Sina Queyrus

February morning, 2018

You are being asked to drop your worm’s eye view
Of the world. Signs come at you from every direction:
The world is all fists up and fuck it, rivers lift their skirts,
Forests whistle for their lost canopies, California
Is parched, the celluloid is not soluble. I thought I saw
The future on social media, but, no, the future is still
In the body. I am humbled by the young ones: I see their
Raised glasses clinking in the sunset. I see myself an old spider
On crutches, only two of my eight legs function, I move
Through the city a ball of pain on stilts tilting into
The future, which is bristling and full of fear; but beyond
That fear is open space: I think, I must get there, I must
Grow arms, more arms, a forest of arms, there are so many
Bodies that need holding, there are so many voices to hear.

Sina Queyras

 

 from Euphoria

                                                       1

Dear Regret, my leaning this morning, my leather foot, want of stone, my age

Old, burnished and bruised, my hair lingering, my hand caked, spongy as

November my dear Relentless, my dear Aging, your voice tinny, dissonant 

As Stein shot through decades of war and Fortrel, cocktails on the hour,  

Zeppelins over Piccadilly, bombing blindly in the fog. Dear Skin, dear Tobacco 

Mouth my refusal, my merely geographic, my fibrous strings for you: your 

Abundant wit, your lack of shadow and still joy nosing the air. Each moment 

Stretches toward you, your dry feet: I carried them, pumiced and peppery

Laid them where regret is a biscuit thing to lean upon and sweeten, 

My hour of you, my cursive thoughts, a pulpit beating under these ribs.

                                                       2

Dear Time, you swallowed us whole, swallowed us lovely, sharp as bones

Crimping sadly under foot my benign, my flotsam and crabs thin as leaves 

Your smoothing, your sinking in. Mornings or mooring, or wallowing 

Jericho: tapioca air indolent. I am still there, supple and driftwood, you lovely, 

You loved me, your memory dark and west, thoughts like tugboats stitching

The horizon, you pulling me, my pudding, my thin crustacean, sideways

In the late afternoon, your gaze, having so soon forgotten the sharpness 

Of mornings, the bite of your look serrating the hour: my treasures, all 

Of them, for the pleasure of that slice once more, of our dangling, 

You and me, the lot of us in some car, driving some hour, mapless. 

Moniza AlI

I Would Like to be a Dot in a Painting by Miró (1993)

Barely distinguishable from other dots,
it's true, but quite uniquely placed.
And from my dark centre

I'd survey the beauty of the linescape
and wonder -- would it be worthwhile
to roll myself towards the lemon stripe,

Centrally poised, and push my curves
against its edge, to give myself
a little attention?

But it's fine where I am.
I'll never make out what's going on
around me, and that's the joy of it.

The fact that I'm not a perfect circle
makes me more interesting in this world.
People will stare forever --

Even the most unemotional get excited.
So here I am, on the edge of animation,
a dream, a dance,a fantastic construction,

A child's adventure.
And nothing in this tawny sky
can get too close, or move too far away.

