, other drivers, douchebags from Havasu

hauling jet skis and trophy wives, the places we stop,

the places we don’t, the distance left to go.

The pool is closed, chained tight. It is sunset—

yellow ball of sun sinking behind the Pinos,

behind the Tehachapi, on the other side of Mojave. She

goes to bed, sprawls and scowls.

I lean on the aluminum fencing looking towards Calico,

where I would go were I alone. I wonder how far

I could get without her noticing

that I am really, truly gone.

There is a glass bottle of peach Nehi rolling in the floorboard

where it has been rolling for nine days. Picked up from a

peach pie stand on the Ace Basin Parkway in South Carolina.

I have brought it this far. And there’s not a peach pie in sight

anymore. Not a one. For the first time, I miss my actual, physical home.

I unbraid my hair, bleached by the sun so light in spots it is like gold, release

shed strands to the hot wind along the National Road,

proof I was here wishing it were beautiful.

On the Way to Needville

I drive to the coast and stare at the gulf for a while.

From the granite outcrop, that stays the wear of tide,

I see the edge of something which is not a horizon.

Behind me oil derricks pump the past up, burn it away.

Beyond the breakers, platforms rise like small angry cities.

I am a small, angry city unto myself. Small and angry

and staring at the grey water like it isn’t a foreign body.

I am thinking how this is not the body I would build for myself.

But one that feels the speed of the earth I am cemented to.

I get in the car. This is pointless. I’m thinking

I could drive for days with no one passing me. I wouldn’t

even have to say my name aloud to myself. If I didn’t want it.

There’s nothing but endless Texas fences fencing nothing but scrub.

It is pointless, the way I move toward homesickness,

writing “I should have taken you with me” on postcards

addressed to some old self. We need to stop lying

about being comfortable when nothing fits this skin of skin

that holds us to the whiplash ground. The lean trees grow

twisted in the salt wind, they grow twisted in the flatlands,

they grow twisted in the deep imaginary woods I imagine I came from.

We could be anywhere and not belong. We could be everywhere.

And road burnt we’ll always find our way here, or somewhere the same.

Miles to Badaxe

Everyone in Birkenstocks, no one in moccasins.

The weather is unseasonably warm.

Corpses of fish flies heap in the sills.

Lake birds preen their fat bellies.

Everyone dusting the calcium chloride from their blue jeans

and reaching for the cooler between this town,

and that town, and that corner bar,

and party store and grab another cold one

because the green of the fields and the green

of the trees is flying by like too much goddamn green.

And the green mile markers tick higher, northing,

with the green names of German street signs

and the green moss on that Bavarian-gabled wreck

of a ruin of a house on North. And there’s the green water,

and the green shore of Canada, and the green of your shirt,

and “someone must really like green” the realtor said once

to my husband's German father who is chopping

back green branches in his green pants and green

shirt and green socks and Birkenstocks,

and I’m just glad the axe is dull, so he won’t chop off his toes.

Poetry of the People – Marv Ward

Bekah Rice August 25, 2024

This week's Poet of the People is Marv Ward. Marv has three books of poetry, but is best known as a blues musician in the Piedmont tradition. I first talked with Marv at the old Utopia Bar. He was sitting at the bar killing a drink and started regaling me with stories of carousing and playing music. Years later, I had the privilege to write the introduction for his first book of poetry. Since Marv has retired and settled down, he is more often seen sipping his favorite caffeine beverage, but still enjoys regaling folks with his stories about playing music up and down the east coast in every venue and gin joint that enjoys good live music.

Complacency

Complacency
is the end point of existence.
The fear of change holds us in a death grip,
and prevents evolution and growth.
Only when we step out of line,
alter the norm,
or challenge the expected,
can we find true fulfillment.
Life needs nourishment.
Stagnation kills the soul.
Dreams can only become reality through action.
Why dream if complacency is your mantra.
Live life,
and relish the probability of your dreams.

LAST TRAIN LEAVING

When the probability of departure
changes from if to when,
the perspective of the excursion

leaves little hope,
for a change of destination.
Once the Conductor
has punched your ticket,
your only resolve,
is to pray,
for a smooth journey.
It’s best to leave your baggage,
at the station.
No round trip fares are accepted,
and being unencumbered
will make the ride more peaceful.

LONESOME WHISTLE

The mournful bellow of a freight locomotive
singing through the silence of the dawn,
reminds me
that I still live in the South.
And as I roll in my bed,
I can hear the echoes of
Jimmy Rogers’ and Hank Williams’
anthems in my head
and I rest easy in the company
of compadres who have eulogized that haunting symphony.

