Al Black's Poetry of the People featuring Bo Petersen

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,

                   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

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

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.

•

--

Poetry of the People featuring Lisa

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.

Poetry of the People featuring Cynthia Francis

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

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.       

Poetry of the People with Evelyn Berry

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

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

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

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

1.

Rain knocks pollen from the air.

Everywhere it hits: an o of yellow neon.

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

2.

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.

3.

In this dream I am crying.

In this dream I am always crying.

What never happened will keep
never happening.

4.

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.

5.

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.

Al Black's Poetry of the People with Ellen Malphrus

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.

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

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 with Susan Craig

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

Al Black's Poetry of the People Features Jonesy Stark

This week's Poet of the People is Jonesy Stark. I met Jonesy about 12 years ago at an open mic; he blew me away. Some poets are good with delivery or good with their word craft; Jonesy is great with both. Often, I'm left in awe of  the relationships he sees in words. Jonesy quietly gives back to young people in need of  support an amentor. A hidden gem in South Carolina's poetry scene, I am honored to know him.

-Al Black

'Father, husband, educator and advocate of turtles. The tragic end results of Peter Parker being bitten by a radioactive poet.' He is a dude with dreads. Oft mistaken for a poet. Olympic gold medalist robot dancer. PHD in Yamology.

_____

Cardinal Sin

Chapter one First verse

“Thou shall not come for the black woman.”

Whether you be other or brother

Must be out your cotdamn mind

To fix your lips to spit some foolishness

And assume I’m finna let it slide

I’m beyond done with you Quasimodos masquerading as Shaka Zulus

You who fetishize the motherland yet detest her daughters

Are unworthy of association with either

In order to be the king

You must lay your life down for the queen

But rather than stand tall

Y'all quick to hotep two step

Dance around accountability

Content to sit on sideline as she unnaturally shifts her spine

Criticize as she throws out her back to pick up your slack

Denounce her for doing for self what you wouldn’t provide her

As if she’d wish to wear the weight of a nation

Defend its borders

Administrate its affairs

All the while making it seem effortless in heels with slayed hair

To be black and to be woman

Is to know no compassion

It is to forever be measured and always found lacking

It is the expectation to be more than a woman

While being treated like less than a lady

It is to walk through a world of pointing fingers

Rarely encountering a helping hand

Because it takes less effort to punch down

Than it does to lift up

It is to intimately know the sting of a slap

While yearning for a caring caress

It is giving the blessing of life to sons who will curse you

It is being crucified and exposed before the world

By the man who was supposed to protect you

It is enduring it all

And still fighting for they who fight against you __

House

I started writing poetry because I wanted a girl to like me
And a decade and a half later
I can sincerely say not much has changed
Guess Hov said it best
“You are who you are when you got here”
Hol’ up
You are who you are when you got hair
Them short and curlies
Folk, I’ve surely yet to meet an adult
We all adolescents imitatin’ what we was taught
Trying’ to live out gimmicks and images we bought
I mean practice makes perfect
And I’ve perfected the practice of actin’
As if I actually have a clue
When in reality I’m equally as lost as my son askin’ how to
See he’s thoroughly convinced I have infinite access to the answers
That his author father
Is the Merlin to his Arthur
When really I’m no mystic
Somethin’ far more simplistic
Just older
And not necessarily wiser
Gifted
With opportunity to make more messes
But how can I confess his faith is fully misplaced
Shake the foundations of his sense of security
I can’t
So I continue to adorn my red and blue suit
To battle monsters in closets and boogeymen beneath bedframes
Doing my damndest to deceive both he and me
To defy my kryptonite
The gnawing that comes from the knowing
Knowing that despite my desire
The “S” on my chest can’t shield him from life
Eventually I’ll have to rack my brain
Tryin’ in vain to explain
Why Lex Luthor is often the victor
Why I raised him like a Kent
In a world corrupt and bent
Taught him to walk straight 
In a slanted land where the bad guy wins
On that day the facade will falter
His reality irreparably altered
As his eyes realize my mystique
Is merely a smoke and mirror mirage
My omnipotence
Certainly less than advertised
My omniscience, nonexistent
Simply a paltry parlor trick
That moment will be awkward
But it will leave us both better
Liberated I free to give what little know how I’ve acquired
To transmit my ideas clear
Unfettered by paternalistic pretense
And he to transmit my middling musings
Into something actually advantageous
Reconstruct my copper cognitions and leaden logos
Into glimmering golden gnosis
Perhaps through his process
Successfully plot his path to the fabled land of adulthood