David Trinidad

from An Attempt at Exhausting a Neiborhood in Chatsworth, California

 If you turned right on Superior, past the mystery house on the corner, you’d come upon, after a slight curve, Superior Street Elementary School, which I attended from grades one to six. The playground (which extended to Oso Avenue) protected by a tall chain-link fence. Scattered about the asphalt: baseball diamond, volleyball net, two wooden walls to bounce balls against (that had what looked like doors painted on them, their purpose always unclear), tetherball poles, jungle gym, rings, and, near the kindergarten classrooms, a large sandbox. Must I speak (once again) of the indignities of the playground, how I tried to avoid the aggression of ball-throwing boys by playing hopscotch, jacks, and Chinese jump rope with the girls. Or later, spending lunch hours in the library, reading the blue-bound biographies of famous Americans: Ben Franklin, Betsy Ross, Clara Barton, Daniel Boone, Dolly Madison, George Washington, Pocahontas, Thomas Jefferson. (I was most intrigued by the women.) Or the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Her whole childhood captured in eight matching volumes. The titles alone were beautiful: On the Banks of Plum Creek, By the Shores of Silver Lake, These Happy Golden Years. Years of art projects: cutting an egg carton in half and painting it green, then adding eyes and two pipe cleaner antennas, and voila, a caterpillar. Or placing bits of tissue paper and yarn between two pieces of wax paper and ironing them, to produce a colorful “stained glass” collage. Years of current events. Of studying maps of the world (each country a different pastel shade, like our houses). And models of the solar system (each planet a hand-painted styrofoam ball). Years of report cards. (In elementary school they were called “progress reports.”) Grades for reading, English, handwriting, spelling, mathematics, geography, history, civics, science, art, music, and physical education. Grades for effort, work habits, and citizenship: “tries to do his best,” “follows directions,” “works cooperatively with other pupils,” “accepts responsibility,” “respects authority.” Years of fire drills. And in case of a nuclear attack, “drop” drills: In the middle of a lesson, the teacher would call out “Drop!” and we’d all huddle under our desks with our hands clasped over the back of our heads. All of my teachers were women: Mrs. Wiggins, Mrs. Field, Mrs. Kasower, Mrs. Bialosky (first name Kay, kind and patient and encouraging, whom I had for half of the first grade, and all of the third and sixth). Mrs. Morton (first name Milicent), my fifth-grade teacher, was the opposite of Mrs. Bialosky. Cold and strict, she had no use for a sensitive boy. My grades dropped that year, and I gained weight. Her best friend, Mrs. Price (first name Jeanine), was equally intimidating. The two of them dressed like immaculate Barbie dolls: white, short-sleeved blouses; sheath skirts with wide belts; spike heels. They wore their dyed hair (Mrs. Price, red; Mrs. Morton, black) in bouffants, like Elizabeth Taylor or Jacqueline Kennedy. It was rumored that Mrs. Price, originally from the South, was married to a “Negro musician.” Mrs. Morton (with Mrs. Price as witness) often took an incorrigible boy in my class (Jimmy) out to the bungalow where textbooks were stored, to thrash him with a yardstick. The only male teacher at the school was Mr. Bartell. His daughter Monica was also in my class. It was from Monica, in tears, that we learned, on November 22, 1963, as we were lining up after lunch, that President Kennedy had been shot. She’d heard it from her father. It’s the only time I remember seeing teachers upset. It was as if the world had stopped. We were sent home early.

Claudia Rankine

 

from Citizen: “You are in the dark, in the car...”

/   

You are in the dark, in the car, watching the black-tarred street being swallowed by speed; he tells you his dean is making him hire a person of color when there are so many great writers out there.  

You think maybe this is an experiment and you are being tested or retroactively insulted or you have done something that communicates this is an okay conversation to be having.  

Why do you feel okay saying this to me? You wish the light would turn red or a police siren would go off so you could slam on the brakes, slam into the car ahead of you, be propelled forward so quickly both your faces would suddenly be exposed to the wind.  

As usual you drive straight through the moment with the expected backing off of what was previously said. It is not only that confrontation is headache producing; it is also that you have a destination that doesn’t include acting like this moment isn’t inhabitable, hasn’t happened before, and the before isn’t part of the now as the night darkens and the time shortens between where we are and where we are going.  

/  

When you arrive in your driveway and turn off the car, you remain behind the wheel another ten minutes. You fear the night is being locked in and coded on a cellular level and want time to function as a power wash. Sitting there staring at the closed garage door you are reminded that a friend once told you there exists a medical term — John Henryism — for people exposed to stresses stemming from racism. They achieve themselves to death trying to dodge the build up of erasure. Sherman James, the researcher who came up with the term, claimed the physiological costs were high. You hope by sitting in silence you are bucking the trend.  

/  

When the stranger asks, Why do you care? you just stand there staring at him. He has just referred to the boisterous teenagers in Starbucks as niggers. Hey, I am standing right here, you responded, not necessarily expecting him to turn to you.  

He is holding the lidded paper cup in one hand and a small paper bag in the other. They are just being kids. Come on, no need to get all KKK on them, you say.  

Now there you go, he responds.  