PURPOSE

A question I wrestle with is the enigma of purpose.
Often, late at night,
while lying in my bed, before I fall into Morpheus’s arms,
my soul twitches with doubt.
Do I have one?
Have I or will I ever fulfill mine?
Is it real, or just a manifestation of human frailty and guilt?
If we have a “purpose”
are we meant to know it?
Or are we just pawns in some ethereal game,
used to obtain an objective,
then sacrificed to advance the celestial strategy?
Being sentient and reasoning beings,
I must believe our existence means more than propagating the species,
perhaps our continuation has more to do with species evolution than proclivity.
But we seem to continue to produce an abundance of lost souls.
Lingering uncertainty propels our lives,
the search for an answer, is our driving force.
We invent religions to satisfy our misgivings
and dogma to ensure our trepidations have cause,
but faith is merely “the blind leading the blind”.
Some have developed a manic obsession with “finding my purpose”
as if it were a child who had wandered away at the fair that we must meet at the “rocket”
to regain our mental stability, but no one knows where “the rocket” is.
Philosophers and gurus avow that just “being” is the sole essence of living
and there is no other impetus to the daily grind.
So why does my soul keep twitching through the night and filling my dreams with despair.
Even when I am “here now” I am constantly musing my predicaments.
Perhaps purpose is its own destination, you can’t get there from here, but you are already there.
I don’t know if I will ever have an answer, no realization is forthcoming
and I am starting to call the constant twitching a “dance”.

Ward’s Bio

Blues and Americana singer, songwriter, guitarist and poet "Reverend" Marv Ward has performed throughout the United States and shared the stage with some of the most well-known artists in music today. The Rev. has played his original and visionary blues stylings in venues all over the country and has shared stages with music legends such as Aerosmith, Joan Baez, The Vanilla Fudge, Dave Van Ronk, Paul Geremia, Maria Muldaur, Nappy Brown, John Hammond, Steve Goodman, Bob Margolin, Big Bill Morganfield, Mac Arnold, Mooky Brill and many more. Listed in An Encyclopedia of South Carolina Jazz and Blues Musicians, Ward writes poetry with the same passion that he composes his songs. He has three collections of poetry “One Lone Minstrel, “Healing Time,” and his latest “Bar Stool Poet”, to go along with his six published solo CD’s. A native of Lorton, Virginia, Ward lives in Columbia, South Carolina. He previously served in the United States Naval Reserve and has worked in broadcast and educational television throughout North and South Carolina. At age 76“, The Rev.” is still going strong performing with local ensembles “Wallstreet and The Blues Brokers,” Jelly Roll and Delicious Dish,” and occasionally with the “Shrimp City Allstars” and still writing. A holiday CD and perhaps a fourth book are in the works.

Al Black's Poetry of the People with Ellen Malphrus

Cindi Boiter August 16, 2024

This week's Poet of the People is Ellen Malphrus. Ellen is a vibrant force in South Carolina's literary community as she links the present with the past. A former student of James Dickey, and is a fierce warrior and advocate of the literary craft.

I am still waiting for the honor of hosting and sharing the mic with her at an event.

-Al Black

Ellen Malphrus is author of the novel Untying the Moon (foreword by Pat Conroy). Her collection Mapmaking with Sisyphus was a finalist for the 2023 Marsh Hawk Press Poetry Prize. Publications include Atlanta Review, Chariton, Weber: Contemporary West, Poetry South, James Dickey Review, Blue Mountain Review, Natural Bridge, Southern Literary Journal, William & Mary Review, Fall Lines, Yemassee, Haight Ashbury Review, Catalyst, Without Halos, and Our Prince of Scribes. She is a professor and Writer-in-Residence at USC Beaufort who divides her time (unevenly) between the marshes of her native South Carolina Lowcountry and the mountains of western Montana.

____

Mother Emanuel

for Reverend Clementa Pinckney, Reverend Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, Mrs. Cynthia Graham-Hurd, Mrs. Susie J. Jackson, Mrs. Ethel Lee Lance, Reverend DePayne Middleton-Doctor, Tiwanza, Kibwe Diop Sanders, Reverend Daniel Lee Simmons, Sr., and Mrs. Myra Singleton Quarles Thompson

In her custodian’s closet the big

squeeze handle bucket

sits on its rollers, weary and dented,

stained past judgment day

when the wash water went

pink to red to crimson

with each faithful swath

across the solemn floor

and anguish

flowed through city pipelines

down the river

out to sea,

mingling with millennia of

mopped up blood—

ensanguined taint of senseless history.

We bow our heads, as nine cannot,

in awe of a

congregation who chose compassion.

Chose peace—

lest Charleston roil up in

hot black waves of wrath.

As surely it could have.

As some say it should have.

Dozens of unassailed steeples

rise above the peninsula canopy—

yet the grace of but one

makes this the

Holy City.

Founding Father

As you gallop

through the park

in granite stillness

children stretch from playground swings

toward the cloud-capped roof of innocence—

expecting to break the sky

if they spring out far enough.

And even if they land in earthbound sneakers

they have traveled farther

than your stone horse will take you

ever again.

A child’s rein might lead away from

this block of town square immortality

but they are busy

and don’t come close enough

to notice

your green streaked face

or hear the echo

in your bloodless veins,

Hero.

They don’t know that

you die again

as they squeal in sunlight

and still more

in the sharp of night—

when floodlights point

clear and cold.

Intermission

So you pitch a blue tent

in the field out back and

carry in enough booze

to pour yourself out,

prove you are alive

or not.

And you must be alive because

you are unfit to sleep in the house—

because you would lie in the dirt but

you’re not drunk enough to stand

the mosquitoes.

Who cares about the snakes.

You must be alive because

the knife bolts you

when you find it

in the sleeping bag—

because it’s the trap

you want to kill and

when you slash the top of the tent

the stars step back.