___

Venomous Virility

“Y’all niggas’ gay!!!”
This was my induction
Into the fraternal order of black masculinity
You see apparently
Six year old me
Had transgressed the border between
Showin’ love for the homey
And havin’ homo tendencies
Cuz real niggas give daps, not hugs
And mosdef don’t smile
While engaged in a man to man embrace
Vulnerability was solely for sissies
And unbecoming of a brother
Tears were for queers
Emotions kept tightly wrapped under covers
These cardinal rules came to reign
Occupied cavity in chest
Freshly emptied of innocent heart
Anger only acceptable outward expression
Of inward issues
Fists replacing tongues
As practiced tools of communication
Because there’s nothing a broken jaw can’t transmit
As impactfully as an eloquent, impassioned plea
Or so we were miseducated to believe
Because every muted word
Every tear unshed
Was a link in chains weighing down our souls
Denial of half our nature
Naturally made us semi-realized beings
Being constantly at war with ourselves
Being strong at too high cost
Of mental and emotional health
Denyin’ self wealth
Of integral life experience
Because boys don’t cry
We crawl through life with faded vision
And I say crawl because men
See, we don’t run
Unless forced to confront
Foe intangible yet can painfully touch
One we can’t vanquish via violence
Neither kick nor punch
I once witnessed my father lose that fight
In a moment of brokenness bend knee
Allow hurt heart through eyes to speak
Tears stain cheek
Once he’d gathered himself
And once more donned his armor of pride
He apologized
I don’t know which was worse
The fact that he felt the need to
Or that I both understood and realized
That in that moment he’d rather have died
Than of himself reveal that side
Losing control was a sin inconsiderable
Father, son bonding
Belonging to ball parks and bar stools
Never bedrooms…
Sorrow shown silent
Only at burial grounds
This’ the mis-molded mess this world’s made us
Sensitive spirits shackled within testosterone walled prisons
Accented with homophobic bars
Boys playing at being men
Barely brave enough to question
Who made up
These malicious mores of manhood?
These Guantanamo Bay ways of approved gender displays?
Who galvanized this jihad against genuine self-expression?
I know not
But I know this
I’m staging a coup
I’m no longer content too
Goose step to cadence of callous rhythm
Ho-hum humdrum pattern stern and militaristic
Monotone,
Mirthless
I will dance daringly to an ostentatious orchestra
Melodic flourishes fully seasoned with life’s many flavors
All while wearing colorful dream coats
Tailored to transmit its infinite textures
No more austere armor
I’m casting aside my sword
Picking up a pen and building bridges with my words
I’m splintering shaft of my spear
And exchanging it for a paintbrush
With aim of illustrating a better world for my son
One where he can sing, dance, laugh, and cry
With equal pride
One where the weapons of war are ideas
And border skirmishes serve to break down
Those between self and others
Oh what a world it’ll be

____

Inhuman

I didn’t want you to walk away 
But I didn’t know how to ask you to stay
I’ve never been one 
For one on ones
Too easily tongue tied when eye to eye
So on this stage I set free the secrets of this page
Prayin’ these words land not
Upon ears deafened by my silence
Victimized by my non-verbal violence
Tuned out by my inability to tune in
I am
More machine than man
Mechanically marching from moment to moment
Merely reacting to previously programmed prompts
Physically present but lacking sincere presence
In essence
I am empty inside
Hollow
Homunculi passing for person
Human in form
All the while lacking the essential qualities
A marvel of masterful magecraft
Cleverly crafted to casually deceive
Mirage of a man

...

Al Black's Poetry of the People Featuring Larry Rhu!

This week's Poet of the People is Larry Rhu. I think I first met Larry when Curtis Derrick hosted a poetry workshop and Tim Conroy introduced us. Larry and I cohost Simple Gifts and I cherish sitting in his backyard garden to discuss literature and Boston Celtic basketball. He is a generous and humble friend and I am honored to be in his orbit.

Lawrence Rhu is the Todd Professor of the Italian Renaissance, emeritus, at the University of South Carolina. He has published books and essays about the American and European Renaissances and edited Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale. His poems have appeared in Poetry, North Dakota Quarterly, Innisfree Poetry Journal, The Poetry Society of South Carolina Yearbook, Pinesong, Fall Lines, One, Main Street Rag, Conversations: The Journal of Cavellian Studies, Jogos Florais, Forma de Vida, and other journals. They have won awards from the Poetry Society of South Carolina and the Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society of New Orleans. 

