Poetjournalist

Aaron Dworkin

I am the multi-colored tubes looping down the wall

Darting around outlets colored red and yellow

Snaking into veins of the elderly woman

Gasping from within the sheets of her Covid bed

Anchored by technology to the protocols of strangers

Dedicated to prolong the life she faces

Without the grip on her lover’s wrist.

I am the passive man in straight black pants

With my untucked white shirt

Facing the column of tanks as their turrets salute my defiance

In Tiananmen Square before my movement falters

Showcasing my human right to exist

My freedom to persist.

I am the failed bank filled

With the empty paper and promises of people’s dreams

Chosen for their inability to pay like the stray gazelle

On the Savanna as the lion poaches their prey

In the early morning mist.

I am the twin towers twisted metal

Exploding into crimson blossoms

Fading into black entrails and futures lost

Shading the horizon of our lives like

The passions of lovers before they fall into disarray

And forget what sparked their rise and hatred of their demise

And events regretted yet still reminisced.

I am the 9 minutes and 29 seconds

That a black man donning a black tank top

Felt the knee of dispassionate authority on his full-throated neck

Before his life with voice was ground into silence that was heard

And shook the sugar maple trees of Richmond Virginia

And broke the blue wall more than any afro pick with fist.

I am the grist for bottled water office talk

I assist the memory to feel the moments lost

I am the emotion of every story missed

I am the words the newsprint failed to list

I am our soul we must enlist.

I am the Poetjournalist.

Naji, 14. Philadelphia

Rita Dove

(published in The Paris Review)

A bench, a sofa, anyplace flat—

just let me down

somewhere quiet, please,

a strange lap, a patch of grass . . .

What a fine cup of misery

I’ve brought you, Mama—cracked

and hissing with bees.

Is that your hand? Good, I did

good: I swear I didn’t yank or glare.

If I rest my cheek on the curb, let it drain . . .

They say we bring it on ourselves

and trauma is what they feel

when they rage up flashing

in their spit-shined cars

shouting who do you think you are?

until everybody’s hoarse.

I’m better now. Pounding’s nearly stopped.

Next time I promise I’ll watch my step.

I’ll disappear before they can’t

unsee me: better gone

than one more drop in a sea of red.

Landback

Aaron Dworkin

Yellow magenta siphoning

Into darkened purple

Reflect the sultry landscape

A glimpse of turtle island

Through the lens of thievery

Buried in mosaic memories.

My toes bathe

Amidst prairie grass

I get to walk upon

As if its my own

But its not.

The disconnect that fills my Blackness

In a nation where an idea of greatness

Is still filled with the struggle

To realize an ideal

Not yet stumbled upon

Echoes in this vast open space

Full of indigenous ingenuity

Seeking to own what was once owned

But taken through bureaucracy and history.

A tragedy told

Through the laughter of eagles

Resonating through bald rock ridges

Towering over a mural of potential.

A movement materialized

From solemn whispers

Of an ancient wind

Creating a chorus

Arising from ancestral soil

Soiled by the indifference

Of descendants of a conquest

Designed with deceit

Yet veiled

With noble intent.

O Captain! My Captain!

Walt Whitman

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,

The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;

But O heart! heart! heart!

O the bleeding drops of red,

Where on the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;

Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills,

For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding,

For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

Here Captain! dear father!

This arm beneath your head!

It is some dream that on the deck,

You’ve fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,

My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,

The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,

From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;

Exult O shores, and ring O bells!

But I with mournful tread,

Walk the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

Zip Code

Aaron Dworkin

If I am endowed with rights

unavailable for abdication

For my life, liberty and pursuit of happiness

Why does geography chart a navigation

Towards my inequality?

Less than the distance

Patrick Mahomes can cast cowhide

From the seat of our democracy

27 years defines the difference

Of life expectancy from those

East of the River to the hill diners

Devouring their fare in the Capitol Grille.

20373 and 2 triple zero 7

Divided by merely 6 miles of terraced humanity

And a river equality cannot negotiate

Polluted with the sewage of hate and indifference.

3 busses keep me from my Covid doctor

And the mall where anchor stores and humanity

Serve as the remedy for my mental health disease.

Those who think I choose

To stride on broken streets with no sidewalks

Should spend a day born in a hospital ward

In 20373 then fight the homicide

Heart disease from guilty snacks at the neighborhood store

And unexpected injuries from a life lived

Without the luxury and safety of an unweighted zip code.

I am asking for the rights endowed me

For there is only so much suffering

Before subjugation is overtaken

By a passion to take

What should have been given

If we were all equal

In our most important

Independent

Declaration.

The Charge of the Light Brigade

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

I

Half a league, half a league,

Half a league onward,

All in the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

“Forward, the Light Brigade!

Charge for the guns!” he said.

Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

II

“Forward, the Light Brigade!”

Was there a man dismayed?

Not though the soldier knew

Someone had blundered.

Theirs not to make reply,

Theirs not to reason why,

Theirs but to do and die.

Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

III

Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon in front of them

Volleyed and thundered;

Stormed at with shot and shell,

Boldly they rode and well,

Into the jaws of Death,

Into the mouth of hell

Rode the six hundred.