And you laugh.

That happens to you.

You, who must be alive because

you’re not watching yourself

wander

numb

by the river—

because that’s you, laughing.

Crying.

Crying when you remember

it is your mother who’s dying—

not you.

Live guilt blossoms

because you would even consider

stealing the stars

from yourself

when soon there will be so much darkness.

And they are fragile, the stars,

despite how they sometimes slice you.

Yes, you must be alive because

look at you scraping

labels from the empty bottles

and slinging them

to the recycle pile—

because you pick up the knife

and wonder where you put

the duct tape.

Nobody dead would do that.

Conjure Woman

Maiden, I have called you. Enter.

Closer now, and fade the lamplight.

I have watched you

in the nighthawk alley

aching alone in the stillness. But

in that courtyard news will never come.

Bound and bent they keep

him, far from the reaches

of your ever listening.

Yet his cries mingle in the pale wind,

and I hear them every nightfall.

I will tell you where to find him,

if you choose the dread and desert.

Only then can you begin to know that

nothing stands but dark. And

light bends to make the night more seemly.

They will tell you

white and white and white

and never stop. They will tell you

that but cannot keep you.

Ride in distance

through the furied sunset

past dahlias trailing

wildly across black dirt.

When silver separates the thunder

branch off at the thistle tree

and listen.

And if you can bear it, from

there you can hear the world.

Then you will find him.

Then you can know

why they tremble in the splintered twilight

and would sooner tear their hearts than say

that

I am of the other wonder.

Communion

The happy situation of a

notebook filled with lines—

no matter how poorly or

well placed on the page,

one following the next,

written here by me

or there by you

as we carefully

crashingly

longingly

lovingly

try to tell it

like it is,

was, will be.

Try.

We hold the pen and

roll our fingertips while

trains insist on distant tracks

and years bend over edgewise.

From time to time we walk away

to refill the larders

of life

but we always come back to them.

Words.

I didn’t think of you there

with your pain and tenderness

while I slow danced and

shimmied with my own.

But you are so clear to me now,

leaning over your cluttered desk

or propped in a bed of pillows.

I have wishes for you—

to finish drafts

and publish work

and catch every train

your heart sends you.

And when I take up my pen

for the first mark of the day

I will raise a glass in your honor

whether I remember to lift it or not.

Finney Center Kicks Off Black Philanthropy Month with an Open House August 15 6 - 8 pm

Cindi Boiter August 7, 2024

Bounded by two historic districts, the Robert Mills District and the Waverly District, The Finney Center connects the heart of the African American community, past and present, to an ever-changing downtown Columbia, South Carolina.

The Ernest A. Finney, Jr. Cultural Arts Center is hosting a drop-in Open House on Thursday, August 15th from 6:00 to 8:00 PM for the community at-large as it launches a $2 million capital campaign to transform the former Southern Electric Company historical building, originally a tobacco warehouse from the 1940s, into a gathering place for people of all ages who view art as community building.

The Finney Center will break ground on the renovation this fall, using a plan developed by the Boudreaux architectural firm. It will include a stage with seating for 200, which can be opened to the outdoors, an exhibition space with a 360-degree view, a dance floor, studio rooms, and other spaces for multidisciplinary endeavors.

Bounded by two historic districts, the Robert Mills District and the Waverly District, The Finney Center connects the heart of the African American community, past and present, to an ever-changing downtown Columbia, South Carolina. It is housed in a former tobacco warehouse from the 1940s, which was renovated and repurposed in the 1960s for the offices of the Southern Electric Company.

“Black Philanthropy Month is an annual August reminder for us in the Black community to look behind and to also look ahead,” says Director and Poet Nikky Finney. “Both my paternal and maternal grandparents taught me that it was just fine to focus on my own dreams as long as I also donated time, attention, and money to the community in which I lived, worked, and dreamed, making sure it too prospered. Join us at The Finney Center on August 15th as we host an Open House for our community. We want to share with you more about what’s been going on in 2024 and what’s ahead for 2025 and beyond.”

The Ernest A. Finney, Jr. Cultural Arts Center is a 501c3 organization located at 1510 Laurens Street, Columbia, South Carolina. The focus of this Cultural Arts Center is on the making of art, the keeping of community, living Black history, and the ongoing generational celebration of music, visual art, poetry, dance, theatre, the culinary arts, and other community building and life sustaining activities. The Ernest A. Finney, Jr. Cultural Arts Center is an incubator for progressive notions of what it means to be an involved, informed, and engaged creative human being, no matter that human being’s age or background.

Nikky Finney is a nationally-acclaimed South Carolina-born poet and author of On Wings Made of Gauze; Rice; The World Is Round; and Head Off & Split, which won the National Book Award for Poetry in 2011. A graduate of Talladega College, Finney taught at the University of Kentucky for 23 years and holds a Carolina Distinguished Professorship and the John H. Bennett, Jr. Chair in Creative Writing and Southern Studies at the University of South Carolina. Nikky Finney is the daughter of the late SC Chief Justice Ernest A. Finney, Jr., for whom the Ernest A. Finney, Jr. Cultural Arts Center is named.