Instead of a Letter

Ever since your scary diagnosis, Jerry,

your Kawasaki Ninja’s helping us

document nostalgia’s hits or misses:

Fats Domino at El Casino Ballroom

in downtown Tucson, Oracle Union Church

beyond the Catalinas. Grandfather Ford—

an old Ford, he’d say, but still serviceable—

supplied its pulpit with clear messages

he shared implicitly (or I divined)

between approach shots on the practice range

when he taught me to golf during junior high

and we began our easy-going exchanges.

Nothing oracular about that town

except the name and my experience

of friendship with a kindred soul whose calling

required some explanation of its quiet

moments, like golf, when others take their turn. 

Chemo and radiation are still shrinking

your tumor while our sunset dialogues

help reconstruct our common histories

with anecdotes and our imaginations

in FaceTime calls from two time zones away.

Bits and pieces patched together come

to represent whatever meant the world

to me and you, my father’s other son

in spirit and my mother’s other student.

Grammar and medicine, their offerings,

helped you avoid English X at U of A

and then through medical school at UNM.

Transcendental brother, Anglo caballero,                              

biker, physician, my dear friend, your Ninja

and horses call to mind a life of travel:

happy trails, lonesome roads, and our reunions                    

in Rio Hondo, New Orleans, Missoula,

Boston, Prescott—even Italy,

when I was teaching high school there in Rome.

In just three months you’ve biked eight thousand miles

in perfect weather on backroads and blue

highways, inspired by sunlight and fresh air.

Has anyone lived long enough to be

“almost a native,” as some born elsewhere

used to say after many years in Tucson?

May we not homestead in creation, staking

our claims, not taking what’s given for granted,

settling in some ever nearer region?

Benefits of Doubt

For D. T. S.

No inference made, no implication either—

I did not infer what you did not imply,

but thanks. I appreciate your concern.

Ghosts haunt words with shades of meaning

difficult to dispel. Slips and lapses

make us marvel at the secret life

of language in conversation with itself.

Perfect strangers intrude upon the best

intentions, foiling our plans. Still, we’re thrilled

to entertain felicities unaware.

It all depends upon our being being

attuned. So, drop your guard. Speak your mind.

Learn what you mean in sync with those awaiting

news of you and yours. I’ll listen up. Online

or off, count on my friendship as a reader.

Arborist

Two trees or maybe three I knew for sure:

the fig and sycamore…but now I can’t

recall the third. The Church of Rome inspired

my confidence about the first—fig leaves

cover places Michelangelo

and Donatello felt the shepherd boy

need not blush to leave exposed. A protest

rallied us to save the sycamores

along the Charles River by Mem Drive.

But I knew cacti of my desert boyhood

well before hope of a better school stole me

away from home to greener climes with all

four seasons, ice and snow, and trees Thoreau

once learned by heart alone. The orchard keeper,

my beloved, leads me now through arboretums

around the world. Unlike Walden’s chronicler,

even in dark woods, we wander as a pair.

Released from rigors of the father tongue,

which he so harped upon, the fallen world’s

transformed into a commonwealth we share.

Memento

No reason for the trip but Sunday free

we headed toward the North Shore on Route 1

— itself a brilliant stretch of salesmanship

where concrete cattle graze invitingly

on green cement before a steakhouse door,

one of many bright commercial fancies

up and down the strip.

We toured the infamous Witch House in Salem

where pre-trial interviews were held before

witchcraft and wizardry scared slaughter out.

There must be reasons why the Lord would fail them.

Soon, a host of innocents told why.

Our high school guide recited all the facts

and ushered us about.

Then, on to Marblehead where several hills

are strewn with brayed slate gravestones by a pond

the locals fish on weekends when they’re free.

Hourglasses, death’s heads, cross-bones are the frills

that trim the verses written for the dead.

We paused and read their prayers so quaintly rhymed

and lost to history.

May her virtues take her where they should

graven on the slate of Mary by her John

invoked the angels she’d soon bide among

To such as she I’m sure that death is good.

We moved from stone to stone like other tourists

till evening took the light and brought a chill

that made us move along.

Going back on the same route we came by

we passed a dinosaur at a putt-putt course,

a lowering hazard on the thirteenth hole.

The traffic slowed. A siren gave a sigh

and blinked upon a wreck beside the road.

Three bodies, under cover, lined the pavement.

The cars slowed to a roll.

Streetcar through Parnassus

Don’t you think somebody ought to pray for them? - How six-year-old Ruby Bridges explained her prayers for protesters against school desegregation

From Lee Circle to the Garden District

nine muses cross the tracks,

divinities of total recall

once upon a time.

