Black Molasses
by Cesar Love
Light cannot pass through me
I swallow every spark
I put out each candle
I smother the streetlamp
I douse the lighthouse
The moon, the sun, and the day
Down they go in my distillery
Everything bright milled by my night
There I make them black like me
There I make them pure like me
When I am ready, I make the world sweet
Give me flour, I make gingerbread
Give me water, I become rum
Give me an audience, I become music
I am black molasses
I go the speed that I choose
They say I move slow, but really I move free
In this sugar, you meet freedom
In this, sugar, you become four-alarm cool
The bongo of minutes, the gong of the hours,
Simple flickers on the still of your soul
"Black Molasses" was previously published in Birthright by Cesar Love
© Cesar Love. All rights reserved.
Cheekbones
The handsome Native
His cheekbones are not chiseled
He is not made of granite
He is not made of marble
The handsome Native
His cheekbones are flesh and bone
They have felt hurricanes
They have met tornadoes
The handsome Native
His face fathoms all weather
He has withstood hatred
He has withstood other small winds
© Cesar Love. All rights reserved.
Cesar Love is a Latino poet influenced by the Asian masters. A resident of San Francisco's Mission District, he is also an editor of the Haight Ashbury Literary Journal. His latest book is titled Birthright. His previous book While Bees Sleep was published by CC. Marimbo Press. cesarlovepoetry.yolasite.com
Trouble Song
by Kim Shuck
Take hold of your stubborn
Twine fingers in your defiant
Dig in
Breathe deep into your
Creative
Make space for your heartbreak but let it start healing
We were walked from the east
We were packed into ships
We were sold by our families
We were illegal
We were hunted
We are here
We are always
We are
Aways
Sing that restless patience
Our inheritance
Take hold of hands
Take hold of your stubborn
Take hold
Take care
Take caring
Self brightly
Group with care
Hold tight and sing
Twine fingers in your defiant
Dig in
Breathe deep into your
Creative
Make space for your heartbreak but let it start healing
We were walked from the east
We were packed into ships
We were sold by our families
We were illegal
We were hunted
We are here
We are always
We are
Aways
Sing that restless patience
Our inheritance
Take hold of hands
Take hold of your stubborn
Take hold
Take care
Take caring
Self brightly
Group with care
Hold tight and sing
© Kim Shuck. All rights reserved.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Kim Shuck is feeling very scattered these days among the Executive Orders and banishments. She teaches 2nd graders most Thursdays, 4th graders some Wednesdays and college undergrads on Fridays. At other times she tries to reweave the fraying webs of communities that she loves. As for poetic qualifications… magazines, anthologies, solo books awards… degrees… years of working in the poetry mine. In 2017 Shuck was appointed to serve as San Francisco's next Poet Laureate. www.kimshuck.com
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Kim Shuck is feeling very scattered these days among the Executive Orders and banishments. She teaches 2nd graders most Thursdays, 4th graders some Wednesdays and college undergrads on Fridays. At other times she tries to reweave the fraying webs of communities that she loves. As for poetic qualifications… magazines, anthologies, solo books awards… degrees… years of working in the poetry mine. In 2017 Shuck was appointed to serve as San Francisco's next Poet Laureate. www.kimshuck.com
Archive | Author
Kim Shuck
Loosening Our Tongue
By
Rain
Prud’homme-Cranford (Goméz), Ph.D
These are things I need to say:
but language and words
were ripped from my tongue
Residential school
Jim Crow feather
but language and words
were ripped from my tongue
Residential school
Jim Crow feather
soldiers
swarming
our land our homes
uprooting us from soil—
roots dangling
string fingers
clinging to clutch
clumps of Earth
our land our homes
uprooting us from soil—
roots dangling
string fingers
clinging to clutch
clumps of Earth
These are things I need to say:
but mouth is dry
arid fragile skin
opens bleeding
hollow space between
tongue and teeth cracks
from drought
from poison water
but mouth is dry
arid fragile skin
opens bleeding
hollow space between
tongue and teeth cracks
from drought
from poison water
These are things I need to say:
ancestors circle round
pepper spraying police
choking our
relatives’ throats—
reaching to hold water
slipping through fingers
toes digging into
brown dirt
ancestors circle round
pepper spraying police
choking our
relatives’ throats—
reaching to hold water
slipping through fingers
toes digging into
brown dirt
These are things
we need to say—
Sing us home
shatter violent silence
come down rain
churning rivers
ocean waves
we need to say—
Sing us home
shatter violent silence
come down rain
churning rivers
ocean waves
We ride a tempest of
surging water
surging water
#WaterIsLife #RezspectOurLandbase #StandingRock
©Rain Prud’homme-Cranford 2016
Rain won the First Book Award in Poetry from NWCA (2009), for Smoked Mullet Cornbread Crawdad Memory (MEP 2012). Critical and creative work can be found in various journals including: The Southern Literary Journal, Louisiana Folklife, Undead Souths: The Gothic and Beyond (LSU P), Mississippi Quarterly, Tidal Basin Review, Sing: Indigenous Poetry of the Americas, As Us, Yellow Medicine Review, and many others.
