Poetry of the People featuring Brooklyn Brown

Cindi Boiter March 8, 2025

This week's Poet of the People is Brooklyn Brown.

Every year, two or three young poets meander into Cool Beans and adopt Mind Gravy Poetry as their home away from home. They are in love with poetry, but put off by the way they have been taught poetry; they believe the best poetry is from the heart - understandable and not obtuse.

Brooklyn is a bolt of light in a fearsome night and assures me that poetry is cradled in good young hands.

~Al Black

Twenty-year-old Brooklyn Brown is a student at U of SC and believes that art is activism. She practices this notion through her poetry. She hopes to be a voice for young people who are struggling with the ups and downs of early-adulthood while also confronting bigger world issues. A creative from a young age, Brooklyn often expresses the turmoil of her own adolescence in her writing. Brooklyn is inspired by the classic romantic and confessionary poets that came before her, and hopes to connect with her readers’ senses through concrete language and vivid imagery, believing that good poetry is not only understood, but felt.

Peeling Oranges

I split my finger

on a piece of paper

yesterday.

today,

you want oranges.

you enjoy the way

the pulp does glut

your shallow throat.

and if the consumption

should bring you pleasure,

I will peel and peel–

only stopping for a moment

inbetween, to wince

at the citrusy sting.

____

Question

I have a question—

for legislators who have

an obsession with oppression,

and teaching lessons

that put people in their proper places

assigned by the shapes

of the features on their face,

or the colors of

the skins

that they live in.

I have a question—

for the men in these positions

at the top of their systems,

I have question,

about my body,

about its most vital organ,

not my mitochondria heart,

but my ovaries, of course.

I think that they are art—

But, do their brush strokes

maim you?

because they paint a mirror image of

the same ones that

made you?

Is it self loathing or a hatred

for the woman who created the soul

that would grow to rule

the bones of a man so cruel

as you?

Is it because your mother put

her foot down

since your father was

never around?

Do you still feel the weight of

her on your little head

each night before bed

while you lay to rest

next to your wrinkling wife,

who you’d stab with a hunting knife

if the decision of that fatal incision

would not make you

look like a bad guy?

do you dream that

your work to earn

the respect of your daddy even

after he’s dead will pay

as well as the price of the

people you damned to hell,

because maybe,

in heaven you’ll throw a ball

back and forth and

and back and forth

with him?

and your miserable actions

will be worth

the poison of your politics,

because at least you remembered

to pray about it?

oh, and I have a question—

for the righteous and resolute;

if I don’t believe in the same god as you,

must I burn for the sins that

killed your savior?

must I adhere to the rules of a ruler

who I owe nothing to, just because

you say that’s what I should do?

are millions of us wrong just because

you will die on the hill

where you took a red pill

that told you you were right?

well, what if

my mother’s words

are my hymns,

and when I hear them

they give me breath

like my mind has grown a lung,

and I worship the earth—

because it is she

who is my creator,

I’ve been my own savior

since birth, and I crucified myself to stand

up straight and tall today?

Is it not good

enough for you,

that I am imprinted

on the opposite side

of your same copper penny?

Will you not rest

until I pass

your grueling test,

until you’re sure that

I’m a perfect copy

of your idealistic embossing?

I’m left deafened by your preaching

that drowns out children’s cries

who we could have helped

if you’d just be quiet, and listen

for one minute.

so my question is—

If you died today

would you die a martyr,

or a failure?

was your mission for goodness lost

under your hunger

to indoctrinate innocents?

Would Jesus be proud

of your mansion,

while hungry kids imagine

a fridge full of food

in a kitchen as big

as the one that your

god-honoring

family dines in tonight?

you make sure to lead

in saying grace,

but did you ignore

your teenage daughters’

pale face

as she stares

at her untouched dinner plate?

Do you thank god for the meal

that the help prepared,

and ask for blessings

before your son runs

to the bathroom, to hide

eyes full of acidic tears

because he fears to be

feminine, so feeling

feelings makes him scared?

I have a question—

for leaders who

don’t lead by example;

is it purpose or power,

that fuels you?

is it oath or ego?

that is my question.

____

Dreams

A river flowing through

my dreams,

taking pictures far

from me;

good and bad,

and in between–

they all float down

the angry stream;

until my mind is fresh

and clean,

and I wake up on my

sheets serene,

only dampened

by the feelings

that the erosion

left behind overtime.

I dreamt a dream

of better things,

and then I dreamt

I grew white wings

and flew too close

to a star, ‘till I burned

and turned

torched and charred.

Lard with color and

poignant plotlines,

I dream some dreams

of beautiful things–

that dense and darken

before I wake,

and then my memory

my dreams doth take.

____

TREPIDATION

The trepidation

of my twenties

is tilling over my

noisy nerves

which wont shut up

about my body,

or the boy

that i'm afraid

will get bored of it–

and I think when

I am an old lady

I’ll eat the pies

I bake instead

of giving them

away;

I’ll put extra cream

into my coffee cup;

I’ll write a book

for young people

to read;

I think I’ll smell

like nectarine–

and maybe I’ll learn

to play guitar and sing.

I think i’ll feed pigeons

by a fountain,

and climb

a big mountain;

just to say it’s

something I did;

I think I’ll mentor

a creative little kid.

I think I might frequent

local art galleries,

and be known by some

as “that quirky old lady”;

I think I’ll travel more,

with someone I adore–

I think I will make a lot

of soup out of peas,

that no one will like

to eat but me.

I think i’ll reach out to a friend

from high school

and spend more

of my summers

in a swimming pool;

I think i’ll wear

a cute swimsuit,

and ignore the way it fits

my herky-jerky divots.

I think I’ll start to pray;

not to god,

but to my mother, who

I wish could live forever

and always be there

to give me her best answers.

I think I’ll have children;

in the form of house cats–

and wear colorful

bucket hats.

I think I’ll care less

about what people

think, and I will finally love

all of my body;

because when I wrinkle

and begin to grey

I’ll thank my bones

for carrying me

every day–

even when my tattoos

begin to fade

I’ll still have stories

to tell the twenty-somethings,

as well

as secrets to take

to the grave;

and when I think

about my face

and how it might look,

in a few decades–

I smile at the picture

and wish that

I could hug her

she looks like me,

but softer;

she’s full of forgiveness

and laughter

she's a spitting image

of her golden mother,

she’s got paleing hazel

eyes like her father,

and the confidence

of her brother.

But I am her,

and she is me–

she is everything I can be

So I don’t have to wait

to heal my heart,

or create my art;

I think I just have to start.

Al Black's Poetry of the People featuring Xavier Khalil

Cindi Boiter March 3, 2025

This week's Poet of the People is Xavier Khalil.

A few months ago, Xavier showed up at Cool Beans for Mind Gravy, he sat quietly in the back, eventually, he shared on open mic and kept coming back for more. He made friends with the regulars and felt confident enough to have his own 30 minute feature.

Xavier is a kind and passionate poet with a voice that needs to be heard and I am blessed to have him in my creative life.

~Al Black

Xavier Khalil is a native of Atlanta, Georgia. He has been involved in the arts from the age of 8; participating in oratorical contests in elementary school. He moved to Beaufort, South Carolina to receive better education opportunities and lived with many family members while attending high school. Creative writing has been a lifelong hobby for Xavier, and more recently has found his love for poetry in 2023. The 22-year old's poetry reflects the essence of the Black queer experiences surrounding themes of spirituality, love, activism, and life's quarrels with grief and addiciton. These passions are further extended in Xavier's work through his podcast Choosing Joy and various social media platforms where he constantly advocates for humanity. He is an alumnus of the University South Caolina Aiken where he earned his Bachelor of Arts in Communicaiton with a minor in Sociology. Currently Xavier is working on his Master in Higher Education and Student Affairs degree at the University of South Carolina in Columbia."

“Meet Me”

Meet me at the coffee shop

Across the street from the Horseshoe –

Park by the meter

And, I’ll meet you at 2

This scene fits us

Is there an us?

