Cesar Love Poetry

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

© 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

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

soldiers swarming 
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

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

These are things 
we need to say—
Sing us home 
shatter violent silence 
come down rain 
churning rivers 
ocean waves

We ride a tempest of 
surging water

#WaterIsLife #RezspectOurLandbase #StandingRock

©Rain Prud’homme-Cranford 2016

Rain Prud’homme-Cranford (Goméz), Ph.D., is a“FatTastic IndigeNerd,” an Assistant Professor of Indigenous Literature in the Department of English and Affiliated Faculty in the International Indigenous Studies Program at the University of Calgary. A Poetry Editor for Mongrel Empire Press (MEP) and an Editorial Board member for The Journal of Louisiana Creole Studies.

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.