Archive | Author
Rain Prud'homme-Cranford
Rock Collection
By César Love
I seek escape, not in
smoke
Not in drink
But in rocks I’ve gathered
None are boulders, few are
pebbles
The perfect mass gorges my
two hands
Hardness is my comfort,
density my high.
The Black One brings me to
outer space
The Purple, a utopian
palace
The Orange, a feast
devoured slowly
The Grey, a ferry to
oblivion
My comedown is softness
Reality, a sinkhole in
feathers
Below my pillow
I keep an opal
Always the Land
When the storms end, he is
quiet to all but the deaf
Many hear the whispers of
streams, the mumbles of rivers
But below the threshold of
a lapping pond
There are sounds as soft as
a tadpole’s heartbeat
At volumes quieter than
grass
The land delivers a wordless
sermon
You are free to leave
before the end, for the sermon has no end
Can you bear the spastic stillness?
If you can listen for ten
minutes, you are free to ask a question.
If you can listen for an
hour, you can ask for anything you need.
Ask what about your bees?
The trellis on your porch,
broken by the eight-foot weeds
It’s painted and repaired,
ready for the blossoms
To greet the sun and moon,
ready for the blossoms
To welcome back the bees.
Listen to the honey
spinning into gold
Ask what about the
blackout?
Remember the fireflies you
caught so long ago?
You hid them in a basement
jar.
Realize you’re one of
them.
Hands unlock the lid, hands
let all of you free.
Listen to the land echoing
your glow
Lake Chabot
Castro Valley, California
Blue water, mirror of day
Show us the breadth of the
sky
Dark water, mirror of
night
How lovely the moon on
your throat
Sweet water, ripples and
tides
Ladles of kisses
The brush of your tongue
moistens our clay
Deep water, so certain the
currents
Sleepless their movement
Sleepless your will
Still water, gentle the
splashes
So peaceful your power
So quiet creation
The Sprinklers
Surprised on sunny park
grass
The intrusion of sprinkler
water
Hidden fountains meant for
moonlight
Let loose by mistimed
dials
An accidental shower
Perhaps you scamper from
the grass
Safe and only a little wet
Perhaps they give you a
hearty splash
Soaked or dry
Savor the wet sparklers
The cool of deepsome wells
This is not the Alhambra
This is not Niagara
Small rainbows
The rise and fall of water
drops
An arc of musical notes
Spiring to the sky
In love enough
To fall to Earth.
© César
Love. All rights reserved.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: César Love writes poems about displacement
and the search for home. He can be found at open mics of the San Francisco Bay
Area. His new book of poems is titled Birthright.
http://cesarlovepoetry.yolasite.com/
http://cesarlovepoetry.yolasite.com/
Archive | Author
César Love
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
River, Blood, And Corn Literary Journal: A Community of Voices
Copyright © 2010-2024. Individual writers and photographers retain all rights to their work, unless they have other agreements with previous publishers.We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive.—Barry Lopez, in Crow and Weasel