Al Black's Poetry of the People with Katie Ellen Bowers

Cindi Boiter August 4, 2024

This week's Poet of the People is Katie Ellen Bowers. Katie is a wonderful Upstate poet. She is a delightful read and a wonderfully entertaining poet to hear recite her work. She is a Charleston native now residing in Heath Springs, SC.

-Al Black

Katie Ellen Bowers is a Southern poet and educator living in a small rural town with her husband and daughter. Her poetry can be found in several literary journals and magazines such as Kakalak, Qu Literary Magazine, and Sky Island Journal. She has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize for poetry. She is the author of the poetry collection This Earthly Body (Main Street Rag, 2024).

Clippings

This morning, I trimmed my daughter's fingernails,

clippings of her growth throughout this week and days

past. Uneven crescent moons—stained and sodden from

sinking her fingers into the inkwells of earth and sky—fall

to my lap, and we speak of yesterday and tomorrow and

of today: her basketball game, fried tofu with fortune

cookies for lunch.

This afternoon, I trimmed my mother’s skin from her fingers,

clippings and peelings from the ring, pointer, and thumb.

Flakes of nameless shapes rest on my lap, as my own

fingers, nervous and nimble, pull a piece of skin away as easily

as petals fall when the summer’s heat has become too heavy;

the sebaceous glands of sweat and oil no longer soften

her skin, and we speak of nothing, the only sound the

click of nail clippers, the heaviness of our breath.

On the Desire to Desire

Lately, it's all just a bunch of mylar

balloons—once blown up, puffed

out, a crinkling of nylon and foil,

maybe even getting caught in power

lines, maybe sparking a fire, maybe

even causing a blackout, but really,

mostly, it's just a deflating yellow smiley

face, stretched out—deformed and

disfigured, unsure of what it was

supposed to be good for all along.

Three Lives

after Sarah Russell

If I had three lives, I’d keep this one

just as it is—each early Saturday on

the soccer fields, each tangle in my

daughter's riot of curls, each syllable

she sounds out as she's reading aloud,

and I'd keep each early Friday night in,

each wink across a crowded room, each

subtle shifting of stacks of books.

I'd keep it just as it is; keep them—

both just as they are.

But me? The other two? Well, in both

I’d run in the mornings, do yoga before bed.

I'd drink protein shakes with flaxseed

and oats and collagen, and then I'd gorge

on chocolate-covered doughnuts. I'd walk

with confidence into each room, laugh

loudly at all my jokes, laugh louder at

all the inappropriate ones, unabashedly flirt

with my husband; I'd never worry if my

eyeliner was too much or if my face looked

weird or if this and if that and if and if

and if and if and if and if and

I would enjoy all the early Saturday mornings

and all the winks across crowded rooms, and

I would just exist in my body and mind and soul,

just as I am.

Off-Beat On-Beat

After all this time

our hearts still

do not beat as one, & resting against

my husband's bare chest

in the early morning hours,

I learn this.

No rhythmic sound

of two heart’s beats

falling

into

a synchronous tempo

together; a perfectly aligned

beat by beat by beat,

& listening, my ear

pressed to him, I hear of

the off-beats and the on-beats

and a slowing and a quickening,

and there are beats

I miss all together—

from my yawn, his feet moving against the sheets,

readjusting our bodies from where arms have

fallen asleep or thighs have gotten too warm—

I listen & I hear

our hearts’ beats beating,

unsure of which

thrum belongs to him &

which belongs to me;

they are not one,

they are together a

continuous quickening

before slowing

off-beats

on-beat.

Carry(, As a Feeling)

It’s true:

It’s hard to carry on with your well-

crafted composure when the weight of

your dying mother is laid upon you; her

swollen belly, holding four liters of fluid,

resting against you; her crepe-paper skin,

maintaining no elasticity, tearing beneath

you. Holding up her body—

Nevermind.

This won't be

about that.

It’s true:

It’s hard to explain, hard to carefully

craft these words that I don't even want,

the ones I hold day-to-day, room-to-room,

breath-to-breath. Take them.

Turn out my pockets, remove my contacts,

pull out my teeth, just gag me until I vomit

up every last word I've choked down so someone

else did not have to bear the weight of:

the anger, the guilt, the sorrow, the shame

from the relief I harbor. It's true

this won't be

about that

either.

Nevermind.

My God, This Is Aging

This is aging? Wearing panty liners because, having stood up too quickly, you pee—just a little and just enough. Getting texts about the passing away of dogs and sending texts concerning the sickness of aging parents: Any updates? Any updates? Anything at all? All whopping point four ounces of twenty-seven-dollar eye cream because a decent night of sleep is only one-sixteenth of what it used to be, but you want to stay up late, want to bathe and shave your legs and have sex only to find your spouse asleep, while also wanting to stay awake to watch the latest episode of Fargo. Taking preventative antacids and ibuprofen that you know you will need after holding up your mother in the ICU, the weight of her illness and age pressed upon you, reminding you of the way time seems to move all at once and not at all.

