Language Perched on the
Edge of a Cliff in America
and Nothing is Left to Save
After John Ashberry’s The One Thing That Can Save America –Carla Schick
The train grates with a rush of wind Cracks in cement popping up weeds Skyscrapers built over
African burial grounds;
The true statue of liberty scurried away in the basement — a Black woman
with her chains broken
against slavery.
Is anything poetic ?
The lantern of liberty
escapes into the night
A flickering. Can we see ?
the Washington Mall Lincoln
on his throne Restorations
of Roman pillars Empire Interpretations of the phrase stare decisis
already decided. A constitution
Blood inducing precedent —
white men with property
gag women a paradigm of property rights rape
over bodies people stolen
from Africa
Of whip and club
and torture
what came before will stand
How to write resistance
into a poem ?
downed confederate statues falter heads crashing against Lee Silent Sam How does Jefferson Davis hide ?
bodies snatched
from their godly position
Bree Newsom waving her hands as she pulls down a confederate flag
A Black woman shoved hands shackled on our TV news
and still her fist raised in victory
lingers
a shadow looking over our shoulders
How can our footsteps beat out the rhythms of poems ?
Standing
arm to arm, blocked streets
We chant keep the earth sacred Chant keep away from harm
bullets grenades
a car catapults into a crowd
one more dead body only one more
among countless
bodies. Chant say their names
Photos of their faces plaster walls
Oscar Grant joins James Chaney
Tamir Rice and Trayvon Martin walk alongside Emmett Till. Sandra Bland never a suicide; hunted for her voice protesting her own murder
I cannot slant
a poem between breath
and sound
Women’s bodies
revealed
the children’s
smashed terrorized
faces of those detained
and unrecognized
the judge slams down
his hammer
Is anything poetic ?
How do we walk down any street bodies unbalanced
hands held out
like tight rope walkers ?
Where do our words begin ?
Can we bend poetry out of disaster ?
Rubber Ducky · Angela Buen Alberto
Wash
Brandi Spering
I rode a small wave to shore.
Lied out in the wet sand until it dried and I dried too. Created a nest around my body and sunk in. Became comfortable. Closed my eyes and breathed deeply in the salt. Choked on the air a bit before I swallowed, shriveled. Wondered why my hands
were not upright.
Dug my heels away from traction and into a stay. Waited
to see if the sand was quick.
Anticipated a rise
in other levels, at bay.
Became an island.
Became smaller with distance
Elegy for My Great-Uncle Kiyoshi Miya October 15, 1917 – April 29, 2007 Hikari Leilani Miya
he saw spirits
his departed sisters brothers
in his bedroom closet so he slept
in his armchair
next to the patio where his chocolate lab Mochi
with her big hernia guarded the farm shop, those rusty machines, copper wires people stole for cash
loaded shotgun
by his side
he went out
at any hour
if he heard
any disturbance
and shot
didn’t matter who
was there, even if
the place that was supposed to help where he climbed over the fence’
brought him back in time
for dinner
the last time
I saw him
it was sunset
I was scared
to touch
his soft wrinkled hands like prunes, he couldn’t
remember dinner the president
his dog
mom said
he waited
until we came
so he could say
how’re you doing
goodbye
and I cried underneath the black grandness of the piano
before they were all taken
to camp
the war
tell me
why you pledged allegiance to
nuclear bomb
dropping nation why you served what did you
miss the most
the most frightening
battle
was with
your own
memory
your last
twenty-four hours
seem through
the eyes of
a dragonfly †
†There is a Buddhist story I was told at his funeral,
no one was there he drove his blue pickup into the ditch
he called me Mary didn’t know
what to call
his dog, even though I told him every time I saw him sitting
in the shop with Mochi panting by his side radio on loud
he wasn’t sure
he heard
but he’d always
say hello
how’re you doing
I think this is
broken, can you help
so my grandmother took him
to the Remington
tried to find Mochi his truck
his gun
until someone found him,
what I wished
I would have asked him but couldn’t
because I only learned about 9066
while giving
his eulogy
saying things
my dad said
I should say
I wish I hadn’t
been scared of
wrinkled hands
or gravelly
jokes instead I
would have asked where did Baachan bury your armor
the swords
the family crest
did she burn
them all
with her tears
among those
bittersweet camp memories
at ten years old
I didn’t understand passing, the priest chanting in Japanese saying we cannot touch, speak
hear the dead
but I understood
memory, how
where people bow to passing dragonflies, as they carry the spirits of the dead visiting loved ones for the last time
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