Is it too early to discuss?

Maybe an idea we both want

I trust.

No matter I just want you –

I mean be with you –

I mean experience you –

Wait.

I just enjoy your company

Is all

How we engage

In conversation

And swoon as each other talks

Its cute

How we banter

Going on about psychology

(Stanza 5)

Sociology, biology

Theology, geography

Nationalities

Whew its…

And did you say

Music?

You be the R&B

To my neo-soul

You go On & On

Like Erykah’s songs

Making my soul glo

You’re “Golden” boy

Like Jill

Caught constantly

Giving me the feels

And chills and thrills

From Black history

To Mariah vs Whitney

Singin’ lil songs

Hearing you, “Say My Name”

Can we admit we’re

(Stanza 9)

The Children of Destiny?

After this please

Let there be more

Don’t let it end

Once you close your car door

After this

Come see me

Not in my visions or dreams

Comes see me, physically

Come see me, again, spiritually

Strip me emotionally

Nigga come see about me!

And allow me to be naked – fully

Sorry, if that’s too much

If, it was too strong

I’m sorry

I promise I wont do any wrong

Don’t run, please…

I’ll just be your friend

I know that love’s too scary

And we don’t want this to end

(Stanza 13)

So, I’ll just be your friend

May the love of our bond

Grow true

And organic

But until then…

Meet me at the coffee shop

Across the street from the Horseshoe

Park by the meter on Monday

And I’ll meet you at 2.

"Bridges and Railroads"

Driving across the Broad River Bridge

It’s so different now

So the same

So opposite simultaneously

Chocolate neighborhoods

Replaced by golf courses

Shops for mommas and poppas

No replaced by corporations

Because they bought someone

Reparations

Thanks to high taxation

Chocolate faces

Moved to other chocolate places

Across the bridge – 2 or 3 –

On the other side of train tracks

2 or 3

Only for suited giants

To do it again

Killing off the wildlife

Destroying their land

Mossy, ancestral trees

Collapse

No care for the significance

Removing black bodies

Further from themselves

Because you pull them

By the root

It’s now deer season

But the bullets aren’t hitting

The right young Buck.

The shooter is jailed

While the true hunter

Mounts the bodies on the walls

Using the black bodies

And the brown/red skin

As rugs and mink coats

As you dwell in a home

Erected in a plot of land

That was once their own

Ignorance of the beautiful

Culture and bodies that inhabit

Are encouraged

Looked at as anomalies

Oddities of black magic

and spirituality

Not realizing

These beings are

Slowly being ostracized

Tantalized by outsiders

Who see their existence

As profit

And the lost minds

Haven’t a clue of what to do

About it.

Displaced

Shoved into obscurity

In massive fish tanks

Of barren yards

And unstable mobile homes

Chocolate people

Are losing their way.

In their home

Didn’t think I’d see the day.

“Brown Boys Feel Fluorescent”

I make you feel like

A white boy?

Some safety

Visibility

Security

You adore from me?

I validate you

And give you innate freedom

In tandem

Denying myself that same

The right to exist

And be cherished

For the humanity

In your brown body

I make you feel

Like a white boy

Brown boy

I cherish

You make me feel like

Like a spirit

You make me feel like

Like a spirit

So big

Infinite

Free and confined

You give me space to be wild

You to have grand emotions

To obsess

To express

Display feelings

Be passionate

But, in making

Me feel my spirit

Makes me feel

Trapped in this human experience

I inherited

This one that you hardly

Acknowledged

This body you barely

Touch

This figure

That houses the very spirit

You freed

I make you feel

Like a white boy?

Not spoiled, but entitled –

Deserving.

Privileged.

You make feel like –

Like a spirit

Not holy; certainly not evil

Just too free

Too astral

Unfortunately

You only see that

The reinforcement of

Perfection

Not giving a human connection

I am guilty for this

I am merely a reflection

Of how you view

What is perfected

So in making you

Feel like a white boy

-protected-

You make me feel like Spirit

-easily neglected-

Picking and choosing

When to feel my presence

Yearning for me

But so displeased by

Your imperfection

My love you constantly

reject it

Oddly, I cannot be mad

At you

Because seeing my spirit

Means the “white boy”

In you wants to protect

Protect my pride

Protect my freedom

Protect my ambiguity

My duality

Protect me from your truth

Protect my vibrant spirit

From being dimmed by you

Brown boy

Blue bird

Look at your reflection

In the river

Let the water cleanse your feet

It’s not whiteness you feel

It’s a freedom you’ve been denied

The freedom that heals

A freedom I had no clue

I could even give

As I look

My spirit

Shines outside this skin

It glows outwardly

And vibrates through me

Within

Standing parallel

Across the street

We a re on

You and me

Living separately

The Spirit you see

In me

Is shared

We share it with Thee

So, I thank you

Thank you for helping me to see

Brown boy I made feel safe

Thank you for recognizing

My grandness

The protection

The freedom

The privilege I afforded

It didn’t make you feel “white”

It finally made things

Feel to a degree

Alright

And you important

Hand to hearts

Eye to eye

Soul to soul

Brown boys make

each other feel free

protected and safe

Brown boys dance

In the dark

In the nighttime

Becoming jovial

-effervescent-

Transcends them

To fluorescence

Brown boys made

Each other feel like glowing

Bright, white

Hues

I never made you

Feel like a white boy

I simply made you feel your spirit, too.

“It’s Foggy Outside”

It’s foggy outside

In these times

There are blurred lines

Where cars and worlds

Collide

It’s cold and wet

Out here

Be careful

Don’t slip

The weather makers are

Praying on your downfall

Our downfall

If you will

They want hit and runs

They want blame

They want pointing fingers

Stinging scars and burns

Cause by their flames

It’s foggy outside

Be careful walking

Through these low clouds

Be careful stalking

For your next meal

Stay low to ground

Look out for your neighbor

Don’t hurt each other on your prowl

In these times

Wanting to thrive

What a luxury to be

Alive

Right now we just survive

Until the sun dies

Behind the rain clouds

The sun still shines

But the time we once had

Is no longer on our side

Its of essence

And its precious

As the fog children

Walking in the midst

Of a global depression

It’s cold

It’s foggy

It’s rainy

It’s nasty

Barely sunny

It’s the time slipping

Down the road

And through our fingers

Please feel the hope

The faith

That still lingers

Don’t be fooled by

The occasional peak

Of sun during dark day time

Don’t let the warm day time

Dry up your inside

Don’t let confusion make

Your temperature rise

Be looking out the window

Because its foggy outside

Jasper's Poetry of the People with Al Black featuring Susan Madison

Cindi Boiter February 6, 2025

This week's Poet of the People is Susan Madison. I first met Susan at an early event hosted by the Pat Conroy Literary Center in Beaufort, SC. We periodically re-connect over poetry and literary projects. She is a gifted poet and writer and is a well-respected force in the South Carolina poetry and literary community.

~Al Black

Susan Madison is a poet, essayist, and short story writer who merges visual artistry with literature. Her work explores culture, history, and consciousness. The author of two chapbooks, if i sing the blues and Gullah Paths, Madison has been published in local and national publications, including Chicken Soup for the Soul.and Ukweli. A native of Chicago, Madison studied fiction and poetry at Columbia College of Liberal Arts in Chicago. She lives on St. Helena Island, South Carolina.

True Red

Don’t try to paint me off-red,

a muted,

distilled version,

of primary red.

I am not doped-up with the flighty spirit of yellow,

made into an orange-

red.

Don’t water me down and tint me with black,

and make me into a funeral-drapery sad,

maroon red.

And please don’t whitewash me and make me,

a soft namby-pamby,

unassuming pink,

nonthreatening,

unrecognizable-

red.

Paint me a straight-no-chaser,

warning label red,

a clueless of how to handle type of red,

a bleeding out,

unassailable,

no excuse,

unapologetic-

red.