This, also, is aging? Wearing panty liners because, having laughed too hard at your husband's impression of Hank Hill as you walk by the lawnmowers in Lowes, you pee—just a little and just enough. Getting texts about the accomplishments and the anecdotal snippets of the day-in and day-out. The precise rhythm of each night: the eye cream, the moisturizer, your spouse curling behind you as you settle into sleep, drifting apart and back together throughout the night; the way his hand pats your hip when he wakes to run in the hour before dawn; still being tired from sometimes wanting to stay up late to have sex whether your legs are shaved or not, from staying up late to watch X-Files. Picking up prescriptions for your mother for your father, as it’s the only way you know to help, other than holding a straw to her mouth, letting her drink, so she can speak of and laugh about something that possibly didn’t even happen, and you laugh, too, let go of things that no longer matter, as her laughter sounds as it always has, reminding you of the way time moves not at all and all at once.

Poetry of the People – Glenda Bailey-Mershon

Bekah Rice July 26, 2024

This week's Poet of the People is Glenda Bailey-Mershon. I have known Glenda for only a year or two after she moved back to her home state. She is gifted poet and prose writer and gives back to the literary community with kindness and a wealth of expertise.

IN THE PHOTOGRAPH SHE LIFTS HER HANDS

unpinning long hair. Chestnut, I knew only because relatives said her hair and my sister's were the same.

In sepia, her gesture asks to be admired. And who could not admire the luminous eyes of youth, the sensuous mouth, the heavy hair about to fall?

Yet her eyes say she is puzzled, unfamiliar with the procedure. Innocent as a fawn in sudden light.

What I remember is her stiff hands spinning, yarn spilling from pointed fingers, her sharp tongue calling down our rising spirits.

And yet the photograph . . .

Youthful beauty surprised by life.

Grandmother?

A “GYPSY” (ROMA!) POET WALKS INTO A COFFEESHOP

The audience gapes. What’s this woman doing,

singing when she should be droning poetry?

I warble about having rhythm. No one knows

that’s Manouche swing. It’s what they asked

when I booked: Tell what inspires you.

Everything’s a song, I say, letting loose again, whether dirge or dance or ballad beat.

I snap fingers, swish my skirt.

The woman at the first coffeeshop table

has stopped knitting, pokes her husband

who looks up from his golf score, sees

I am about to show them how once

I skatted a whole poem because I wanted

to say, we Roma are here, most of us

are mixed, some got Africa in our bones,

Spain in our step, French lilac scent

beneath our nails and under our skin.

Farther away, the pulse of Rajasthan.

And if I really want to confound, I’ll say

we married Persian tanbur and chang,

Turkish oud, Greek lyres and Parisian

accordions, then swung it all on a reed with dancing keys, but I know

I only need say Django, and they will sit up. Guitars are what Americans fancy. Now

I have to bring them down to hear enjambed

lines, marching stanzas. Somehow they get it, smile, clap their hands to the rhythm when asked. Yet when I finish and take my turn for the proffered drink at the bar, people stare and point their chins, say “Gypsy.” That’s all they need to know.

I sashay my way out of the shop, smile.

They will be pulsing in their beds tonight.

AN INCANTATION FOR MY GRANDMOTHERS

Corn mother

Earth heavy

Great Raw Woman

What you must have been in childbed!

Birthing with the force of two hundred hurricanes, crouching low, arching high, pushing out

squalling life and catching it in two fiery, rough hands.

Rocking, rocking, face like the moon over ravaged land.

Each day, I see you,

rivulets of water running out of your body across scorched fields,

over red clay front yards singing orange zinnias.

Your daughters, we are feathers tossed by angry winds,

falling lightly

half a continent away.

Quiet strangers riding fierce city rails,

stepping unseen through snow-hushed streets,

dancing to rain drumming on roofs,

greeting the sun in glowing glass.

Watching the moon rise in canyons of steel,

we find your image in junkyard windows,

in our own eyes, mirrored

under fluorescent lights.

We quick-step down long alleys,

flame incense in silent rooms,

fathom the earth beneath asphalt and brick,

recognize its rhythms beneath the thrum of cars.

Even city towers gleam with your life.

Skyscrapers spark starlight in the eyes of the Ancient Ones.

Lesson

Daughter, this is your womb. She put her warm hand on the child's belly and drew the outline of a cave.

Out of this cavity you will draw that which is most precious to you.

Into this space

you will draw that which is mysterious, unknowable. She drew a line from the womb to the heart.

This is the straightest of lines.

Do you understand?

BACK WHEN I WAS JUICY

Back when I was juicy I pried the lid off morning, knifed from my bed, onto cold floor boards, scattered pennies enough for coffee in the café, or a luscious scrum of chocolat on a cold Sartre afternoon.

Virgin among molded tomes, I, willing wand of destiny, jumped to conclusions about infinity while frat guys in the booth behind bet on the constants of integration.

Down the long green moments I strode, confident, to and from class, shouldering book bags, tippling volumes from overhead shelves, palming change like bribes for fortunes, assured of redemption in the hands of destiny.

Every Saturday, I rambled bookstore to bookstore among other explorers, seeking keys to unlock furtive encounters behind mothers’ cast-off lace curtains.

Jampot oozing thick syrup seeds, I melted into one after another armored knight. Later, we read each other tales we could not fathom back when I was juicy.

