poem
Illustration by Ric Carrasquillo
the vast
and all its definitions had dumbfounded. I bit the hand
that fed imagination, took
for pestilence, the flies. For end-of-world, the gully washers.
I shook in handfuls
petals fetched from
doubt
Indefatigable, by Dave McClinton
The permanent shiny smudge replaced his bronze face,
his features fade in rusted pictures
I play with pigeon feathers picked from pages
on pulpit splinters that bear his cross of puzzled words.
Warriors unite rage, usher 10% offerings
to dear Black children morning, school wombs empty
Sheets untie laid to rest over waving hands
and church pews ready to fly away with sermons
The Tigris and Euphrates, which flow to the west of the estimated location of the biblical Gihon River, wind through the desert.
I am the angel who heard their euphony:
the Hebrew prophet’s words turning to
lamb
topaz on Ethiopian tongue, their voices
wedded together, gleaming
knife
beneath the desert sun. Imagine it:
you are Qinaqis, born beside
ewe
the Gihon River that once flowed from
Eden, marked for exile
mute
from family, from choice,
from even the faith
sheared
you one day will embrace,
despite your pilgrimage through
torment
the wilderness.
Illustration by Colleen Tighe
Each word I choose
carries a different rucksack load for each of you
like I’m the fox slinking along rail lines
thinking by instinct & appetite & you’re
the commuter passing through
like I’m the moon whose same beams call
to a weeping child to a prowling owl
to shivering rodents in the grass
A photo of the poem Beth Strano painted on the door of The Space, an anarchist community in Phoenix, Ariz. Image via The Space / Facebook.
“I saw my poem posted on another website and attributed to someone else,” Beth Strano wrote in response to a comment on her post. “I thought it was an honest mistake, but then I searched and realized this woman has been claiming that she wrote this poem and publishing it and doing readings of it.”
Illustration by Mikita Rasolka
Lorenzo was mortar for the church
he built, gathering wild birds
for the rafters and fruited trees
for their food. He carted stone
and hoisted, he pestled, he block-
and-tackled. Persecuted
by Valerian and about to be
arrested, Lorenzo goat-herded
the church’s wealth, distributed it
to the poor. He paid the unmade
orphans, clothed the lepers
in money. He sold the sacred
vessels, the varied trestles.
Illustration by Nicole Xu
Keep your eyes on your work. Looking
at a dogwood does not make you blossom.
Nor can a bridge of sighs span an ocean
of despair. For that, you need oars
and strong arms. Labor as long
as it is still called today. Yes, Faith
could have worn other metaphors,
but instead it rose from the dead
and asked questions: Why are you
crying? Who are you looking for?
Do not fear. Answer. The Risen One
speaks your language.
American poet Amanda Gorman reads a poem during the 59th Presidential Inauguration at the U.S. Capitol in Washington January 20, 2021. Patrick Semansky/Pool via REUTERS
She became the youngest inaugural poet in America's history.
Illustration by Terran Washington
I rub my hand across the stone font
Where Jon Meacham took on the water
Of baptism and signed on to the cross
In an olive oil signature made for words.
The empty sanctuary now quiet for prayer echoes
With last night’s lecture on the future of democracy.
Light pours through the stained glass window
With a narrative of Saul, struck down blind
Illustration by Jia Sung
I reckon it was the girl,
not more than fourteen. Those eyes.
Something made him stop his talk,
hoist down the lantern and mutter out with them.
And that was one sour night—
dust and wind, things banging;
Illustration by Ric Carrasquillo
We shudder at the inhumanity,
the crafted cruelness of that sickening show:
the stripped humiliation, blasphemy
of beaten flesh, death’s agonies stretched slow
by fellow men created in God’s image,
turned terrorists, enslaved to sin’s strange fruit.
How could they mock the marred and lifeless visage
of God’s own child? His axe is at the root!
Illustration by Mary Haasdyk
A veteran slumped in a midnight
doorway was trained to kill, so killed,
and killing banished sleep.
A hurt child, now thirty-two, who
never had the food he needed, haunted
by his father’s blows, shoots meth.
Illustration by MUTI
This seep of droplets sponged by moss leaked
from a cleft in the rock; the waters in the cleft
rose osmotically from earth:
the aquifers of earth rained down
from cloudburst skies;
A white blossom, purpled
at the edges like penance,
lies under an unbloomed tree.
I was hungry and
you blamed it on the communists
I was hungry and you
circled the moon
Photo by Maarten van den Heuvel on Unsplash
She’d kissed her
gently on the forehead
before setting her down
and then — just walked away.
Walked on water right out of the bay,
headed toward the ocean. She’d had enough —
seen enough, heard enough.
She wasn’t made of stone.
Voter registration booth in the 1960s. Kheel Center, Cornell University Library.
In the black community, voting has always been complicated.
We voted and yet you lynched us.
We voted and yet you incarcerated us.
We voted and you poisoned our water.
Photo by Jason Wong on Unsplash
Til chains, chairs, and chambers are no longer justices’ end
and my fellow American can call me brother, regardless of my skin,
I’m still breathing.
I am the tiny, irate, scolding person
standing in the dome of my own skull.
She shakes her head again, arms crossed, again
disappointed: I’m clumsy, struggling, dull.
Then there’s the shattered wine glass,
an afternoon misspent, a dinner gobbled,
rank laundry, unpaid bills, uncut grass,
and, I suspect, one lovely friendship bobbled.
And yet, I’m here. Alive.
When we lose our dreams
To be educated
And are afraid
Of being incarcerated
We pray to you
Dios te salve, María,
When we don’t know
Where to go
To be a Sitting Bull
Or a Standing Rock
We pray to you
llena eres de gracia,
When your naturaleza
Showed us no mercy
And the politicians
Shut down our Borinquen
We pray to you
el Señor esta contigo.
When we’ve picked
All the grapes
Without an actual
Bathroom break
We pray to you
Bendita eres
When our hermanas Negras
Are being maimed
And ashamed
By racism, sexism, bigotry
We pray to you
entre todas las mujeres,
When we fight for
Farm workers’ rights
While hiding from
Our men’s grips at night
We pray to you
y bendito es el fruto