Paint me red- red,

draped on a jet-jet black woman,

type of red-

strutting down a church aisle

of an all white,

pure white congregation-

late

red,

that stand-alone,

hush-your- mouth

sit-down-and-catch-your-breath

red.

Home

All she wanted were fingernails the color of orange rinds,

a one room cottage that witnessed the sea,

with a path paved with river stones,

a weathered-beaten door,

behind which sat a simple bed,

curtains the flapped in the wind

and a desk,

haunted by an unknown poet

she would paint the shutters often to amuse herself,

when breezes kicked up their heels,

and families of stars littered the night sky,

she’d sit outside and write letters to dead lovers,

or conjure up friends and cousins,

she could have loved more carefully,

and brush their cheeks with her finger tips.

if sadness burglarized her,

she’d sip bourbon from a bottle,

and chew ice to chase the sting,

or maybe she’d entered the water as she came into the world,

or pause and indulge in its pain

when joy gave her parties,

she’d danced without trying to keep beat,

and answer it with a holy ghost prance

But mostly,

she’d examine her shiny orange nails,

turn her hands,

until the light bounced off the shine,

and listen to the echo of the sea

rise and fall within her womb.

Now

My poetry is ugly now-

It sifts through garbage

for proverbs now,

it's the merciless place between George Floyd's neck,

and the cop's knee who knelt there now.

Irreverent of religion now-

It goes to the mountainside and argues with Jesus now,

Takes up arms with the devil now,

Sits in alleys with drunkard whores now.

It's no longer diplomatic with liars now,

It's the click- click-

fuck-you walk,

of high heels on pavements now,

it’s the jazzed-up junky's-

don't give a shit twang now.

It stopped socializing with the righteous now,

Doesn't look away from adult crack-babies now,

Sleeps under tarps with the homeless now,

Interviews dying dope dealers now

My poetry is ugly now-

It stopped beautifying the womb of tulips now,

Ceased feeding the chickadees and listening to cardinals calls now,

It makes music from the wails of children now,

It's the moaning in old gospels now-

the vacant look in the eyes of hopeless now

It's the song of ugly now.

Jasper's Poem for the Day - Reading Anne Frank by Al Black

Cindi Boiter January 30, 2025

Reading Anne Frank

I wonder

what became of the family

who hid Ann Frank in an upstairs room

I wonder

if one of my siblings or a childhood friend

would have turned her family in

and gloated as they were hauled away

I wonder

if I would have the strength of character to say,

"No More"

Poetry of the People Featuring Peggy Logan

Cindi Boiter January 25, 2025

This week's Poet of the People is Peggy Logan aka Tabu Hazel. I have known Peggy Logan for close to 15 years. She is an award educator and spoken word poet and has featured at Mind Gravy and other Midlands venues many times. Often her poetry highlights the challenges faced by under-priviledged youth she encounters in the public education sector or facing challenges in yourself. Every child deserves a Peggy Logan in their corner lifting them up and mentoring them to become their best selves.

~Al Black

Dr. Peggy Logan, aka Tabu Hazel, is a dynamic spoken word artist, writer, and actor whose work resonates deeply with audiences. Known for her bold storytelling and unapologetic voice, she explores themes of self-worth, empowerment, and the complexities of human relationships. Under her poetic alter ego, Tabu Hazel, she crafts powerful narratives that challenge stereotypes, redefine identity, and inspire transformation.

A multi-talented creator, Peggy's artistic pursuits extend beyond poetry. She is the writer and visionary behind Digital Deception, an award-winning drama that dives into the complexities of love and betrayal in the digital age. Her work in the film world reflects her gift for capturing raw emotion and authentic storytelling. As an actor, Peggy has graced the stage and screen, bringing depth and intensity to every role she portrays.

With a career rooted in creativity and authenticity, Peggy Logan continues to inspire and empower others through her words, performances, and stories. Whether on the page, stage, or screen, her artistry leaves an indelible mark.

Broken Crown

He came to me like a whisper in the dark,
soft, deliberate, his words weaving a spell.
A kiss on my forehead,
his signature claim to reel me in,
as if that gentle touch
could rewrite the story of my scars.

"To be with me is growth," he said,
and I let his promises take root.
I believed him.
I believed the warmth of his hands,
the way his gifts spoke louder than my doubts.
Money slipped into my pocket like a secret,
gestures wrapped in silken lies.

I knew about her.
The ring, the vows, the life he shared.
But I thought I was the only other,
his chosen confidant,
a second truth in his divided world.

Until I wasn’t.

It started with her—
my friend, her laugh untouched by guilt.
She didn’t know about us,
but I found out about them.
The way his eyes lingered on her,
the way his words mirrored the ones
he used to draw me in.

And then there were others,
names I’ll never know,
faces blurred by the weight of discovery.
Each revelation broke me a little more.
What I thought was love
became a lesson in betrayal.

I told no one.
Not about her,
not about him,
not about the nights I spent
trying to piece together
how I let myself fall so far.

His love wasn’t love.
It was a mirror,
reflecting every fracture in my soul,
a hollow promise dressed in warmth.

He left me raw,
my heart in shreds,
my spirit crumbling under the weight
of what I thought we were.
But I didn’t stay there.
I couldn’t.

I gathered the broken pieces of myself,
the shards of my spirit he tried to scatter.
It wasn’t easy.
Pain has a way of sinking into the bones,
lingering in the silence,
whispering in the dark.

But I chose forgiveness.
Not for him.
For me.
Because to carry his shame was to let him win,
and I refused to live in the shadow
of a love that was never mine.

It still hurts.
The memory is a wound that aches,
a scar that reminds me of who I was,
and who I’ll never be again.

This crown I wear now,
it wasn’t his to give.
It’s mine.
Forged in fire,
shaped by survival,
polished by the light I found within myself.

I stand in that light now.
Whole.
Unbroken.
Free.

Love Out Loud

I never told my mother that I loved her enough when she was living.

We weren’t raised to speak love out loud.

Love was something we showed—buried in Sunday dinners,

Folded into the way she passed the cornbread, warm and buttered,

In the way she mended wounds without a word.

We weren’t built for affection with open arms,

We carried secrets like weights, grudges like armor,

And buried our silence in the same place we buried our pain.

I never told my mother that I loved her enough.

We weren’t quite built for that—

Too much pride, too much history in our bones.

Our families hold secrets like heirlooms,

We hold onto hate like it’s all we know,

And we bury silence in the same ground as our roots.

I grew up watching her hands do all the talking,

Hands that braided me and my sister’s hair, that wiped our tears,

Hands that worked long after the world told her to rest.

She loved in ways that didn’t need words,

And I loved her back the same.

But I wonder—what would’ve happened if I had said it more?

If I had spoken the words that sat heavy on my tongue,

Before time turned them into regrets I now carry.

I want cookouts and Sunday dinners that fill more than plates.

I want laughter that isn’t afraid to be loud,

Conversations that don’t dodge the hard truths.

I want to tell her that I see her now—

Not just as my mother, but as the woman who carried the weight of the world

And never let it break her spirit.

I see the sacrifices, the sleepless nights,

The silent tears she thought I didn’t notice.

We weren't raised to speak love out loud,

But I feel it now, burning in my chest,

And it’s too late to say it in the way I should have—

Too late to fix the words I left unsaid.

But if I could, I would tell her:

I love you, not just for the things you did,

But for the things you endured,

For the battles you fought in silence,

For the love you gave, even when the world gave you none.

We hold grudges like we hold breath—

Tight, waiting for the release that never comes.

We bury our pain in silence, let it fester like wounds unhealed.

But I don’t want to do that anymore.

I don’t want the silence, I want the truth—

I want to tell you that I love you, even if we never said it enough.

I want to cook and laugh and feel

Everything that time took away from us.

I wish I’d known that love doesn’t wait,

That it doesn’t have to be hidden, held back by tradition,

That love could have filled the air, instead of just our plates.

I never told my mother I loved her enough when she was living—

But now, I’m trying to love her in ways she’d understand,

Trying to break the cycle of silence, of holding on too tight to what doesn’t matter,

And letting go of what does.