UNORTHODOX RHYME

Preachers tease us with heaven’s riches Make us choose: wives or whores Warn us, we’re too big for our britches

Then forbid abortion, divorce

Warn us we're too big for our britches

Want us to scratch all their itches

Then forbid abortion, divorce

Good men writhe with remorse

Want us to scratch all their itches

Scratch our own, they call us witches Good men writhe with remorse

Veils conceal life’s source

Scratch our own, they call us witches Force us to choose: wives or whores

Veils conceal life’s source Camels pass by your riches.

NOTE: This poem is dedicated to the South Carolina Legislature, who apparently think their religious beliefs should control all women’s health care.

BIO:

Glenda Mariah Bailey-Mershon is an American poet, essayist, novelist, cultural historian, and human rights activist. Born in Upstate South Carolina to a family with roots in the Southern Appalachians, she has explored in poetry and fiction her European, Native American, and Romani heritage. Her published works include the novel, Eve's Garden, a family saga of three generations of Romani-American women; the full-length poetry collection, Weaver’s Knot, an exploration of millworker communities ; Bird Talk: Poems; saconige/blue smoke: Poems from the Southern Appalachians, which plumbs the ties between European and Cherokee cultures in the mountains; A History of the American Women's Movement: A Study Guide, and four volumes as editor of the Jane's Stories anthologies by women writers, including Jane's Stories IV: Bridges and Borders, which includes work by women in conflicts around the world.

Glenda has been a finalist in Our Stories fiction contest; featured author at the Illinois Book Fair, the Other Words conference; and the St. Augustine PoetFest. For the 2024 Associated Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) national conference, she chaired a panel entitled “Toward a Romani Women’s Canon.”

She is a former bookstore and small press owner, and has taught women's studies, writing, anthropology, and political science. She is the originator of the Jane's Stories anthologies and Jane’s Stories Press Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that offers the Clara Johnson Prize in Women’s Literature. As a tutor, she helps young people achieve their GED degrees and learn strong conversation skills in English.

Poetry of the People – Bugsy Calhoun

Bekah Rice July 15, 2024

This week's Poet of the People is Bugsy Calhoun. Bugsy has been a fixture of the spoken word community performing throughout South Carolina and surrounding states. Coming out of the COVID lockdown he pivoted his focus and is now the leading organizer and advocate for spoken word poets in the Midlands. The spoken word community has become a force with events almost every night of the week. Poetry in the Midlands is indebted to Bugsy Calhoun and I am honored to call him my friend.

Poem1

Dear momma I still call your number knowing you won't answer what would I say if you did answer I would tell you that I'm ok even though most times I'm not I would confess that I failed as husband like my father but above all things I'm doing my best to be a good dad I did what you said started over from the ground up my time on earth has been a Testament to your teaching since you been gone how I wish I was there holding your hand whipping your tears away before you finally let go to be with God I wouldn't tell you about all the pain I've been in physically and mentally but I know you would hear it all in my voice because you my mother my Queen who knew everything about me before I knew it myself you had the cheat code to my thoughts and ideas Spiritually you with me the most time I feel like a motherless child holding onto memories Google mapping the house I was raised in wishing I can scream your name can throw the key down let me in I will probably never visit your grave site because I pay my respects to you Myra Dee Dee And Ra Ra when I set foot on Bergen Street if I'm lucky I go to the house and breath in my heritage allow the Nostalgia to wrap his arms around me like a warm blanket I close my eyes and hear your voice like my conscience never will I forget you as long as blood flow in my veins looking in the mirror I see you looking back at me sometimes I remember the echoes of encouragements of you reminding me your Umi your son to how to stand a be a man in this cruel world the Queen in you has birth the King in me I'm forever grateful for you love it will reside in me for as long as I live no longer living in blue sky's that's now turn grey since you been gone

Poem2

This is about the sacrifice and the struggle
Black Wall Street being reborn on the backs of black business owners of today
reclaiming our reparations like reconstruction
this is about bold beautiful sisters who refuse to work for somebody's nine-to-five
but for themselves they will work 25 8 taking this time in there life to dedicate something that they can leave as a legacy for oncoming Generations
this is for the brothers that bond together to build generational wealth by lifting each other up by their own bootstraps never looking for a handout but ready to hand out what is necessary for us to stand on our own two feet
no this isn't big business
this is Mom and Pops
beauty salon an barber shops and restaurants
that make food for our souls visionaries who made something out of nothing never taking nothing for granted
To be brave enough to say to world im am here
and I have something you want to give change after service is rendered with a smile to share conversation ideas and gratitude with strangers that become your friends and neighbors over time
to become a staple in your community overtime
to know what you are doing is bigger than you
to truly embrace being a boss
Business Organizer Scheduling System
Brothers of the Same Struggle
Building Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency
to stand by it and guarantee it
This Is Black business

