by Caroline Harvey
On tour in Ireland, Bruce Springsteen dedicates "American Skin (41 Shots)," his song protesting the death of Amadou Diallo, to Trayvon Martin.
Boston. 2:05pm, April 19th 2013.
my father, an attorney,
represented the new york state police bureau in the 80's.
when I was a child we had police stickers on our cars
and police license plates sat smug on our bumpers.
the officers and captains knew him by first name,
which meant we were waved through all the
barricades, the checkpoints, the
I’m sorry I was speeding, how's it going Jim, tickets.
I grew up imagining that
I was something remarkable,
that the cops had my back, especially.
I did not know
what my body meant.
I did not understand, not really
until Amadou Diallo
not until I lived in Oakland
not until I watched old women get beat down
for their purses
watched innocent black boys get cuffed and kidney punched
saw three year olds of every color huddle next to crack addicted moms
not until I learned to dance the orisha prayers in LA
got god-drunk with Maria, who was brown and Cuban
and her husband Alex, who was white and from Chicago
not until I traveled alone in Thailand, in Guatemala,
got spit on and kicked and attacked for my ignorance
not until I lived as an adult did I know
what it meant to be a child
white
and female
and to come from enough privilege
enough money
enough education
to grow up unafraid
of the police.
While the Boston Police, The FBI, and The National Guard hunted the Boston Marathon Bombing suspects, poet and educator Caroline Harvey endured the terrifying and mandated "Shelter In" by writing three poems every 90 minutes. Caroline has been featured on Season Five of HBO’s Def Poetry, and has shared stages with Melissa Ferrick, Livingston Taylor and Yasiin Bey (Mos Def), among others. Most recently, she was featured at the US Embassy in Serbia where she performed original work and led workshops about free speech for the first generation of youth to grow up post-Milosevic. Her work has been published in national and academic literary journals, including the National Poetry Slam Anthology “High Desert Voices,” Gertrude Press, Radius, The Legendary and The Lowestoft Chronicle, and she was nominated for a 2012 Pushcart Prize. Currently Caroline lives in Boston and teaches at Berklee College of Music.
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Senin, 22 Juli 2013
Minggu, 05 Mei 2013
DISCONNECT
by Rick Gray
In this dishonest script, my brother,
We must pretend no one is listening in,
and we are not men, but children
Put to sleep with lullabies so sweet
You’ll want to scream
When the next bombing hits
and our connection breaks into a
quagmire of static.
Rick Gray served in the Peace Corps in Kenya and currently teaches at the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul. He was a finalist for the Editor's Award at Margie, and has an essay that will be appearing in the forthcoming book, Neither Here Nor There: An Anthology of Reverse Culture Shock.
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| Image by Joe |
In this dishonest script, my brother,
We must pretend no one is listening in,
and we are not men, but children
Put to sleep with lullabies so sweet
You’ll want to scream
When the next bombing hits
and our connection breaks into a
quagmire of static.
Rick Gray served in the Peace Corps in Kenya and currently teaches at the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul. He was a finalist for the Editor's Award at Margie, and has an essay that will be appearing in the forthcoming book, Neither Here Nor There: An Anthology of Reverse Culture Shock.
Kamis, 02 Mei 2013
LITTLE THINGS AND BIG THINGS
by John Kotula
John Kotula is a writer and artist who lives in Peace Dale, Rhode Island.
A terrible, terribly damaged boy nearly bleeds to death in a boat, under a tarp, in somebody’s back yard. Yes, he has blood on his hands and worse. How have we let this happen to one of our boys? But no one will say they are broken hearted. They will only say they are strong. “You picked the wrong city this time,” they say. I just want to cry for a while and hold each other.
My granddaughter is fussing in her car seat. I corkscrew my arm back and grope around for her blinky. I help her get it to her mouth. My beautiful daughter smiles at her beautiful daughter in the rearview mirror. The baby grabs my index finger in her damp, four month old fist and goes back to sleep. Something to suck on, the purr of the motor, someone within reach who loves her, is all she needs for contentment.
Way up in the mountains of Honduras there are plans to build a dam that no one needs or wants. It will make rich Hondurans richer. They will siphon off their share. It will make rich Americans richer. They will sell unsustainable technology to the rich Honduras. Some how the Chinese are involved. Some rich Chinese will get richer, too. The thatched roof houses of the poor people who live along the river will be thirty feet under water.