From history to astronomy

along St. Charles Avenue

the streetcar bumps and grinds

from Clio to Urania, the goddess

Milton summoned puritanically 

insisting on a Christian meaning

for her pagan name. No such

precise distinction here obtains.

That culture clash sounds academic,

the harmonizing rhetoric antique.

The Heavenly Muse now names

some lapsed Presbyterian

daughter of faded Memory. 

Yet, in the roundabout, Lee’s empty place

on the Olympian column top

prompts Clio to review her latest draft

—its epic or tragic plot—

with Calliope and Melpomene.

That vacancy makes room

for hope to change the shape of time

imposed by powers that be—

or were and wished to stay.

Cycling between the Odd Fellows’ Rest

and the Archdiocesan Cemetery,

beyond the neutral ground,

I turn toward Metairie and soon discern,

from beneath the Interstate,

a marble soldier

ready to read the roll of casualties,

the toll his counterparts memorialize

on a thousand small-town New England greens.                   

Whatever local muse prompts song,

as I recall, no run of Boston streets

bears gaudy classical names

if you don’t count the Marathon.

There’s no Mardi Gras with krewes,

like Bacchus or Endymion

or Comus’s raucous gang

routed in that Puritan’s court masque.

Yet who’s to say they won’t be coming back?

Here or there, in Cambridge or Fenway Park,

or on the banquette where first graders once

braved mobs with Federal Marshals,

walking to school and hoping

against hope for a fresh start.

This week's Poet of the People is Moses Oaktree - Al Black

This week's Poet of the People is Moses Oaktree. I met Moses several years ago in Augusta, GA, when he was the manager of the Book Tavern Bookstore and a staple of the local poetry scene. Pre-COVID he would sometimes make an appearance at Mind Gravy. After COVID he moved to the Midlands and exploded on the scene. He is (in my humble opinion) the best spoken word poet in the area. He owns the stage and his work stands up well on the printed page. He is a top draw in the region and I fully expect him to become a force throughout the Southeast on his way to a national reputation.

- Al Black

Moses Oaktree is an artist, storyteller, and co-founder of Charleston, SC’s UnSpoken Word Open Mic.  Mosely has performed his signature features across the United States, especially for his homes of New Orleans, Atlanta, Columbia, and Charleston.  His style melds southern lyricism, historical intrigue, and a surrealist take on the African/African-American tradition to create a contemporary black American myth.  He is currently working on his first book of poetry, “Heaven Be A Black Land”.

  Just. Like. You.  

 Met someone who looked Just

Like You Today.

Honestly, it was uncanny. Your curves;

Your style--

God knows I missed your smile. She was a song

I’d once known well.

I reached for her hand out of reflex. A habit in death throes;

Memories of you echo Through places in me That have no name.

Why do you remain?

Your smile could lift the waves.

I stopped myself just as I felt

the warmth of her body. Goosebumps;

Hot needles in my skin turn to ice. Shudders;

She walked way in the moments tween my

Stutters.

I am reminded

Your smile was paradise.

I, too

                                                                            I love telling folk how Dr King’s “I Am A Man” slogan turned queer in the next iteration of the movement.

I love talking bout Black Lives Matter being run by queer/women.

I love talking bout Bayard Rustin.

I love talking bout how voices, once hushed, still can find their way into the Light.

“I Am A Man”

We are equal as human.

                                                                                                                                            “Black Lives Matter”
                                                                                                                                         We are equal as human.

The final rendition will be “I, too, have a soul”

 But if they kill me, they’ll say it wasn’t true.

  Notes From Abraham

“Life was a constant miracle”, He say.

His body like smoke in the wind; He who gives shape to mist.

Substance like vapors, Both solid and shapeless.

He leans closer before he persists.

“Each breath was a gamble with death”, He say.

“I won so many times I musta cheated. Pain----

Illness----

At times, I was broken.

I took losses, but was undefeated.”

“I wanted it all…” He say.

“I made deals with the Devil- Chasing keys to Heaven.

We don’t realize the moment we

Lost Cause

The more I realized what beauty was;

The more fluent I became in the language of

God”

                                                                                                                                                               Time

Time Manifested

as flesh and bone

Dove into itself to discover its soul Then walked Earth’s mighty plains As the ghosts of the future.

                                                                                                                                                                         I am

                                                                                                                                                                                             .