So, if I could have one more Sunday,

One more dinner, one more day,

I’d say it—I’d shout it, whisper it, let the words spill.

Because love was always there,

We just didn’t know how to say it.

But now I know, and I’m telling you—

I love you, in ways that stretch beyond silence,

In ways that live even after the words go unsaid.

Thrones of Insecurity

Oh, they enter like the room owes them something

Two women cloaked in chaos, misery their king.

Every word a dagger, sharp but weak,

Every glance a judgment they’d never dare speak.

They don’t build—they tear.
No bridges, no bonds—just walls of despair.
Sisters in name, but strangers in spirit,
Screaming for validation, too afraid to hear it.

Their laughter echoes, but it’s hollow and forced,
Fueling their power with envy, their only recourse.
They find fault in others to avoid their own cracks,
Throwing stones from glass houses, hoping no one throws back.

They circled me once, baiting me to join,
Their game of gossip, their poison coin.
But I don’t dance in dirt, I don’t play that tune—
I rise with the sun while they howl at the moon.

Oh, they tried to pull me into their storm,
But I refused, my peace my norm.
They mocked my stillness, mistook it for fear,
Not realizing my silence was louder than their sneer.

They sit on thrones made of envy and spite,
Rulers of nothing, dimming their own light.
Believing their bitterness is some kind of crown,
But I’m no subject—I won’t bow down.

They whisper like wind, their lies take flight,
But truth doesn’t falter, not under their might.
I see their pain cloaked in venom and steel,
They cut with their words because they don’t want to feel.

While they stew in their chaos, I plant my peace,
Watering joy where their shadows crease.
Fighting my demons in silence and grace,
Finding light in the laughter youth leaves in its trace.

Because you can’t tear down what you didn’t create,
And I’m not your competitor, just your mirror of hate.
I walk my own path, no need for their games—
Their thrones crumble under the weight of their names.

And here’s the truth they’ll never admit:
They’re not queens—they’re prisoners in their own pit.
Bound by their anger, chained by their pride,
They can’t stand to see someone simply survive.

But while they unravel, I’ll continue to rise,
Their pettiness shrinking under wide-open skies.
Because real queens don’t destroy; they build and uplift,
They speak with love and give others the gift
Of strength, of grace, of something pure—
But that kind of power they’ll never endure.

So keep your crowns made of sorrow and stone,
I’ll wear resilience, my joy my own.
Because while you fester in what you lack,
I’ll rise—always—and never look back.

And one day, when their storm settles,
When they’re left with their silence and twisted medals,
They’ll realize they never conquered me—
I was too busy building my legacy.

Poetry of the People with Al Black Featuring Rian N. Jenkins

Cindi Boiter January 16, 2025

My first Poet of the People for 2025 is Rian N. Jenkins.

Rian has been a fixture on the Midlands poetry scene for many years as both a poet, spoken word artist and mentor. She is a beacon of light who empowers and promotes others with her positivity and I'm proud to call her, Friend.

~Al Black

Rian N Jenkins has been in love with writing since sixth grade. For over 30 years, she has inspired, entertained, and educated many through poetry, novellas, journalism, and performances. In 2021, she added author to her resume. She has published three poetry anthologies and looks forward to debuting her first children’s book, A Blessing for The World, and her first middle grades novel, Reverse.

A native of Sumter, SC, she graduated from Ridge View in ‘98 in Columbia, SC and Winthrop University in ‘03. She has roots in Edisto Island, Hollywood and St Helena Island; she is the mother of a brilliant and talented young king and is a podcaster who speaks on topics that spread light.

A former teacher (twenty years) and a spoken word artist, author, mentor and program director of CROWN HER, formerly known as the ROSES mentoring program, she is a LIT specialist who does book talks online while sponsoring All Black Author Book Drive and Giveaway in the Columbia area. In her spare time, she loves to spend time with her family and friends, watch sports, especially football or a good show that entertains while causing her to push her pen, thrift, and eat at different restaurants.

To learn more information about her or how to book her for a performance, author visit, writer’s workshop or find her on social media, visit her website, www.riannjenkins.com.

____

“Determined”

Determined.

He was fleeing.

With raindrops streaming down his face

as in attempting to be an obstacle

deterring him from the finish line.

Crying too many times almost eroded the lifeline.

Despite the sun not shining,

he finally saw the light,

his way out.

His breakthrough is attainable, worth the fight.

Determined

Marching down the busiest road.

Bumper to bumper traffic doesn’t stop him

from rolling two suitcases, one with a broken wheel,

along with the weight of the two more bags,

one on his back wasn’t enough defer his dream,

obtaining the reality of freedom.

Pausing only to catch his breath.

He would not abort the mission.

Determined.

Nothing was going to stop him.

The raindrops are falling,

creating what some would deem

a collision course with reckless drivers.

Rainy days evoke a clash of wills

provoking fatigue among the weak.

Intimidated out of the belief of worthiness.

Determined, deserving of every promise.

He refused to get tired

He knows he is strong enough to walk through rain.

The pain of staying is enough to push anyone insane.

Determined.

He wouldn’t remain, waste away, abandoning hope.

This rain didn’t compare to the storm he faced for years.

He didn’t care how many breaks he had to take.

He didn’t care about onlookers wondering where he is going.

Ignoring their annoyance echoing in the blaring of horns.

He knows his destination.

Endless cycles was no longer an option.

Too legit to quit.

Determined

Resilience is the cape that flies behind him,

undergirding him to pull two suitcases, one with a broken wheel,

the weight of the two more bags, one on his back

wasn’t enough defer his dream,

obtaining the reality of freedom

through a busy street

that would deem a borderline a highway

scaring away any boldness.

Yet, he is careful to avoid traffic.

Nothing was going to stop him from this journey.