The people around you have turned away from their screens. The teenagers are on pause. There I go? you ask, feeling irritation begin to rain down. Yes, and something about hearing yourself repeating this stranger’s accusation in a voice usually reserved for your partner makes you smile.  

Claudia Rankine

from Don't Let Me Be Lonely: “Cornel West makes the point...” 

Cornel West makes the point that hope is different from American optimism. After the initial presidential election results come in, I stop watching the news. I want to continue watching, charting, and discussing the counts, the recounts, the hand counts, but I can­not. I lose hope. However Bush came to have won, he would still be winning ten days later and we would still be in the throes of our American optimism. All the non-reporting is a distraction from Bush himself, the same Bush who can't remember if two or three people were convicted for dragging a black man to his death in his home state of Texas.

/ 
 

You don't remember because you don't care. Some­times my mother's voice swells and fills my forehead. Mostly I resist the flooding, but in Bush's case I find myself talking to the television screen: You don't know because you don't care.

/
 

Then, like all things impassioned, this voice takes on a life of its own: You don't know because you don't bloody care. Do you?

/
 

I forget things too. It makes me sad. Or it makes me the saddest. The sadness is not really about George W. or our American optimism; the sadness lives in the recog­nition that a life can not matter. Or, as there are billions of lives, my sadness is alive alongside the recognition that billions of lives never mattered. I write this with­out breaking my heart, without bursting into anything. Perhaps this is the real source of my sadness. Or, per­haps, Emily Dickinson, my love, hope was never a thing with feathers. I don't know, I just find when the news comes on I switch the channel. This new ten­dency might be indicative of a deepening personality flaw: IMH, The Inability to Maintain Hope, which trans­lates into no innate trust in the supreme laws that gov­ern us. Cornel West says this is what is wrong with black people today—too nihilistic. Too scarred by hope to hope, too experienced to experience, too close to dead is what I think.

Ishion Hutchinson

fromThe Anabasis of Godspeed

 1.

Out of a rising bank of fever grass Godspeed emerged wearing

a rubber tree leaf mask. At the beginning of the month the

strength of the battalion stood 31 officers and 1010 other

ranks. He pretended he was Baruch. “Weep not” he shouted.

“Conquer and to conquering” he shouted. “Rejoice” he shouted.

This was near or outside AXUM or ATLANTIS or those

suicide goat cliffs near HECTORS RIVER by Happy Grove

where Horace leapt and became the Great Conjunction.

Then again at Christmas the boy’s hands were high with the

murder of sorrel. At the end of the month the strength of the

battalion stood 23 officers and 921 other ranks.

3.

No. 1391 Pte. J. Fisher “C” boy died pneumonia.

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim.

The battalion less “B” boy enchained for EL ARISH.

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim.

No. 134 Pte. A. M. Harper “D” boy died pneumonia.

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim.

“A” boy proceeded to No. 3 School of Military Aeronautics for

course in aviation. Bismillahirrahmanirrahim.

No. 6898 Pte. Benn “C” boy died malaria.

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim.

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. Bismillahirrahmanirrahim.

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim.

4.

Ishion Hutchinson

Roof Nightclub

First, above all, I live forever. And
thereafter redecorate paradise
in the majesty of the Roof Nightclub,
DJ Lucifer, at predawn hours
terrifies the floorboards to give way to
Apollyon’s abyss, reflecting scarred light
on the wall. The mirror alive with tremors.

Herons bring news of consolation.
I rebuke them for my brilliance
and enrich uranium in my cove
across Navy Island. The hospital
vanishes in the fog, so I arrange rain
to restore magenta ginger lilies
where my mother walked to born me.
Malignant fireflies at Christmas;
sorrel then sorrow, such is Kingston, there
funky carols seethe asphalt with famine.

Forever ends. Never a moment holds
‘still-here,’ when sand murmurs through my fingers.
I number and chant down stars, ellipsoidal
as fire ants with, “I think I will be
killed once I die!” and again return
the Super Ape, to conquer the Roof Club,
rip off Apollyon’s hell fence; skin him; dance
thundering subatomic dub music,
until my rage yields settled coral.
A million embers of eyes split from coals
to see me loom out the shadows’ sunray
by the turntable wearing a splash crown.