This week's Poet of the People with Al Black is Lang Owen

This week's Poet of the People is Lang Owen. Before the printing press, balladeers carried poetry and news to the people; Lang Owen writes in that tradition. He is a gifted singer/songwriter who writes poem songs about people and the human condition. Every so often you meet someone who paints stories that sound new every time you hear them sung - I am privileged to know Lang Owen. www.langowen.com/

-Al Black

Lang Owen works straight out of the 1970s singer-songwriter tradition, employing poetic lyrics to express the challenges and possibilities of the current day, often viewed through the perspective of individual's imagined interior lives. Lang’s gift for seeing the world around him and dialoguing with others about their lives informs his songwriting, which often takes the form of conversations between characters in his songs. Lang released his third album, Cosmic Checkout Lane, in April 2024, his second collaboration with musician/producer Todd Mathis. “Cosmic Checkout Lane is about living our wisdom at any moment, including standing in a grocery store checkout line,” Lang says.

In 2022 Lang released She’s My Memory, which the Post & Courier Free Times ranked sixth on its The Best of South Carolina Music 2022 list. Lang’s 2019 debut album Welcome To Yesterday was hailed as “evocative storytelling at its finest” by music writer Kevin Oliver. Lang has played multiple venues in North and South Carolina, and received airplay on radio stations in the United States, Canada, Ireland, and Luxembourg.