Determined.

~~~

“Unveiling”

Why do we carry the young into spaces

to witness brilliance

they may not remember

may not cherish or relish

embrace like a desired toy?

Maybe we will awaken a space

in their heart that is dormant.

Unknowing or cognizant of the potential

of what can grow if we expose young eyes and minds

to a future they didn’t know existed.

Culture is what it is giving.

Experiences that can be

life changing.

Igniting a passion, a dream to be lived as reality.

Inspiring, empowering, impacting

Reverberating in the souls and spirits of many

a contagious energy elevating and illuminating this earth.

Maybe we also understand

we can never be content with saying he or she is the first

with no one standing in line to carry the baton, the legacy.

We beam with pride as they roll their eyes

Because we carry them into spaces

to witness magnificence

Permeating their psyche with images

alternating destiny.

Igniting a passion, a dream to be lived as reality.

Inspiring, empowering, impacting

Reverberating in the souls and spirits of many

a contagious energy elevating and illuminating this earth.

Maybe we sense the gift God placed in their spirit

Cultivation and irrigation is needed for it to sprout

So we ignore the pouts on their faces

When we carry them into spaces

To witness eminence

Identifying the journey God has for them.

Igniting a passion, a dream to be lived as reality.

Inspiring, empowering, impacting

Reverberating in the souls and spirits of many

a contagious energy elevating and illuminating this earth

Al Black's Poetry of the People featuring Bo Petersen

Cindi Boiter December 14, 2024

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

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

~Al Black

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

Aurum

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

burnishing,

burnishing

tongues

ice rill fingers puckered numb, the steel sieve

sun

“he’s his own worst enemy”

a crude pan in a cold hand

burnishing

new blaze

who has sinned so he is blind? neither

is he blind or do we see

all it takes is spit

a little humility

“well, theoretically it’s a good scenario

but there’s a practical impediment”

so i glean

fool’s gold

flecked

insensibility

civilization demands emancipation, demands

or all is intrigue

the grave weight of this given earth frees

into Whose hand we

sieve, despite what we believe spirit agleam a particle stream

shook of space, dust

shining

spirit

is beauty, beauty is

spirit

all we know of earth

imperfect

cultivate

create

love

perfects

or all is just creed

o i’d like to be Learn’d, i guess

adeptly key in a daunting Op-ed

screed a piece out of Poetry to bleed their heads

o i’d learn’d to be like, i guess

all i yearn is beauty,

simply,

beauty

suffices

go on, ask

what it is i dream

in chanting streams, in ulule tongues, ulule

reeds,

i am stealing wings.

as dismissive as these

radiate coals in the cold

i leave

flights of white ibis flashing dawn

egret in pairs lifting in shine

from a shook pan in mist freeze

(who died waiting sale)

gone, gone, no mournful white

joy

8,000

souls unslaved

off Gadsden’s pitch dock

to the salt harbor

splayed

blanched bones scraping hissing sands

with no grave

- for the IAAM, Charleston

Nativity

ignorant would it be to whisper

Lord

we’ve blasted past

the purpled robes, the mock angelic

thinlit candle in the cold sepulchre

of our souls

light years

we are weaned

past pretense

past dwarf planets

swelled of gravid moons

out the far womb of what we now know

pulses

I tell you

yet

push

not in the patinas you don’t see

the blood, the spew

bowels

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

there is nothing like this

to be

the strangely agape sheepherders

the magical jangles

of robed wanderers of stars

nothing, he must have thought, nothing

like this

you could conceive

(the point)

poetry,

the point is,

where

metaphor becomes parable

song,

sense.

Poetry of the People featuring Elizabeth Leverton

Cindi Boiter December 8, 2024

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

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

~Al Black

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

Generations, Words of Love, and a Turtle Called Myrtle

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

Two women sit in the dimly lit dining room.

One of them is blind.

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

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

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

male Betta fish (deceased),

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

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

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

earthworms, feeder fish, & snails.

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

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

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

nearby pond.

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

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

see a jazz band.

Mississippi born Rose finds Sadie forward, lacking dignity,

but slowly warms to their friendship.

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

her.

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

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

working in a laboratory, waiting.

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

growing up with his folks’ love letters

tucked away somewhere in a drawer.

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

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

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

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

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

caregiver.

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

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

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

Shorty was the dream who made sure it happened.

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

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

soil.

“Oh, haven’t I told you?” Rose asks,

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

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

freezing night; while

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

memories,

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

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

chickens are ruffled.

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

things…

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

Bessie and the chickens.

Rose will forget things, but Myrtle will remember,

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

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

to the sandy flower bed.

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

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

“She returns every year,” adds Rose.

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

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

There is always Memory, though,

now yours:

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

and the great returns:

of Myrtle the Turtle.

___________________________________________

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

1. A reader who appreciates slowness,

nature, and starry nights.

Cool temperatures, sunshine,

and animals.

Always a seeker, more interested in observing,

in becoming, in growth—that inner work,

more urgent than a need.

Not trying to sway the opinions or dreams of others.

A survivor of aggression, sternness, and criticism—

carefree reactions will irritate Judges.

Carefree reactions might cause or be caused by tuning out,

an absentmindedness.

Still,

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

that blank slate.

2. Darkness appears before the turning of the hourglass,

then light in that darkness: falling bits, sand,

shadows of memory pass like ghosts across attic floors.

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

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

& Mindful, when possible.

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

and less aggression to contrast them against, too.

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

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

But there is visual art, and it feels breezy

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

leftovers— feeding generations delight.

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

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

questions intentions, demands accountability, and posits preferences.

What church trusts intentions?—Nature.

Gather

where green is… same, browns and blues…

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

The answers are the answer:

5. “Love,”

comfort, Love—

freeing, Love.

Love is humanity’s shout-out to God.

_________________________________________

Lone Girl versus the Darkness

1. I have stood terrified for a lifetime

of you.

I have worst-case scenario’d

my way through books and books

without light;

have hidden my heart from you;

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

I do not take sides.

Now I see you face to face—

& there is comfort in knowing

how small you really are.

You

are finite,

for hearts of darkness

never grow.

2. I have patched the holes in these jeans

worn threadbare on

barbed wire—

& I am riding now aside

into the sunrise in my mind

that you cannot draw from,

that you cannot dim,

that you cannot envelope

with sinister clouds,

& I do not care

anymore

of the fancy tricks

that you will try, because

being terrified is

behind me now.

___________________________________________

Car Radio, Fourth Amendment

Chronologically before the terror-

filled memories I cannot repeat are

filed the inside jokes from the Holy Spirit.

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

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

I began to conquer Memory Failure via Mathematics.

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

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

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

In fact I have longed to be mediocre,

somewhere in the middle,

Not at one extreme, the other:

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

and got into fights (however, tho,

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

I was really a bumbling peacemaker

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

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

and to the

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

after he called me stupid.

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

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

stretch).

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

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

to a very

awkward

shyness

in public.

& so,

I desired,

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

that

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

from the front of a room filled with laughter…

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

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

Poetry of the People with featuring Richard Garcia

Cindi Boiter December 1, 2024

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

~Al Black

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

Then

A knock on the front door,

but no one is knocking.

My mother is upstairs again

threatening to jump out the window.

And there is my best friend Tito.

The swish-swish of metal roller-skates.

Father Harris from All Saints Episcopal Church

crosses the street holding my book

with two hands as if it were heavy.

He wants an inscription, something clever,

for his future granddaughter—should I tell him

that my book has not been written yet,

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

that my mother's house

and All Saints Episcopal Church have taken wing

like two swans made of smoke,

