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Ebrig: Gone Dry
by Kola Boof
There is …(No Place) between
upper Egypt and lower Sudan; not
even blackness has a place
(to show)
The hindquarters
of the Devil beast
is like a thick carpet
smothering our
mothersweet’s
Black/body
“red wined”
inbetween the river
and soot’s membrane
All around is Allah
All around is prayer
but there are no
silver fish in
the white clouds anymore
-and when the dawn’s
golden beams alight;
there is nowhere
to live
Beautiful Ones
by Kola Boof
Conformity itself is an axed black limb
Yellow
Brown
butterschotch nut
Mahogany
roo
If the song doesn’t come to me
I don’t sing it.
I cook for anybody who feeds me.
And on the Nile River, some of us
are whores.
Not because it’s fun, but because
it used to be a religion.
It used to be a religion
to be virginal, to be naked, to be
“The Sacred One”
chosen to take the dicks
So that the other girls could someday
be the sacrifices given over to
the thing called love – the Volcano,
the Sea, the Pit.
Mother’s fat love, ashy fat asses blessing
the watching eye of the one eyed snake.
0 sacrifice.
The burning pit of his stomach,
the lava of sperm
drowning African girls
beneath gargling, lung fulls of blue sky,
drowning.
Sweet burning flesh, crackling bones of
the Gut
smoking fire.
And back then, that was considered
beautiful.
Fly Away Sleeping
by Kola Boof
I will kill God
before I see my Black babies dead.
Black men and White men
and those toxic White bitches
who called me Sister,
don’t understand.
They are God.
I would be happy to slit their throats-to
crush their evil heads in the toilet.
To place my babies on my pretty
brown back
And sail into the sunset.
I would be like a goddess.
I would be nappy and smiling.
I would be tall and dark as charcoal.
I would be singing.
I would be free.
Free at last.
To make up my own prayers.
Endgame
by Mihnea Moldoveanu
Alone at the edge
And with a recklessness – come lately
Minded to break, to cut:
“Sing through the nightmares and the devilous encounters”
Stands written, just ahead, beyond the precipice;
I look, I smile, I lie down on the clouds;
A laughter shrinks the heart
And rises through the fall: could it be over?
Boardwalk to the end
Again and again – again -
Clouds gather at water’s edge
And of a sudden, concentrate, with seeming desperation.
To What Do You Attribute This Facial Distortion?
(after Conan Doyle)
by Mihnea Moldoveanu
“ There are pathmarks in this soul the world will
never see, all by itself
(and you? Are you attuned? Are you?)
There is the cleavage of the waters – it’s not a trance, and
yet
I’m lost and (and you? Are you beginning to be here?)
And there the left side of the cliff – its heart so dark, its sides
so sharp -
They were designed to cut into the falling, to maim their flesh
To make them dead and ready for the fall -
(And you? Are you prepared?)
And there is Snow White cutting up her dwarves, her nostrils red
Her eyes undone, her voice bereft of words;
A dagger in the wind awaits the sign, the wink, the smile, the broad
and silent laugh
So that we’ll all see through the cloak that covers all;
A hint of dark will rise, and then, will disappear -
And only just before the eye will register its will…”
And there the thread was lost – and horror caught the spheres
in its web
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Gypsy Serenade
by Lenore Weiss
I’ll tell you the story
about the heart poacher,
the man with a hunger for hearts.
How he rides all day in a wagon
looking for one that’s ripe.
And when he plucks it, he also washes it.
A sly, bandit raccoon
who takes his food to the river.
Everyone knows the heart poacher.
How he does his work by night.
Few women escape his pawing
because of the velvet in his dark brown eyes.
The next morning he’s gone with your heart.
You stuff your side with twigs
but they keep on falling out.
Partially Seated at the Ruins of Night
by Lenore Weiss
You are my gypsy.
Covered with philodendron leaves.
Together we'll dance the czardas
on the Russian steppe.
Perhaps we'll go to Budapest
to meet the commissar.
The lady commissar
will give me a purse of gold.
Place her finger to my lip.
She knows what I'm talking about.
I can read past her mailed fist.
We didn’t come here to twiddle our thumbs.
In the cleavage
between her few free moments,
telephones ringing, letters
speared on her desk,
She closes the door. Asks us to begin
our initial inquest
into the unzoned regions of her life.
Three of us.
Ride upon the gut-string of a violin.
Partially seated at the ruins of night.
Human Nature
by Michael A. Jordan
I considered writing a poem about my grandfather's death.
He's not dead,
but
I considered it.
Highway Biceps
by Brittany Buckingham
I was in control until
the crinkle
as I lay my head
Arrange my hair as I always did in your presence
deep breath
trying to process any lingering remainder
of your aroma
But cologne's space has been filled
with scent of cowhide
My body drops
A toe-to-head relax
in the space of a queen
ex-waterbed
I anticipate his arrival
but he's no longer here
In his place
My imagination brings me
his razor hips
his cackle
his highway biceps
his demise
The visualization
exits me in tear form
Caresses the content of my cheeks
Blankets my collarbone
Funnels into my décolletage
this hastily written note
by Cristian Navas
explains nothing to you,
i'm sure, and yet
says just about
all there is to say-
as far as i'm concerned.
and the fact that you
have absolutely no idea
what i'm referring to
makes this that much harder-
and, surprisingly,
that much easier.
The Radiant City
by David Katzenmeyer
The radiant city your eyes pant
desperately. Your breath gone psychadelic
in the cool breeze.
We, this dialectic. Us, this people. Together,
in this blurry world.
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