There is a young man who trusts me to give him advice. His mother is suddenly in the intensive care unit at the hospital. He is ashamed that he doesn’t understand her condition and doesn’t know how to make things better for her. I take the young man to the hospital and help him talk to the social worker. I joke with his mother in my bad Spanish and make her laugh. He feels a little better. I would be proud to be this young man’s father.
Automatic weapon fire blows apart a whole school full of tiny, fragile bodies. Even with the knowledge that they will never hold their own children again, the parents go to Washington and say please don’t let this happen to some one else. But the Republicans have so blatantly sold their souls, you got to wonder why God doesn’t strike them down. Hey God, where is the fire? Where is the brimstone? Where are the frogs and boils?
I am three floors above sea level in an old, old building. Looking out through wavy glass I can see the beach curve away to the north. A poet is reading about her memories of living in Alaska. I know many people in the room. Some of them I’ve known for forty years. In that moment, The New York Times and National Public Radio are far away. I don’t think so much about the little things. The big things are more important.
My granddaughter is fussing in her car seat. I corkscrew my arm back and grope around for her blinky. I help her get it to her mouth. My beautiful daughter smiles at her beautiful daughter in the rearview mirror. The baby grabs my index finger in her damp, four month old fist and goes back to sleep. Something to suck on, the purr of the motor, someone within reach who loves her, is all she needs for contentment.
Way up in the mountains of Honduras there are plans to build a dam that no one needs or wants. It will make rich Hondurans richer. They will siphon off their share. It will make rich Americans richer. They will sell unsustainable technology to the rich Honduras. Some how the Chinese are involved. Some rich Chinese will get richer, too. The thatched roof houses of the poor people who live along the river will be thirty feet under water.
There is a young man who trusts me to give him advice. His mother is suddenly in the intensive care unit at the hospital. He is ashamed that he doesn’t understand her condition and doesn’t know how to make things better for her. I take the young man to the hospital and help him talk to the social worker. I joke with his mother in my bad Spanish and make her laugh. He feels a little better. I would be proud to be this young man’s father.
Automatic weapon fire blows apart a whole school full of tiny, fragile bodies. Even with the knowledge that they will never hold their own children again, the parents go to Washington and say please don’t let this happen to some one else. But the Republicans have so blatantly sold their souls, you got to wonder why God doesn’t strike them down. Hey God, where is the fire? Where is the brimstone? Where are the frogs and boils?
I am three floors above sea level in an old, old building. Looking out through wavy glass I can see the beach curve away to the north. A poet is reading about her memories of living in Alaska. I know many people in the room. Some of them I’ve known for forty years. In that moment, The New York Times and National Public Radio are far away. I don’t think so much about the little things. The big things are more important.
John Kotula is a writer and artist who lives in Peace Dale, Rhode Island.
Senin, 22 April 2013
HELL NIGHT
by Meaghan Ford
I dragged all the blankets into the bath tub, raided my closets for pillows. Someone
told me to stay away from the windows and my bathroom is swallowed by the dark.
The police scanner snarls until I fall asleep, fitful. I dream about explosions and body
parts walking disjointed through downtown looking for their owners. In the morning,
the only things in my refrigerator are water, eggs, and beer. And I've already had breakfast.
The tanks going by my window look more like a movie when I'm drunk. And I am not drunk.
My stomach is a swarm. The television glows. I'm making bare pasta in my bra, hair wet
from the shower after the lockdown is lifted. Then, shots fired in Watertown and the city
is screaming again. While the bomber is pinned down in a boat my friends tell me about
gunshots and flash bangs and how loud their fear is. They talk about blood and his age
while everyone waits for it to be over. And then dancing. The people flood the streets.
I eat all of the Oreos, put my feet up, and open each brown bottle slow, meticulous.
Meaghan Ford is a writer from New Jersey who fell in love with the big city shit. She's a regular at the Boston Poetry Slam at the Cantab Lounge and has helped organize the National Poetry Slam in both 2011 and 2013. Her work has appeared in Amethyst Arsenic, Phantom Kangaroo, The Legendary, and The Scrambler; she was also a 2012 Write Bloody finalist. Most days she can be found lurking around the local food trucks or taking dystopian photographs in odd places.