Everybody Here 

Everybody here’s my therapist

I need all the help I can get

I look around, I’m losing my ground

I don’t like what I see one bit

I float by like a whisper, you hand me a megaphone

In our own little worlds somehow we’re not alone

We’re not alone

Everybody here

Everybody here’s my archeologist

Digging in the dirt for things I miss

Down on hands and knees beneath the olive trees

Finding my love still exists

We live in memory like statues standing in Rome

In our own little worlds somehow we’re not alone

We’re not alone

Everybody here

I don’t know what I’m dreaming any more

I just know you’re believing

I don’t know whose shoes are on my floor

I just know you’re not fleeing

What I can do is wash your feet

Patch you up when you’re bleeding

I’ll keep your secrets discrete

I’ll say what you’re meaning to me

I float by like a whisper, you hand me a megaphone

In our own little worlds somehow we’re not alone

We’re not alone

Everybody here

Gravity 

I’m not a smart man, but I know gravity

I drop nails from many a roof, it’s physics obviously

Don’t take paper in a frame to see that things fall

I’ve done this job for twenty-eight years, I’m a jack of all trades

I fix everybody’s leaky walls, water moves in strange ways

Don’t take paper in a frame to know a hammer’s what you need

House to house, I drive around, lots of new cars everywhere

From my truck, I see it clear, this town’s in disrepair

I guess that’s why God put me here

My knees are shot, all the ups and downs, I tell my boy get your degree

I’ve done some things of which I’m proud, it never came easily

Don’t take paper in a frame to know what builds you breaks you down

House to house, I drive around, lots of new cars everywhere

From my truck, I see it clear, this town’s in disrepair

I guess that’s why God put me here

I paint all your empty rooms, I like the smell of something fresh

I leave a little bit of me in there, where your baby lays down to rest

Don’t take paper in a frame to know love’s all in your hands

House to house, I drive around, lots of new cars everywhere

From my truck, I see it clear, this town’s in disrepair

I guess that’s why God put me here

Love Sputnik 

Mr. Hardy taught the sciences, the stuff of life

Backrow kids mocked thinning hair and tattered ties

Astronomy was his true love, Mr. Hardy had no wife

Russia launched first satellite shook the world

Beep beep on ham radio, spaceage unfurled

Mr. Hardy daydreamed at his desk of a long-lost girl

Oppenheimer called out God

Galileo searched the stars

Mr. Hardy lectured genius does no tricks

Sir Iassac’s apple fell to ground

Einstein wrote it simply down

Mr. Hardy questioned who on earth invents

Love Sputnik

18,000 miles an hour light across the sky

Mr. Hardy said change rockets into our lives

When she burned up in the atmosphere, Mr. Hardy cried

I recall a film about the sun Hardy showed

Man in glasses explained giant stars someday explode

In the cosmic scheme of things no one is betrothed

Oppenheimer called out God

Galileo searched the stars

Mr. Hardy lectured genius does no tricks

Sir Iassac’s apple fell to ground

Einstein wrote it simply down

Mr. Hardy questioned who on earth invents

Love Sputnik

Mr. Hardy gazed alone at night crescent moon

Mr. Hardy knew she’s inching away too soon

Mr. Hardy retired from everything that very June

Oppenheimer called out God

Galileo searched the stars

Mr. Hardy lectured genius does no tricks

Sir Iassac’s apple fell to ground

Einstein wrote it simply down

Mr. Hardy questioned who on earth invents

Love Sputnik

Man With A Broom

Thirty years I swept floors, F & M Bank

Retired with a big mug, too many last hugs

Cards and thanks

Now I use a red broom, sweep my curbside

Photos, bottles, pennies, cigar butts

You know it’s not right

My sight is still good, careful when the cars pass

My doctor says she’s never seen a man my age 

With such a strong back

I’ve got so little to leave this big world

I never had a son or a precious little girl

I’m just an old man with a broom

On the street in the sun Monday afternoon

Man with a broom

I found a brown shoe on the sidewalk nearby

My whole day puzzling what happened to that foot

Can’t say why

My shadow tells time, I don’t wear a watch now

I can see no point in counting the hours 

As they wind down

Who’ll pick up this broom? Nobody wants to sweep

I’m scared things all go to hell when I fall into

That long sleep

I’ve got so little to leave this big world

I never had a son or a precious little girl

I’m just an old man with a broom

On the street in the sun Monday afternoon

Man with a broom

Neighbor kid walks by with those earphone things

Give me a listen, though it don’t beat Bob Dylan

My heart still sings

Wife calls me inside, says I’ll die from the heat

But this broom’s what I’ve got, and I’ll sweep ‘til I drop

On this clean street

I’ve got so little to leave this big world

I never had a son or a precious little girl

I’m just an old man with a broom

On the street in the sun Monday afternoon

Man with a broom

Used Books

I Sunday browse your shop for hours

We talk about writers when no one’s there

And you proclaim love for Hemingway

For your age that’s pretty rare

You say you can relate

To wine and war and fate

And how this life is so unfair

Your eyes ask me why, you wait for me to try

I scratch my head, I can’t help you there

You wanna be heard, you gotta listen

You wanna be read, you gotta buy somebody’s book

You wanna be found, you gotta know who you’re missing 

You wanna be seen, you gotta really, really look

Oh I swear, my sweet Karina

I once told a girl you never mind my words

“I mind them too much,” she said with a smile

She vanished like a ghost in a cloud of cigarette smoke

I missed that coming by a country mile

I tell this tale to you, I’m no fountain of any truth

Might be the one thing I do today worthwhile

No doubt it’s been said by poets long since dead

There’s nothing in this world we can’t defile

You wanna be heard, you gotta listen

You wanna be read, you gotta buy somebody’s book

You wanna be found, you gotta know who you’re missing

You wanna be seen, you gotta really, really look

Oh I swear, my sweet Karina

Old Man and The Sea, I peruse with iced coffee

I’ll soon forget every page I turn

My days are scribbled down, torn up paper on the ground

Take what I say this once for what it’s worth

You wanna be heard, you gotta listen

You wanna be read, you gotta buy somebody’s book

You wanna be found, you gotta know who you’re missing

You wanna be seen, you gotta really, really look

Oh I swear, my sweet Karina

Poetry of the People with Al Black featuring Tim Conroy

This week's Poet of the People is Tim Conroy. I met Tim Conroy several years ago at a Columbia literary event and cajoled him into doing his first poetry feature. We became fast friends, haunting and terrorizing coffee shops throughout Columbia. Later, we teamed up with singer/songwriter, Lang Owen as the Two Hats & a Ponytail trio. When Tim's wife retired, they fled to Florida; however, he will be back in Columbia to perform Tuesday, 05/07 at Simple Gifts and Wednesday, 05/08 at Mind Gravy with Lang and myself for the Reunion Tour of Two Hats and Ponytail.

Tim Conroy is a military brat who has lived all over the country and eventually ended up in South Carolina. A retired educator and beloved social rabble rouser, he has published two books of poetry, Theologies of Terrain, Muddy Ford Press 2017 and No True Route, Muddy Ford Press 2023. During COVID, he co hosted the YouTube poetry interview series, Chewing Gristle

Lousy

My Dad said lousy a lot

to describe his children

a lousy jump shot, a lousy right fielder,

a lousy bedmaker, a lousy dishwasher,

with a lousy attitude.

We had lousy eyes, freckles, and postures.

But he would never admit,

we were stationed in lousy towns.

We could have become lousy

because he fought in three lousy wars,

where he won a few lousy medals.

Every year, we left friends and moved

on lousy cross-country car trips.

He had a lousy temper and backhand.

His world turned lousier when our mom divorced him.

He was lousy in love with her.

He tasted lousy when schizophrenia

came for one of his sons.

Afterward, he was never a lousy grandfather

or a lousy money giver.

He remained lousy at saying sorry.

When he died, we never felt lousier

and knew a pilot's love didn't land empty,

his caps and his godawful shirts,

his lousy flaws, our hearts.