swans that I might have imagined?

But that was now and this is then.

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

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

•

American Gothic

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

•

Message from Garcia

My brother was the rain.

He was also the sun.

My brother was a sun shower.

We used to sleep in the flames

of the gas fireplace when it was turned on.

but, since my brother was the rain,

the fire never harmed us.

My brother sang to make the moon come out.

He read to me from the pages of sand dunes.

Sad stories, always, sad stories.

Back in the olden days, television

was not invented yet.

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

My brother was the first Mexican-American

basketball star. San Francisco

News Call-Bulletin—Headline:

message from Garcia:

He breaks the record for points in a game.

Next game, double, triple guards on Garcia.

Me, I was an expert at dying.

I would clutch my chest and slowly spin

to the sidewalk. I would lie there

for a long time, twitching spasmodically.

The players from the other teams

complained about my brother.

That Mexican, they said,

he slips through us like rain.

•

Freedom

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

•

Poetry of the People featuring Lisa

Cindi Boiter November 7, 2024

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

Al Black

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

In my fall

The leaves crunch

beneath

my feet

and yet remain,

only changed

in form.

This season brings

a shedding,

a new stage,

and with it, new buds form

on the landscape

of my page.

I choose my response

to both the blooms

and the blight.

I’m a work in progress

an eternal dreamer

a student of this life.

Earth Angel

I was living with no clue

until I saw him for the first time

through new eyes,

the cataracts of my past removed.

Hardened tree limbs

for arms and legs

that engulf and protect

my wilting self.

I soar so very high

knowing not what the future brings.

He holds my cares, my cries

in the comfort of his wings.

I find relief in him

from the heat of the flames

for in his cool breeze

I live again.

I allow myself to float.

Expansive sky above

sun on my shoulders

safe in the sea of his love.

Shhhh

I am the devil

I am man himself

I am father

His words echo in my head

as his hand presses my face

deep into the bed

my jaws wrenched

out of place.

He always screamed “hush!”

He’s still trying to quiet me

He’s dead

The Box

The year 2028.

Abortion, firmly in our past.

No more bi-partisan hate.

New policy on the scene.

New government to intervene.

Email provides a link

to our portal.

Your fate sealed

as your date of birth will reveal.

If male, press the circle.

Minimally invasive,

it touts to be of great appeal.

A quick nip and tuck

no need for drugs.

Just a slice at birth, and home to heal.

And so, ends

the divisiveness

of this quarrel.

History books speak of

our barbaric acts,

how our young society suffered.

Don’t worry about these cracks.

For under our reign, we shall recover.

No more unwanted births.

The burden no longer on her.

Absolution founded by a mother.

Apply inside once notified

we deem you worthy to give life to another.

Thank god for a woman

I think God is a woman

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

Poetry of the People featuring Cynthia Francis

Cindi Boiter November 1, 2024

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

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

Al Black

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

Redone

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

____

Love Finds You

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

____

Life

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

____

Too Much

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

Poetry of the People Featuring Lisa Spears

Cindi Boiter October 18, 2024

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

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

-Al Black

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

Hope to the Brim

When grief for the world assails me,

and words avail me none,

and rockets rain in succession in day blind wars

and the amputee and the orphans cry

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

and there’s a bad accident on I-78

and an Aunt Ida is ill,

and the family cat ran away,

And all hope is at the bottom of the barrel,

I must cleave hope to remain

steadfast and standing

in my heart’s recall for,

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

and geese are flying south,

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

and a sliver of light passes through the curtain,

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

and seagulls frame the beach

and a grandpa baits the hook,

and sheets dry on the line,

and a child makes a wish with a dandelion flower,

and a niece is in remission,

and fall leaves keep falling,

and wild horses run so free,

and Morning Glories frame a white front porch,

and church bells ring come Sunday morn’,

and the people thereof keep on singing

And they keep singing,

I keep singing,

we keep singing,

until we know the words again,

filling hope to the brim,

And the cat came home.

Somewhere, the cat is home.

“ Adverbial Pause”

Another boy was murdered by another boy

today, I got the news

when the principal calls

at six p.m.

on a Saturday

it’s never good at my school.

Where they share lunch

and high fives and still love

when I bring candy.

Now, I can’t teach them about adverbs

how splendidly, gleefully, beautiful

it could have been

to turn sixteen.

“The Crossing (Yam Suph & Almamanu)”

Jewish and Arabic translation

Deir-al-Balah used to glitter by the sea

there among palms

families sang songs

a fisherman could hear

upon the water

Today, for a son

the house a hollow tomb

to hold his Um (mother)

The boy will go now

on the far side of land

to find Ab (father)

at the line drawn in the sand

Following the rockets by night

a myriad of faces

eclipse in shuttered flame

A piece of bread

for a child

with no name

Slipping past soldiers

towering like false gods

At dawn he runs

to the great divide.

There a girl is weeping

for a bright, blue dress

Bobbe (grandmother) she cries

Beyond the expanse

there is no sky

He reaches her hand

across the world

of every side

Herein lies a Holy Land.

Poetry of the People with Evelyn Berry

Cindi Boiter September 21, 2024

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

-Al Black

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

Self-Portrait at Nineteen

All summer, I worked shifts at Old Navy

& snorted molly from an iPhone screen

in the backseat of a car parked nowhere,

a happy heathen not yet grief-plundered.

Once, I was a boy unafraid to die.

I would swallow almost anything meant

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

pills left over from surgery pilfered

from my parents’ medicine cabinet,

coffee cups of dark liquor, gas station

feasts, bounty of grease, sugar, cigarettes.

How else to parachute from the body?

Aliveness, this useless extravagance

I have wasted once before, but no more.

prodigal daughter

what I know of sin, i learned in the sty

amid the swine, slurped mud and called it wine.

femme-fouled boy, faggot-spoiled sacrifice

offered at the altar and abandoned.

forgive my reckless want, lord, to belong

as more than soiled sacrament, fat sow

knife-split to gorge the prophets of gendered

violence. prayer, in their hands, a blade.

what do i know of penitence, patience,

except once the lord sent frenzied demons

into a drove of blameless pigs to drown?

how did we decide which beast to slaughter?

lord, i too am an impure animal.

i left home a son, return a daughter.

Eos

After Mary Evelyn Pickering De Morgan

Once, the goddess of dawn cried out, forlorn,

her son cast into dirt beyond the walls of Troy,

Achilles’ sword drawn through his chest,

his soul gone, replaced with a feathered flock.

Her tears poured graceless as swans,

like a vase overflowing with morning dew

until grief bloomed new gardens.

Describe to me the weight of this.

Mourning replenishes the earth, ushers

Soil into rebirth, new river traced

from the boy’s doomed blue veins.

What is a song worth without its wound?

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

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

The Decoy

After John Collier

To be painted femme fatale, condemned fatal:

a woman’s beauty is a dangerous deception

in the hands of a man who demands

to own her like a plucked rose.

Let me be the decoy instead,

damsel in undress, glinting

luminescent like a knife

bound to my ankle.

Al Black's Poetry of the People with Duna Miler

Cindi Boiter September 15, 2024

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

-Al Black

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

____

To My Sister Bo

(1949-2024)

The sun left the sky

The morning you died.

I will always be sorry,

I will always be grateful -

You were part of my life

All the days of yours.

Inspiration

In the night, in the mind,

The untrained fingers find the keys -

Elusive harmonies,

Unwritten melodies unwind.

In the light, we are blind.

The pinpoint eyes behind us seize

Vague shadows through the leaves.

The unseen vision frees mankind.

Set loose like cats at play,

Imagination’s day begins

Before the dawn sheds light,

Obscuring in that brighter way

The truth the darkness wins.

The webless spider spins by night.

Skyfish

A school of silver minnows turn

In unison against the clouds.

Here and there a jellyfish rises

To the surface and plummets with a blink.

Sometime during the differentiation

Of the fetal eye, bits of matter left over

From other structures lodged in the jelly

Between the lens and retinal wall.

When this debris floats into our field of vision,

And the retinal corpuscles twitch,

The sky becomes a motion picture screen

For an ocean of finite depth.

Dialectic

Angels are guiding my hand.

I stand in a clearer light.

There is no right way to go.

The shadow is always near.

I hear but cannot tell why,

Just follow my inner voice.

Choice is the dream of angels.

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

Cindi Boiter September 7, 2024

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

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

____

LIVING OUT LOUD

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

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

This is about community, living in unity.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Not longer waiting for the cue from our leaders.

We are about that action, standing on business

Waiting on the revolution to be televised?

This is the internet!

We want it instant.

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

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

Cause no longer will the minority be quiet.

WE ARE LIVING OUT LOUD!

FACES IN THE STREET

The city is crowded, per usual.

Everyone busy in their own pursuit.

A homeless man asks for spare change, if possible.

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

He knows where he is, but not in life.

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

Someone is late for their first day of work.

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

Someone is just out for exercise.

Another person is smiling, but crying inside.

A couple is holding hands. They just got married.

A couple is holding hands. The wife just miscarried.

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

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

A young teenager is looking for a place to stay.

The parents kicked him out because came out today.

A veteran is enjoying his first day home from war.

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

All these people around that I never get to meet.

Their stories untold. Just faces in the street.

BAD MEMORY

Remember when we first met?

It was on a day I'll probably forget.

It was raining,