Poem3

It takes a special kind of ugly to beat the beautiful out of you to belittle your very existence to berate you with a bunch you insults viciously verbal bombarding you with derogatory descriptions to transform a mahogany brown into blacks and Blues beat you with in a inch of your life in love to call for God and no one answers mac can't make up the excuse for his anger to contemplate dying in your sleep than living awake in a nightmare to sleep with the enemy to justify his actions to question your self maybe it was me or something I said to lye in bed going over all the lies he said to be trapped in the prison of askaban the cracked walls don't feel pain like I do crack ribs remind me every time I breath what this kind of love feels like butterflies in my stomach have morphed into crows that circle over my head I'm scared to see tomorrow I try to hold on to memories a love story that
now turned into a horror flick hoping things will get better not ready to grab the life preserver from saviors nor listen to advice or prayers because they don't him like I do to put band aids of our good times over fresh bruises has become a new chapter in our walk together it took me losing my eye site to see that he wasn't the one for me even Scooby do showed the monsters hide behind mask to realise that wolves in sheeps clothing are not only found in fairytales

Poem4

Mothers and tired of black children being made into Martyrs from unjust murders we have been Willie Lynch since we were captured from the shores of Africa white hoods have been traded for black and blue police uniforms made it legal to hunt men like me because Justice is blind Thirteenth Amendment and the industrial Prison Complex is the new slave trade mandatory drug sentences equal genocide for people with melanin murdered by cops equal admin leave the benefits and pensions niggars have no color no conscience or code of conduct for every black person killed on camera there were 20 more who will never get named or a hashtag or there last words made into catch phrases to be sold on t-shirts we have been spinning our wheels for too long murder hashtag protest no conviction riot repeat Officer Jim Crow applied Chokehold and segregated the life out of his black body the color of his skin pose the threat hands up don't shoot threat I can't breathe threat he was wearing a hoodie threat in the confines of my own home threat we got Soldiers with no leaders they'll show you better than they can tell you what happens to our leaders any man that tried to force change has been made a Mater by America's bastard children I am fortunate to survive my lynchings scared and afraid of those who supposed to Serve and Protect today there's too much talk with no actions tired of Facebook and Twitter rants social media activist being called a Nigger don't make me one unplug and wake up from the Matrix red and blue pill resemble every police lights in the distance agent Smith Reminds Me of every racist cop in existence I'm afraid for my son his mother my daughter and lastly myself speeches and poems don't make you an activist action in your community does athletes are willing to speak on Kaepernick taking a knee but won't take a stand themselves the president called them filled niggars play ball it is the only time that we can run and not get killed for it we are sick and tired of being sick and tired they are no riots without reasons protest reform and Revolt and are the seeds of revolution see the hate that is made is the hate that you gave there will be no change until we change freedom from mental slavery breaking the chains I pray we can find a resolution From the Ashes of the flames

Poem5

I dedicate these words to my father and to those with the courage to help where help is needed for those fighting the good fight we won't lay down and die we will keep on living through the support of loved ones and Samaritans who know about service and sacrifice may you find the strength to endure to live a life of longevity finding your second chance to Salvation somewhere between holistic and Hallelujah together through tolerance we can transform the treatment of transgender individuals teaching there is a better way because this disease does not discriminate race religion Creed color identification or orientation to those who find themselves hopeless or homeless may you find refuge in these words remember to rise every day to reclaim your respect with resounding resilience and accept that death is not in your diagnosis may you find a fulfilling life on your journey Embrace every day as it comes remember the reward and living your best life stay uplifted when ugly actions and words draped in ignorance and rejection find you with quil I quilted scripted stitchings of words giving by infected and affected projecting that through love knowledge wisdom understanding education perseverance empathy and compassion we can eradicate the stigma of those who live with HIV and AIDS and come together to understand that it's your dignity not your diagnosis that defines you

Poem 6

This poem will not be superficial
This poem will recognize that reparations are pass due
This poem will be acknowledgment that the sacrifice of our ancestors is present in our present generation
This will feel like Gil Scott-Heron giving honor to Maya Angelo
Fueled by the Passion of James Baldwin
An ode to Madame Gwendolyn Brooks, Nikki Giovanni and Paul Laurence Dunbar
This poem will be a freedom song
A new Negro spiritual
We will lift every voice and sing
This poem is the realization that free at last is still a dream by Dr. King
It's knowing that trouble won't last always but joy will come in the morning
To understand that black is beautiful, black is strong, black is powerful, black is resilient
Black is survival by any means necessary
Remember we were kings and queens
Before the slave trade and middle passage segregation and Jim Crow, Black Wall Street and Tuskegee Experiments
Cause we be making something from nothing
We be feeding our families with the leftovers of our oppressors
We be innovation black inventions H.B.C.U. black education, black girl magic, refined minds divine nine
We are the culture that you wish you was
The style you pattern yourself after
We are Joe Louis, Jackie Robinson, Jim Brown
Maya Rudolph, Phillis Wheatley, Mary McLeod Bethune
Fred Shuttlesworth, JamesBevel, Stokely Carlmicheal Ralph David Abernathy, Jessie Jackson, Andrew Young, Bayard Rustin,
Miles Davis, John Coletrain, Thelonious Monk & Donald Bird
We are love supreme and a dream deferred
We are first black president serving two terms
This poem is confirmation that black lives matter
Black is the origin that birth nations after
It's I self-love and master
Knowledge wisdom and understanding
That there's magic in your Melanin
The reflection of God in every man
We are more than we shall overcome
Our existence is the testament to everything we overcome
We're more than any month, more than any color, more than any Name

Bio

(Bugsy Calhoun) Jamal Washington a poet emcee born and raised in the OceanHill Brownsville section of Brooklyn NY, Debuted his poetry at the Brooklyn Moon. He is founding member of the Unusual Suspects poetry Troop and member of Black on Black Rhyme and the slam master of Columbia's slam team Tribe Slam he Co-hosts an open mic at The House of Hathor called the J.A.M. Session with his wife (Wintah Storm) Karen Joyner Washington he also has 6 spoken word and hip hop music projects on www.Bandcamp.com/bugsycalhoun Bugsy works in the community using his poetry to build Bridges not barriers he works with Tracy Oakman who runs the Princes Empowerment and Boyz II Men infused mentoring program.