No True Route, Muddy Ford Press, 2023

The Flight Jacket

hung in the closet to forget the throttle

and how it zoomed from carriers during

the Korean War, dipped into battle

of the Chosin Reservoir for the troops

to make a break for it through scarred paths

and never told its story, zipped up mute

stayed cold to the touch preferring the dark

every day its arms down not saluting

while its empty pockets refused to hold

onto the sound of bombs and men waving

screaming hello, goodbye, and blood marking

each sleeve forever, but the leather saved

many lives, though not Dad’s, his explosions

and how he didn’t want us to touch him

The Child We Need

 In front of imperial drones,

swollen under cement blocks

—tongues, old and young

because we doubt what is told

because it takes silence to listen

because we need to learn gestures

to rise reversals from wombs.

War-born babies and hostages

with no chink of light, no angels,

no safe mangers even for donkeys,

only hunger and inconsolable wails

until we embody the dead,

the child we need to live won’t

sing and fly paper kites in Gaza.

The Best Part

The truth be known,
gay or straight,

the priest gets paid,
the nun has a shitty deal,
the minister wants his ass kissed.

 Meanwhile I have felt a voice
in the forest of owls and ordinary spaces.
Strangers have rescued me from peril;
like you, love has saved me.

Your neighbor is human.

We don’t listen or tell it right,
we take it literally,

we can’t write it down better,
we make it too complicated.

Who have you loved in this journey?
What is it you have given?

From Theologies of Terrain, Muddy Ford Press, 2017

A Fitted Game

 The American Legion is full of men and women who battle

video games for printed slips to exchange at the bar for cash.

They don't dare add up the losses, so full of gin and silent friends.

Some say it's a loss of purpose and only passing time.

My Dad would have died playing if he hadn't croaked in bed.

His fingers reached, but I did not know what to tell him.

Their sacrifice isn't gone, and the popcorn kernels are still free,

salted, and buttered, sliding down throats that burn like cigarettes.

The flashing screen doesn't care who presses the fortune of the hours,

shouldering memories with sips. No soldier deserts the machine

that programs a fitted game, though many dream of a different outcome.

I have loved those players who won once

Jasper Project Board Member AL BLACK Creates New Poem to Celebrate Announcement of ONE BOOK 2024 Novel - BEAVER GIRL by CASSIE PREMO STEELE

In honor of the announcement of Cassie Premo Steele’s novel, BEAVER GIRL, as the selection for the ONE BOOK 2024 community reading project, we asked Jasper Project board of directors member and local poetry guru, Al Black, to read Beaver Girl and craft a poem in response to the message of the book. Al did not disappoint! Please read Al’s poem, and the signature poem for this project, The Remembering, below, then pick up your own copy of Beaver Girl, and write a poem, paint a picture, or create a piece of music in your response to the book and enter it in the Jasper Project’s THE ART OF ONE BOOK 2024 Arts Contest.

The Remembering

Leave your shoes here on the stump.

Go forward on bare feet,

step through into the Remembering.

The ground will know you.

The mycelium will announce your approach. 

Next to the beaver pond remove your gown.

Sit naked on the bank. Tonight is the Leaving of the Kits. 

The recitation of old stories 

of Livia, Chap and their families

Tales of a time when humans and beavers 

spoke the same language 

and learned to live together, again.

Tonight, young beavers must leave their parents

make space and time for the next litter.

They may invite you to swim 

to the far side of the pond with them.

There they will leave the water 

and begin their journey to new streams.

Not all of your sisters or all of the kits will remember, 

but if they listen,

they will feel memories of the Healing Time 

that came after the Great Dying Away. 

And maybe - if you are blessed,

you will remember and believe the old stories of a beaver girl

and that ancient laws of preservation are based in truth.

The door of enchantment is only open a short time

so do not question me, remove your shoes and enter the Remembering.

Al Black, 04/21/2024 

Al Black's Poetry of the People with Marjory Wentworth

This week's Poet of the People is Marjory Wentworth. Marjory Wentworth was and is poetry in South Carolina. She inspired us to become more than we had been and even though she has relocated to Ohio she continues to return and uplift South Carolina poets. Her influence will resonate through the poetry of South Carolina for decades beyond our living. 

Talking with Marjory on the phone is a gift of light.