Nope, it was sunny outside

Things get foggy as the days go by.

Remember that time we laughed till we cried?

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

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

I can't remember the name of the resort,

I just remember the snow.

Remember singing karaoke in front of everybody?

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

Or when I tried comedy for the first time.

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

Or what about the time we volunteered at the shelter?

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

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

I forget the exact words,

I even forget to make this rhyme.

So I'll make up for it some time.

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

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

HEAVEN

She looks like heaven

She's what angels sing about

She's what pastors scream and shout

She's my eternity

Cause being without her is hell to me

Those pair of eyes are paradise

And her smile cause from somewhere high

She's the reason why I sing

When she laughs, an angel gets his wings

On my mind, she's my halo

Her love is Gospel, cause she says so

Her voice makes me rejoice when I hear it

When I'm down, she's my spirit

She came from somewhere far above,

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

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

I'll sacrifice everything,

Cause she looks like heaven

FIRST LOVE

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

Yet I was her first.

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

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

See I was nothing but love.

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

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

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

I didn't pick a mother.

I was a choice she made and planned for.

And she prepared me for the women I would love.

What she did was traumatized me from light skinned girls!

Not, I'm just playing.

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

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

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

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

She taught me unconditional love.

She taught me was hustling was.

She taught me how to save.

And who not to save.

She never pushed my father out of my life.

She proved she'd never disrespect my wife.

I can never thank her enough.

And even though the roads been rough,

She's still my first love.

Poetry of the People featuring Amanda Rachelle Warren

Cindi Boiter September 1, 2024

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

-Al Black

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

____

Solus

Rain knocks pollen from the air.

Everywhere it hits: an o of yellow neon.

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

Nothing wakes me.

Not the warning sirens,

not the loud rumble, not the flash

of light outside the window.

The rain dampens everything with a soft hush.

I dream of water. Of the open window,

drops swelling the wood in its sash,

wrapped tight in my pink comforter,

the rain hits my upturned face,

and I pray the way a child prays,

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

The light through the window does not wake me.

I am shielded by rain.

In this dream I am crying.

In this dream I am always crying.

What never happened will keep
never happening.

I am tired. The rain does not stop.

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

I want to wash and dry everything in the house.

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

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

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

Drops pattern the left shoulder of my jacket;

fall with the weight of blossoms.

The rain makes me want to smoke.

Everything looks so clean. I want to

dirty it up. Smack it around a bit.

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

Move motherfucker. Jesus Christ.

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

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

Angle my wrist. Roll my eyes and pray,

loving the syllables of submission.

Lord, I will do anything. Anything

you want Lord, anything. I will do anything:

I am stretched thin

I am not in a forgiving mood.

Something is coming for me, scratches towards me,

rain seeps through it, threatens,

wants me emptied, ready to fill again.

Tenure Track Appointment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Dead are the Worst

Oily coffee from the gas station because

why not stay up all night?

The dead rattle on while I try to sleep,

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

Rain makes the sodium lights hiss like a directive:

Shut your mouth. Danger. Drink up. Remember.

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

Something haunts my oil pan.

I keep the radio low.

So the dead don’t surprise me.

So I can still write them off as interference.

The laughter of one gone brother leaves trails on my eyelids

like the trail of reflectors in the side view.

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

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

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

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

as baseball plays beneath the chorus. How I’m

stuck in the middle with you.

This car feels like a church in disrepair.

The chorus likes to point out

the things I already know. Jokers to the right.

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

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

where the dead hiss and crackle their EVP. I find

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

Well, fuck you too.

I’m down to a quarter tank.

The moon is completely gone.

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

Which is just repeating sorry?

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

in a voice all slick with temptation says:

We could really make this sucker fly.

Brother, You Don’t Even Know

In his wallet, he carried

a stack of business cards: coal black, no

text, no nothing, on either side. We

in our confusion, passed

them between us, forgetting

momentarily, that Uncle Hugo is

what we quaintly call "gone."

We will try to ignore the symbolism

of cards that convey nothing

found in the pocket of our dearly

departed. Dear Gertie holds

the cards to the light

expecting some meaning to shine

through the coal black dark.

Cousin Ansel wonders silently if

this is all a consequence of war,

some trauma never pinned to language.

Shake before using,

read the poison bottle

Uncle Hugo slit

his throat with.

The note in his pocket,

jammed beneath

dusty peppermints, read:

forget the cognac, I didn’t think

this was a kindergarten.

Uncle Hugo would have

rather died like a wind-chime,

clunk-clunk, in the linden tree

which grows nothing but shade,

but someone, perhaps Darling Frieda,

perhaps Little Hannah, returned

the step ladder to the shed and for once

locked it.

Nothing is ever where it should be.

Except, perhaps, Uncle Hugo

sprawled casual and cold in the pantry

in his good brown suit.

Blood congealing around the jars

of blueberry jam Great Aunt Delilah-Jean

so patiently canned wishing some small

summer sweetness spooned, come winter,

over her award-winning buttermilk biscuits.

Paul will grab the mop.

When the sweet, baby-headed

undertaker comes to lift

Hugo's stiffening body,

Hugo’s false teeth will clatter

to the ground and never be found.

Hugo, a tough nut, never cracked

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

from the war, which he never did.

He told Aoife once that his dreams

were filled with jam-thick blood.

He told Aoife that once, when Aoife was small.

He never smiled. But we hope

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

After Die Brücke (1959)

No Peach Pie in Barstow

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

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

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

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

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

sky, mountains, other drivers, douchebags from Havasu

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

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

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

yellow ball of sun sinking behind the Pinos,

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

goes to bed, sprawls and scowls.

I lean on the aluminum fencing looking towards Calico,

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

I could get without her noticing

that I am really, truly gone.

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

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

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

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

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

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

shed strands to the hot wind along the National Road,

proof I was here wishing it were beautiful.

On the Way to Needville

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

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

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

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

Beyond the breakers, platforms rise like small angry cities.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It is pointless, the way I move toward homesickness,

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

addressed to some old self. We need to stop lying

about being comfortable when nothing fits this skin of skin

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

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

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

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

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

Miles to Badaxe

Everyone in Birkenstocks, no one in moccasins.

The weather is unseasonably warm.

Corpses of fish flies heap in the sills.

Lake birds preen their fat bellies.

Everyone dusting the calcium chloride from their blue jeans

and reaching for the cooler between this town,

and that town, and that corner bar,

and party store and grab another cold one

because the green of the fields and the green

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

And the green mile markers tick higher, northing,

with the green names of German street signs

and the green moss on that Bavarian-gabled wreck

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

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

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

to my husband's German father who is chopping

back green branches in his green pants and green

shirt and green socks and Birkenstocks,

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

Al Black's Poetry of the People with Ellen Malphrus

Cindi Boiter August 16, 2024

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

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

-Al Black

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

____

Mother Emanuel

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

In her custodian’s closet the big

squeeze handle bucket

sits on its rollers, weary and dented,

stained past judgment day

when the wash water went

pink to red to crimson

with each faithful swath

across the solemn floor

and anguish

flowed through city pipelines

down the river

out to sea,

mingling with millennia of

mopped up blood—

ensanguined taint of senseless history.

We bow our heads, as nine cannot,

in awe of a

congregation who chose compassion.

Chose peace—

lest Charleston roil up in

hot black waves of wrath.

As surely it could have.

As some say it should have.

Dozens of unassailed steeples

rise above the peninsula canopy—

yet the grace of but one

makes this the

Holy City.

Founding Father

As you gallop

through the park

in granite stillness