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| Image source: WBZ (CBS Boston) |
I dragged all the blankets into the bath tub, raided my closets for pillows. Someone
told me to stay away from the windows and my bathroom is swallowed by the dark.
The police scanner snarls until I fall asleep, fitful. I dream about explosions and body
parts walking disjointed through downtown looking for their owners. In the morning,
the only things in my refrigerator are water, eggs, and beer. And I've already had breakfast.
The tanks going by my window look more like a movie when I'm drunk. And I am not drunk.
My stomach is a swarm. The television glows. I'm making bare pasta in my bra, hair wet
from the shower after the lockdown is lifted. Then, shots fired in Watertown and the city
is screaming again. While the bomber is pinned down in a boat my friends tell me about
gunshots and flash bangs and how loud their fear is. They talk about blood and his age
while everyone waits for it to be over. And then dancing. The people flood the streets.
I eat all of the Oreos, put my feet up, and open each brown bottle slow, meticulous.
Meaghan Ford is a writer from New Jersey who fell in love with the big city shit. She's a regular at the Boston Poetry Slam at the Cantab Lounge and has helped organize the National Poetry Slam in both 2011 and 2013. Her work has appeared in Amethyst Arsenic, Phantom Kangaroo, The Legendary, and The Scrambler; she was also a 2012 Write Bloody finalist. Most days she can be found lurking around the local food trucks or taking dystopian photographs in odd places.
Minggu, 21 April 2013
AFTER THE BOMBING
by Howie Good
Every bush strung
with shreds of bloodstained light,
there’s so much still to suffer,
an Atlantic of emptiness,
greasy & barely moving,
a slow-creeping blue creation,
like the drone of flies
from an adjoining world.
Howie Good, a journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz, is the author of five poetry collections, most recently Cryptic Endearments from Knives Forks & Spoons Press. He has a number of chapbooks forthcoming, including Elephant Gun from Dog on a Chain Press. His poetry has been nominated multiple times for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net anthology. goodh51(at)gmail.com.
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| Copyright (c) 123RF Stock Photos |
Every bush strung
with shreds of bloodstained light,
there’s so much still to suffer,
an Atlantic of emptiness,
greasy & barely moving,
a slow-creeping blue creation,
like the drone of flies
from an adjoining world.
Howie Good, a journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz, is the author of five poetry collections, most recently Cryptic Endearments from Knives Forks & Spoons Press. He has a number of chapbooks forthcoming, including Elephant Gun from Dog on a Chain Press. His poetry has been nominated multiple times for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net anthology. goodh51(at)gmail.com.
Rabu, 28 November 2012
GAZA REDUX
by David Radavich
This time invasion
may work.
Bombing, certainly.
We can’t allow ourselves
to be victimized.
You can’t complain
we shouldn’t assassinate
your leaders.
We have declared you
terrorists.
We define you.
We can kill if we choose.
Don’t blame us
for the consequences.
All blood is
not created equal.
David Radavich’s recent collections are America Bound: An Epic for Our Time (2007), Canonicals: Love’s Hours (2009), and Middle-East Mezze (2011). His plays have been produced across the U.S., including six Off-Off-Broadway, and in Europe. He is currently president of the Charlotte Writers’ Club.
 |
| From Yahoo News: "A Palestinian worker shovels sand as he repairs a damaged smuggling tunnel dug beneath the Egyptian-Gaza border in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip November 26, 2012. Knee-deep in craters carved out by Israeli air strikes, Palestinians wielded shovels and planks to reopen tunnels used to smuggle in goods from Egypt to Gaza, as international aid agencies raced to replenish Gaza's supplies." Photo by REUTERS/Mohammed Salem. |
This time invasion
may work.
Bombing, certainly.
We can’t allow ourselves
to be victimized.
You can’t complain
we shouldn’t assassinate
your leaders.
We have declared you
terrorists.
We define you.
We can kill if we choose.
Don’t blame us
for the consequences.
All blood is
not created equal.
David Radavich’s recent collections are America Bound: An Epic for Our Time (2007), Canonicals: Love’s Hours (2009), and Middle-East Mezze (2011). His plays have been produced across the U.S., including six Off-Off-Broadway, and in Europe. He is currently president of the Charlotte Writers’ Club.
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