-Al Black

MARJORY WENTWORTH is the New York Times bestselling author of Out of Wonder, Poems Celebrating Poets (with Kwame Alexander and Chris Colderley). Her books of poetry include Noticing Eden, Despite Gravity, The Endless Repetition of an Ordinary Miracle and New and Selected Poems. Her poems have been nominated for The Pushcart Prize 7 times. She is also the co-writer of We Are Charleston, Tragedy and Triumph at Mother Emanuel, with Herb Frazier and Dr. Bernard Powers and Taking a Stand, The Evolution of Human Rights, with Juan E. Mendez. She is co-editor with Kwame Dawes of Seeking, Poetry and Prose inspired by the Art of Jonathan Green, and the author of the prizewinning children’s story Shackles. She served as the poet laureate of South Carolina from 2003-2020, and in 2021 she received The SC Governor’s Award for the Arts. Her archives are held at the James B. Duke Library at Furman University. Wentworth teaches at Wright State University. She was named a Black Earth Institute Fellow for 2022-25. For further information see marjorytwentworth.com.

The Architecture of Containment

Enslaved Quarters Part 1

In the small square bedroom

Above the kitchen, heat rising

From the stove in waves so heavy

It was almost visible. A family

trying to sleep here, would lie still

As long as possible, tossing

And turning beneath moonlight, pouring

Through the only open window.

Sometimes a breeze

Carrying the scent of the sea

Rippled through the thick air

As if it could change everything

But the window turned in

On itself, on them and their entire world

The city beyond the high walls

Was as far away as the moon itself

Even the horses, snorting

In the stables

Across the courtyard

Could sometimes see beyond these walls

Flocks of seagulls would often

Find their way here

Strutting across rooftops 

Then rising through the line

Of magnolias

High above the walls

some would hover, almost still

Suspended in the air like hope

For The Poetics of Witness program, the Gibbes Museum of Art, Sep. 20, 2023 

1937

I never imagined my grandmother at rest,

until I saw the Dorothea Lange photograph

of a sharecropper wife and mother of seven

children near Chesenee, South Carolina;

because this woman is so relaxed,

as if her endless work is done.

Sitting on a chair – one arm stretched across

her swollen belly, the other hand

holding her chin; deep in thought,

her eyes are focused on something outside

the frame, dreaming into the distance,

she looks as if she can see beyond

the cotton fields and the small town

where she was born,

before the babies came one after the other,

before the lean years, when the store

still had barrels full of flour,

oats, and rows of sugary canned fruit

lining the dusty shelves.

After the war to end all wars,

she was young, and life was sweet,

the way it must have seemed

to my grandmother, before giving

birth to eight children on the kitchen table

in the gabled house on a bog road

across the stand of apple trees

in West Bethel, Maine, where snowdrifts

reached the roof most winters

and mud clogged the roads each spring.

In Hebrew, Bethel means house of God.

Sometimes, she must have wondered

where God was in that house west of Bethel,

those grueling years of war and rationing,

when the babies came one after the other. 

My mother, number 5, was the fattest. 

After three boys in a row, she was adored –

the only one to find a tangerine in the toe

of her Christmas stocking, beneath peppermints

and a pair of red mittens knit by her mother. 

She had never seen a tangerine,

and did not know how to eat it. At first,

she thought it was a ball that she could roll

across the floor and watch the black barn cat

try to catch it. This story was her easy way

of explaining how poor they were,

and how my grandmother could make a holiday

out of almost nothing.  Like the mother

in the photograph in Chesnee, South Carolina,

who sat down at the end of the long day,

watched the sun setting over the peach trees,

this woman who believed that the pink light

spreading across the tops of the flowering

branches was shining just for her.

Inspired by the exhibition The Bitter Years:  Dorthea Lange and Walter Evans Photography from the Martin Z Marguiles/”Sharecropper wife and mother of seven children, Near Chesnee, South Carolina” photographer Dorthea Lange

Flight

Clouds disassembling

Breathless in sunlight

Solid as the afternoon

I am not a part of

That is the place

I am looking for

The earth’s magnet

Of troubles, spinning

As far away

As I am travelling

 Nothing is Abandoned

Lined with miles of tangled vines,

coconut palms and bananas

growing thick and green,

the dirt road to the market

climbs through clumps of tangerine

bougainvillea and trees

laden with lemons and limes,

passing pink painted box homes

where bright laundry is always

drying outside on the line,

and roosters pecking at the earth

announce the day triumphant.

The road is the color

of the sun rising over the sea.

There is smoke on the wind

and prayers playing on the radio,

as the road fills with people   

walking in the same direction.

Everyone carries something:

buckets of picked peanuts, 

a small child on her mother’s back,

bags filled with mangoes, sugar cane

stacked on a tray. An endless

array of items passes by, from loaves

of bread to used batteries;

nothing goes to waste

in this roadside economy.

And nothing is abandoned

on this road pulsing with light

and the gifts the world brings.

Ghana, 2014