Justin Chin

No Won-Tons for Whitey

The special’s not for you,

The brown rice much too white,

The soy sauce much too salty,

The noodles way too cheap.

No won-tons for whitey,

No nookie for you,

No razzle for baby,

No yum-yums for me.

Justin Chin

 

The Fisting Bottom

Soon, the carnival of me will be no more

than tossing sausages into an open cave.

The dark maw of Proud Monsters devouring

its shining arrogant young. For those who escape

the kill -- the wily, the motivated, the schemers,

the pure (certainly purer-than-thou), the chosen ones,

the untouchables -- the wreck is never far

from mind, never close at hand, but always sticks

to the back of the throat.

I have turned myself inside-out to turn

my understanding right-side-up or down; I have

wielded my weapon with cunning & grace & skill.

I have lived past the point

of impact; I have seen my disciples and my foes.

I have courted perfect loves and imperfect time; and still

I long to bloom. Rosebud

was never the name of my sled.

Juan Felipe Herrera

Radiante, 1967, by Olga Albizu

Radiante (S)

Jestered ochre yellow my umber Rothko

divisions my Brooklyns with Jerry Stern

black then oranged gold leaf & tiny skulls

perforations Dada sugar bread of Oaxacan

ecstasy Lorca’s green horse the daffodil head

corruptions of the State in tenor exhalation

saxophonics blossomings rouged monkey

Dalí roll down the keys the high G’s

underStreets of the undeRealms my hair.

Throttle up into hyper-city correlations =

compassion compassion

Jericho Brown

 Host

We want pictures of everything

Below your waist, and we want

Pictures of your waist. We can't

Talk right now, but we will text you

Into coitus. All thumbs. All bi

Coastal and discreet and masculine

And muscular. No whites. Every

Body a top. We got a career

To think about. No face. We got

Kids to remember. No one over 29.

No one under 30. Our exes hurt us

Into hurting them. Disease free. No

Drugs. We like to get high with

The right person. You

Got a girl? Bring your boy.

We visiting. Room at the W.

Name's D. Name's J. We Deejay.

We Trey. We Troy. We Q. We not

Sending a face. Where should we

Go tonight? You coming through? Please

Know what a gym looks like. Not much

Time. No strings. No place, no

Face. Be clean. We haven't met

Anyone here yet. Why is it so hard

To make friends? No games. You

Still coming through? Latinos only.

Blacks will do. We can take one right

Now. Text it to you. Be there next

Week. Be there in June. We not a phone

Person. We can host, but we won't meet

Without a recent pic and a real name

And the sound of your deepest voice.

Jericho Brown

Duplex

 I begin with love, hoping to end there.

I don’t want to leave a messy corpse.

 

       I don’t want to leave a messy corpse

       Full of medicines that turn in the sun.

 

Some of my medicines turn in the sun.

Some of us don’t need hell to be good.

 

       Those who need least, need hell to be good.

       What are the symptoms of your sickness?

 

Here is one symptom of my sickness:

Men who love me are men who miss me.

 

       Men who leave me are men who miss me

       In the dream where I am an island.

 

In the dream where I am an island,

I grow green with hope.  I’d like to end there.

 

Juan Felipe Herrera

 Crescent Moon on a Cat’s Collar

I come from a family of madmen and extravagant women.

My uncle, back in '26

wrote to the president of Mexico.

He accused him of murdering the potato eaters

by the millions.

So, they set him up for life

in a Goddamn Army hospital mental ward.

Another uncle

Xavier Levario got in with big business

making toys out of wood. I could have gone to France,

that’s where the art was, he said. But I joined everybody

in the States.

Armanda, my aunt whose hair has always looked like

gold dust,

a fleece,

owned the only swimming pool in the heart of Mexico City

near la Calle Uruguay. 

My father drove a pink Ford down the main drag in Tijuana.

All the women loved him, no one has ever smiled sweeter.

My pocket is full of ancient coins.

I keep a silver box of African and Zapotec amulets and hair

near my bed, a tarnished sword and acrylics.

Lightning zig-zags like a dog’s tail

everytime I throw a stone in Southern Arizona.

I have fallen in wells and risen.

All my enemies, including the governors and the wardens,

keep away from my eyes and especially

from the rhythms swelling up through my feet and out

of the opal triumph of my voice   

Jericho Brown

The Tradition

Aster. Nasturtium. Delphinium. We thought

Fingers in dirt meant it was our dirt, learning

Names in heat, in elements classical

Philosophers said could change us. Star Gazer. 

Foxglove. Summer seemed to bloom against the will

Of the sun, which news reports claimed flamed hotter

On this planet than when our dead fathers

Wiped sweat from their necks. Cosmos. Baby’s Breath. 

Men like me and my brothers filmed what we

Planted for proof we existed before

Too late, sped the video to see blossoms

Brought in seconds, colors you expect in poems

Where the world ends, everything cut down.

John Crawford. Eric Garner. Mike Brown.

Ilya Kaminsky

 

Author’s Prayer

If I speak for the dead, I must leave

this animal of my body,

I must write the same poem over and over,

for an empty page is the white flag of their surrender.

If I speak for them, I must walk on the edge

of myself, I must live as a blind man

who runs through rooms without

touching the furniture.

Yes, I live. I can cross the streets asking “What year is it?”

I can dance in my sleep and laugh

in front of the mirror.

Even sleep is a prayer, Lord,

I will praise your madness, and

in a language not mine, speak

of music that wakes us, music

in which we move. For whatever I say

is a kind of petition, and the darkest

days must I praise.