To understand the rhythm and flow of Bugsy's poetry it is best heard live and I encourage you to step outside of your comfort zone and listen to our spoken word poets in their element.

Poetry of the People with Susan Craig

Cindi Boiter July 5, 2024

This week's Poet of the People is Susan Craig. I am unsure of when I first met Susan, but it was probably a decade or so ago at an event where she was supporting or assisting another poet. Like butter on warm toast; she never insists that she be the main focus of attention. Reading Susan's poetry is to know that when all else passes away, kindness will endure.

-Al Black

Susan Craig is a native Columbian, longtime poet, and former graphic design studio owner. Her work has appeared in journals and online, including Jasper; Kakalak; Poetry South; Mom Egg Review; Twelve Mile Review; Poetry Society of South Carolina, and elsewhere. Through poetry, she mines the everyday, attempting to unearth the universal.

In the absence of touch

I ordered the puzzle mid-winter,

one with three thousand pieces—Van Gogh's

quaint room in Arles, his chunky saffron bedstead

& cane chairs, walls of cornflower blue,

forest-green window canted open, wooden floors

of foot-worn turquoise.

That April, native creatures of Yosemite ventured

out of seclusion, tiptoed onto gravel roads,

foraged pastures long-encroached by human voyeurs.

I thought of freedom—bear, coyote, deer, bobcat, promenading

through swaying ponderosa, fragrant fir.

It seemed even city air became cleaner, crisper;

streets & highways shone like unused silver,

phantom wheels of material solace begun to unspin.

Were night skies truly more star-spangled those evenings

we sat out front in dilapidated armchairs

watching children pedal by on the sidewalk

followed by pilgrim parents?

In the end, I only completed one-quarter of the puzzle,

left the others disconnected, inchoate

as a surrealist painting.

Van Gogh spent twelve months in the country asylum.

In isolation, his work grew prolific.

Scenes of nature—starry nights, olive trees contorted

below a blue, inexplicable sky.

Jacobson's Organ

Our canine companions also have an additional

olfactory organ we humans simply do not have...

Jacobson's organ.—ellevetsciences.com

Today the Dog

turns back on the trail

stands & waits for his Human /

this communion of sorts

borne of a decade of rebellion / Dog

at last taming his primal quest

to leap down-mountain

through winter-leaf hillocks

tracking every fleeing

miniscule essence /

Human calling his name

each time envisioning doom as he

bounds & crashes until there is

nothing but a whisper /

yet these days they are a marriage

of desire & acquiescence

symbiotic trekkers in winter woods

above the mountain cabin

in a timeworn pact /

Dog waits till Human

makes her way to the ridge / where

the log still lies for sitting

& leaves rustle like dresses / Dog

inhales an extravagance

the Human will never / Human

sits & imagines how the World

will come to an end

Ketamine

Paramedic gets 5 years in prison for Elijah McClain's death

—NY Times, March 1, 2024

They never saw your gentleness beneath the ski mask,

arms juking wildly to the music in your ear-pods.

An anonymous caller reported a man who looked 'sketchy'

happy-dancing on the sidewalk that dark night,

arms juking wildly to the music in your ear-pods.

It was August, nowhere near winter in Aurora,

you in a ski mask to ward off fumes and seasonal pollens.

(Later, friends will call you peacemaker, spiritual seeker.)

This was August, nowhere near winter in Aurora;

officers slammed you against a wall because you resisted,

pleaded, I'm just different, I was just going home, I'm so sorry.

What kind of terror seized you

as officers slammed you against a wall because you resisted?

What kind of danger called for two carotid choke-holds,

you face-down like George Floyd gasping, I can't breathe,

paramedics pumping 500 mg of ketamine into your slight body?

What kind of danger called for two carotid choke-holds;

where were God's better angels that summer night in Aurora?

Three officers pinned your slight body to the concrete,

five-foot-six, champion of stray kittens, violin, healing touch.

Sunflower

When

in the season of cicadas

Mississippi Kites

wheel in swooning circles

whistling their two-note song

I picture my father

delta-child

of the Sunflower River

summer swelter

tannin black as southern tea

bare feet coated

in ruddy cotton-field dust

his young father stolen

by Spanish influenza

I almost see him

youngest of three blue-eyed sons

bent cane pole propped

on one knee

even then a dreamer

the squiggling night crawler

he pierces with a rusted barb

forces his eyes

to bear witness

as if the whole world

hinges on his small measure

of courage

it is then I want to tell him

every small harm

will be forgiven