Privilege

By M. Carmen Lane

you
are only
interested
in the dead
pieces of
me

black woman
raped/
tracked
by white men
with bottles
stones

lesbian/
who lost
her lover

daughter
witness to
too much
violence

suicide/
dull blade
time release
pills

mother/
baby that
never took
its first
breath

Indian
without
his song

father/
whose
children were
stolen because
they are
queer

addict/ hands
dried with
nicotine &
blood

you are
only interested
in the grief &
trauma

a moaning song

eyes that
have seen
too much

nose that
smells your
shit from
afar

feet soppy
of your
entitled
mess

shrunk
down
powerful

sweeping/
your house
to a horrifying
clean

parts
left on
the dying
tree/ rotting
flesh dried on
an old rope

your daddy’s
whipping post/
crucified in a
jail cell/ dusty
road to
drag me
limp

he/
who was
between
an ancestor’s
legs

bastard
runaway

musician
stopped
at the edge
of jazz

poet/ never
shared her
good words

dancer/ who
dared not
to deform
her feet

warrior
whose
resistance
warranted
no tale

listen closely
you sonofabitch

those parts
of me
alive &
well/
untangled
smooth
as a scar

they/ are
coming for

you


Copyright © M. Carmen Lane. All Rights Reserved.





ABOUT THE AUTHOR
M. Carmen Lane (African-American/Mohawk/Tuscarora) is a poet, cultural worker and consultant. Carmen's work has been published in Red Ink Magazine, The Yellow Medicine Review and is a contributor to the Lambda Literary Award nominated anthology Sovereign Erotics: A Collection of Two-Spirit Literature.  She is the author of Calling Out After Slaughter 
www.lanecatalytics.com





Sky Woman

By M. Carmen Lane

uprooted

& pushed
through

stillness
came for
me

there was
nothing
left to do
but fall

onto the
smooth/
bumpy back
of Turtle

watch

as Nana’s
primordial
soil spreads
bringing
equilibrium

woods
& water

purpose
unknown/
this new
world
is waiting
for you
my sons

I pass on
pregnant
thoughts
of good will/
possibility

unmoving
&
unable to
let all
the grief
go

I carried too
the shadow
side of
joy

tangled
energy

my offspring
will play out
this tension
over & again

my head on
a pike

even ceremony
will not be
enough

we must
examine again
our resistance

like the
ancestors
uprooted/
falling
through
into new
life


Copyright © M. Carmen Lane. All Rights Reserved.

M. Carmen Lane, author of Calling Out After Slaughter







M. Carmen Lane (African-American/Mohawk/Tuscarora) is a poet, cultural worker and consultant. Carmen's work has been published in Red Ink Magazine, The Yellow Medicine Review and is a contributor to the Lambda Literary Award nominated anthology Sovereign Erotics: A Collection of Two-Spirit Literature. 
www.lanecatalytics.com



Kimberly L. Becker, Poet

In the Purple and Blue of It
—From Words Facing East By Kimberly L. Becker

Walking the property
In the late afternoon
In the purple and blue of it
The stand of pines
Fairytale deepness
Past the reservoir
Crunching hulls of black walnuts
Thinking:
This is sacred ground
My eyes devour the view
That I like to claim as mine
But know it’s not, despite the deed
When I return to the anxiety
Of the city
I will long for this land
As a lover for the body of the beloved
I will recall its voice
The trickle of creek
       call of hawks
       rain as it comes up the valley
I have seen mesas
Great red tables
Altars for sacrifice
But it is these mountains
I hold against the bruise of my heart
The purple and blue 
Of their mothering forms

Purple       and       blue

Words Facing East (WordTech Editions, 2011)

Copyright © Kimberly L. Becker. All rights reserved. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Born in Georgia, raised in North Carolina, Kimberly L. Becker is a member of Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers and is of Cherokee/Celtic/Teutonic descent. She is the author of two poetry collections, Words Facing East (WordTech Editions, 2011) and The Dividings (WordTech Editions, 2014). Individual poems appear widely in journals and anthologies.  Other published writing includes fiction, essays, reviews, and a series of interviews with other Native writers. Current projects include adapting traditional Cherokee stories into plays for the Cherokee Youth in Radio Project at the Cherokee Youth Center in Cherokee, North Carolina. Kimberly has been awarded grants from the New Jersey State Arts Council, the Montgomery County Arts and Humanities Council (Maryland), as well as a fellowship to the Hambidge Artist Residency Program in the North Georgia mountains. She has held an Individual Artist Award in Poetry from the Maryland State Arts Council and been Writer-in-Residence at Weymouth Center for the Arts and Humanities (North Carolina).  She has been a featured reader at many venues, including "Native Writers in DC" at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian. She is happiest within sight of the mountains. 
www.kimberlylbecker.com


Manufactured Stress and Prayers for Peace

by Alice Rose Crow Maar’aq 

Manufactured Stress

I.
Manufactured stress creates false anxiety
to do their work

They watch through one-way glass
as you tire on the exercise wheel
first patented generations ago (on mice)

Add enticers to help you
Concede you prefer their bidding

Soon I hear you blubber
it was your idea all along

Your iluraq say they inherited positions
on the grind from our ancestors
long to believe you carry Tradition
when proudly raising an Indigene flag

If history began today
what would those anthropologists observe of you?
What do our children see?

Smile for their cameras

II.
Back then I mopped floors
tried scrubbing away the old stain
of muddy feet trekking to the mouse room
a kind of one-way mirror

They didn’t see me

I saw them emerge from their watch room
one paid the other for a bet made over you

He cashed in
when she said they could make you spin fastest
to the beat of their drum


Prayers for Peace

The wind carries prayers for peace

in winter prayers sting like the biting north wind
meet exposed tear-stained cheeks

Tears freeze and are wiped away

Prayers are heard

After the cold we go to our river
where prayers do not meet deaf ears

Alone we cannot send the ice to sea

Our faith is measured when every spring
what’s frozen becomes dangerous
rots 
and is sent away

Copyright © Alice Rose Crow~Maar’aq. All rights reserved.
“Manufactured Stress,” “Prayers for Peace,” “Ilumun No. 1” first appeared in Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies (Volume 23, Number 2, Special Issue: Indigenous Women, University of Nebraska Press). 2002.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Alice Rose Crow~Maar’aq was born and raised on the Kusquqvak insouthwest Alaska and nests in Spenard. Her work appears in the Brevity blog, Camas, Yellow Medicine Review, River, Blood and Corn, Retort, Frontiers, and Standards. Her book-length collection, An Offering of Words, is well-underway. Crow works with Chip Livingston and Elissa Washuta to earn a seat as a member of the inaugural class of the Institute of American Indi(genous)an Arts low-rez MFA in Creative Writing Program. She is a member of the Orutsararmuit Native Council and is an original Calista and Bethel Native Corporation shareholder.

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