children stretch from playground swings

toward the cloud-capped roof of innocence—

expecting to break the sky

if they spring out far enough.

And even if they land in earthbound sneakers

they have traveled farther

than your stone horse will take you

ever again.

A child’s rein might lead away from

this block of town square immortality

but they are busy

and don’t come close enough

to notice

your green streaked face

or hear the echo

in your bloodless veins,

Hero.

They don’t know that

you die again

as they squeal in sunlight

and still more

in the sharp of night—

when floodlights point

clear and cold.

Intermission

So you pitch a blue tent

in the field out back and

carry in enough booze

to pour yourself out,

prove you are alive

or not.

And you must be alive because

you are unfit to sleep in the house—

because you would lie in the dirt but

you’re not drunk enough to stand

the mosquitoes.

Who cares about the snakes.

You must be alive because

the knife bolts you

when you find it

in the sleeping bag—

because it’s the trap

you want to kill and

when you slash the top of the tent

the stars step back.

And you laugh.

That happens to you.

You, who must be alive because

you’re not watching yourself

wander

numb

by the river—

because that’s you, laughing.

Crying.

Crying when you remember

it is your mother who’s dying—

not you.

Live guilt blossoms

because you would even consider

stealing the stars

from yourself

when soon there will be so much darkness.

And they are fragile, the stars,

despite how they sometimes slice you.

Yes, you must be alive because

look at you scraping

labels from the empty bottles

and slinging them

to the recycle pile—

because you pick up the knife

and wonder where you put

the duct tape.

Nobody dead would do that.

Conjure Woman

Maiden, I have called you. Enter.

Closer now, and fade the lamplight.

I have watched you

in the nighthawk alley

aching alone in the stillness. But

in that courtyard news will never come.

Bound and bent they keep

him, far from the reaches

of your ever listening.

Yet his cries mingle in the pale wind,

and I hear them every nightfall.

I will tell you where to find him,

if you choose the dread and desert.

Only then can you begin to know that

nothing stands but dark. And

light bends to make the night more seemly.

They will tell you

white and white and white

and never stop. They will tell you

that but cannot keep you.

Ride in distance

through the furied sunset

past dahlias trailing

wildly across black dirt.

When silver separates the thunder

branch off at the thistle tree

and listen.

And if you can bear it, from

there you can hear the world.

Then you will find him.

Then you can know

why they tremble in the splintered twilight

and would sooner tear their hearts than say

that

I am of the other wonder.

Communion

The happy situation of a

notebook filled with lines—

no matter how poorly or

well placed on the page,

one following the next,

written here by me

or there by you

as we carefully

crashingly

longingly

lovingly

try to tell it

like it is,

was, will be.

Try.

We hold the pen and

roll our fingertips while

trains insist on distant tracks

and years bend over edgewise.

From time to time we walk away

to refill the larders

of life

but we always come back to them.

Words.

I didn’t think of you there

with your pain and tenderness

while I slow danced and

shimmied with my own.

But you are so clear to me now,

leaning over your cluttered desk

or propped in a bed of pillows.

I have wishes for you—

to finish drafts

and publish work

and catch every train

your heart sends you.

And when I take up my pen

for the first mark of the day

I will raise a glass in your honor

whether I remember to lift it or not.

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

Cindi Boiter August 4, 2024

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

-Al Black

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

Clippings

This morning, I trimmed my daughter's fingernails,

clippings of her growth throughout this week and days

past. Uneven crescent moons—stained and sodden from

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

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

of today: her basketball game, fried tofu with fortune

cookies for lunch.

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

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

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

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

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

the sebaceous glands of sweat and oil no longer soften

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

click of nail clippers, the heaviness of our breath.

On the Desire to Desire

Lately, it's all just a bunch of mylar

balloons—once blown up, puffed

out, a crinkling of nylon and foil,

maybe even getting caught in power

lines, maybe sparking a fire, maybe

even causing a blackout, but really,

mostly, it's just a deflating yellow smiley

face, stretched out—deformed and

disfigured, unsure of what it was

supposed to be good for all along.

Three Lives

after Sarah Russell

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

just as it is—each early Saturday on

the soccer fields, each tangle in my

daughter's riot of curls, each syllable

she sounds out as she's reading aloud,

and I'd keep each early Friday night in,

each wink across a crowded room, each

subtle shifting of stacks of books.

I'd keep it just as it is; keep them—

both just as they are.

But me? The other two? Well, in both

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

I'd drink protein shakes with flaxseed

and oats and collagen, and then I'd gorge

on chocolate-covered doughnuts. I'd walk

with confidence into each room, laugh

loudly at all my jokes, laugh louder at

all the inappropriate ones, unabashedly flirt

with my husband; I'd never worry if my

eyeliner was too much or if my face looked

weird or if this and if that and if and if

and if and if and if and if and

I would enjoy all the early Saturday mornings

and all the winks across crowded rooms, and

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

just as I am.

Off-Beat On-Beat

After all this time

our hearts still

do not beat as one, & resting against

my husband's bare chest

in the early morning hours,

I learn this.

No rhythmic sound

of two heart’s beats

falling

into

a synchronous tempo

together; a perfectly aligned

beat by beat by beat,

& listening, my ear

pressed to him, I hear of

the off-beats and the on-beats

and a slowing and a quickening,

and there are beats

I miss all together—

from my yawn, his feet moving against the sheets,

readjusting our bodies from where arms have

fallen asleep or thighs have gotten too warm—

I listen & I hear

our hearts’ beats beating,

unsure of which

thrum belongs to him &

which belongs to me;

they are not one,

they are together a

continuous quickening

before slowing

off-beats

on-beat.

Carry(, As a Feeling)

It’s true:

It’s hard to carry on with your well-

crafted composure when the weight of

your dying mother is laid upon you; her

swollen belly, holding four liters of fluid,

resting against you; her crepe-paper skin,

maintaining no elasticity, tearing beneath

you. Holding up her body—

Nevermind.

This won't be

about that.

It’s true:

It’s hard to explain, hard to carefully

craft these words that I don't even want,

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

breath-to-breath. Take them.

Turn out my pockets, remove my contacts,

pull out my teeth, just gag me until I vomit

up every last word I've choked down so someone

else did not have to bear the weight of:

the anger, the guilt, the sorrow, the shame

from the relief I harbor. It's true

this won't be

about that

either.

Nevermind.

My God, This Is Aging

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

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

Poetry of the People with Susan Craig

Cindi Boiter July 5, 2024

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

-Al Black

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

In the absence of touch

I ordered the puzzle mid-winter,

one with three thousand pieces—Van Gogh's

quaint room in Arles, his chunky saffron bedstead

& cane chairs, walls of cornflower blue,

forest-green window canted open, wooden floors

of foot-worn turquoise.

That April, native creatures of Yosemite ventured

out of seclusion, tiptoed onto gravel roads,

foraged pastures long-encroached by human voyeurs.

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

through swaying ponderosa, fragrant fir.

It seemed even city air became cleaner, crisper;

streets & highways shone like unused silver,

phantom wheels of material solace begun to unspin.

Were night skies truly more star-spangled those evenings

we sat out front in dilapidated armchairs

watching children pedal by on the sidewalk

followed by pilgrim parents?

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

left the others disconnected, inchoate

as a surrealist painting.

Van Gogh spent twelve months in the country asylum.

In isolation, his work grew prolific.

Scenes of nature—starry nights, olive trees contorted

below a blue, inexplicable sky.

Jacobson's Organ

Our canine companions also have an additional

olfactory organ we humans simply do not have...

Jacobson's organ.—ellevetsciences.com

Today the Dog

turns back on the trail

stands & waits for his Human /

this communion of sorts

borne of a decade of rebellion / Dog

at last taming his primal quest

to leap down-mountain

through winter-leaf hillocks

tracking every fleeing

miniscule essence /

Human calling his name

each time envisioning doom as he

bounds & crashes until there is

nothing but a whisper /

yet these days they are a marriage

of desire & acquiescence

symbiotic trekkers in winter woods

above the mountain cabin

in a timeworn pact /

Dog waits till Human

makes her way to the ridge / where

the log still lies for sitting

& leaves rustle like dresses / Dog

inhales an extravagance

the Human will never / Human

sits & imagines how the World

will come to an end

Ketamine

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

—NY Times, March 1, 2024

They never saw your gentleness beneath the ski mask,

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

An anonymous caller reported a man who looked 'sketchy'

happy-dancing on the sidewalk that dark night,

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

It was August, nowhere near winter in Aurora,

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

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

This was August, nowhere near winter in Aurora;

officers slammed you against a wall because you resisted,

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

What kind of terror seized you

as officers slammed you against a wall because you resisted?

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

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

paramedics pumping 500 mg of ketamine into your slight body?

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

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

Three officers pinned your slight body to the concrete,

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

Sunflower

When

in the season of cicadas

Mississippi Kites

wheel in swooning circles

whistling their two-note song

I picture my father

delta-child

of the Sunflower River

summer swelter

tannin black as southern tea

bare feet coated

in ruddy cotton-field dust

his young father stolen

by Spanish influenza

I almost see him

youngest of three blue-eyed sons

bent cane pole propped

on one knee

even then a dreamer

the squiggling night crawler

he pierces with a rusted barb

forces his eyes

to bear witness

as if the whole world

hinges on his small measure

of courage

it is then I want to tell him

every small harm

will be forgiven

Al Black's Poetry of the People Features Jonesy Stark

Cindi Boiter June 16, 2024

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

...