girl with eyes too large and
milky teeth fairies must wait
years for in country that…(more)
Thank you to Writers Resist for first publishing “Longing to Belong.”
Tag Archives: poetry
Independence Reenvisioned
“America” by Claude McKay, 1921
Although she feeds me bread of bitterness,
And sinks into my throat her tiger’s tooth,
Stealing my breath of life, I will confess
I love this cultured hell that tests my youth.
Her vigor flows like tides into my blood,
Giving me strength erect against her hate,
Her bigness sweeps my being like a flood.
Yet, as a rebel fronts a king in state,
I stand within her walls with not a shred
Of terror, malice, not a word of jeer.
Darkly I gaze into the days ahead,
And see her might and granite wonders there,
Beneath the touch of Time’s unerring hand,
Like priceless treasures sinking in the sand.
Claude McKay was born in Jamaica in 1889.
Poetry…
is just the shadow of the dog…
The dog is elsewhere, and constantly
on the move.
If Bird
You would be my loon
calling long past light,
my mourning dove, my
sweetest finch flashing
sun from black as night.
If my bird you were I’d
feed you nectar from my
palm and plant thick trees
for you to rest and nest until
I could transform my arms
and hands to feathered limbs—
our hearts remade as song.
Thank you to the editors of The Tishman Review for first publishing this poem.
Communion
Dividing an elementary class into
boys on one side
girls on the other
invites each to imagine one group’s got
cooties! cooties! cooties!
and vulnerable to those who thrive on power
yet united, we eliminate disease, produce
thriving meccas of cultural exchange,
launch ourselves through the universe…
so if you’re invulnerable to ads and rhetoric,
think about a lemon–
thrust your teeth through thick
yellow skin to release zest’s
zinging scent and swallow
tart
puckering
juice.
That saliva now beading your gums…
Thank you to the editors of The Tishman Review for first publishing this poem.
Sound
Poetry doesn’t exist to give you prose. It’s this other thing. It is something that has to do with the sound of words, the sound of letters, the spaces between words, letters, how words connect to the mind and to the throat at the same time.