IV

Flashed all their sabres bare,

Flashed as they turned in air

Sabring the gunners there,

Charging an army, while

All the world wondered.

Plunged in the battery-smoke

Right through the line they broke;

Cossack and Russian

Reeled from the sabre stroke

Shattered and sundered.

Then they rode back, but not

Not the six hundred.

V

Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon behind them

Volleyed and thundered;

Stormed at with shot and shell,

While horse and hero fell.

They that had fought so well

Came through the jaws of Death,

Back from the mouth of hell,

All that was left of them,

Left of six hundred.

VI

When can their glory fade?

O the wild charge they made!

All the world wondered.

Honour the charge they made!

Honour the Light Brigade,

Noble six hundred!

Arbor Quilt

Aaron Dworkin

Below the boundless arc

Of a Midwest sky

Huron waters

Meander and murmur.

Oaks stand sentry

Witness to the silence

Of a destiny

That will shatter

The stillness.

Fertile soil trembles

From the rhythm

Of leathered soles

In procession.

Stories borne

By wagons of wood

And promise

Upon a canvas

Of contingent opportunity.

In the clutch of untamed territory

Allen and Rumsey etched dreams

Speculated in the spring air

Of municipality built upon the breast

Of a lush Michigan plain.

The grove of Arbor

Stitched into existence

By a quilt of cultures

Sewn upon the moccasins

Of Anishinaabe customs

And the cadence of indigenous land.

The German brewer’s stout heart

Ballads and kilts

Seeking respite from famine

Jazz and blues journeyed from Africa

Borne by the Great Migration

From southern fields to promised gospel

Of the northern lights.

Founders sculpted from wilderness

A space where the scent

Of cardamom and coffee pulsates

Through latin beats of tacos and tamales.

Cultural cartography captured

Within a stroll of Kerrytown

And campus conversation

Where the academy carries

The harmonic refrain of books and discourse

Informing the change that sustains

Society.

Ann Arbor remains

An uncompromising gesture

Comprised of the whisper

Of two centuries bent by history

And a river that brought together

A pioneering endeavor

Upon which we all strive to echo

The courage carved beneath the streets

Of our definitively historic city.

Casey at the Bat

Ernest Lawrence Thayer

The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Mudville nine that day;

The score stood four to two with but one inning more to play.

And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same,

A sickly silence fell upon the patrons of the game.

A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest

Clung to that hope which springs eternal in the human breast;

They thought if only Casey could but get a whack at that—

We’d put up even money now with Casey at the bat.

But Flynn preceded Casey, as did also Jimmy Blake,

And the former was a lulu and the latter was a cake;

So upon that stricken multitude grim melancholy sat,

For there seemed but little chance of Casey’s getting to the bat.

But Flynn let drive a single, to the wonderment of all,

And Blake, the much despised, tore the cover off the ball;

And when the dust had lifted, and men saw what had occurred,

There was Jimmy safe at second and Flynn a-hugging third.

Then from 5,000 throats and more there rose a lusty yell;

It rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell;

It knocked upon the mountain and recoiled upon the flat,

For Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat.

There was ease in Casey’s manner as he stepped into his place;

There was pride in Casey’s bearing and a smile on Casey’s face.

And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat,

No stranger in the crowd could doubt ’twas Casey at the bat.

Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt;

Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on his shirt.

Then while the writhing pitcher ground the ball into his hip,

Defiance gleamed in Casey’s eye, a sneer curled Casey’s lip.

And now the leather-covered sphere came hurtling through the air,

And Casey stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there.

Close by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded sped—

“That ain’t my style,” said Casey. “Strike one,” the umpire said.

From the benches, black with people, there went up a muffled roar,

Like the beating of the storm-waves on a stern and distant shore.

“Kill him! Kill the umpire!” shouted some one on the stand;

And it’s likely they’d have killed him had not Casey raised his hand.

With a smile of Christian charity great Casey’s visage shone;

He stilled the rising tumult; he bade the game go on;

He signaled to the pitcher, and once more the spheroid flew;

But Casey still ignored it, and the umpire said, “Strike two.”

“Fraud!” cried the maddened thousands, and echo answered fraud;

But one scornful look from Casey and the audience was awed.

They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his muscles strain,

And they knew that Casey wouldn’t let that ball go by again.

The sneer is gone from Casey’s lip, his teeth are clinched in hate;

He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate.

And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go,

And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey’s blow.

Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;

The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,

And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;

But there is no joy in Mudville—mighty Casey has struck out.

The Slave’s Dream

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Beside the ungathered rice he lay,

His sickle in his hand;

His breast was bare, his matted hair

Was buried in the sand.

Again, in the mist and shadow of sleep,

He saw his Native Land.

Wide through the landscape of his dreams

The lordly Niger flowed;

Beneath the palm-trees on the plain

Once more a king he strode;

And heard the tinkling caravans

Descend the mountain-road.

He saw once more his dark-eyed queen

Among her children stand;

They clasped his neck, they kissed his cheeks,

They held him by the hand!--

A tear burst from the sleeper's lids

And fell into the sand.

And then at furious speed he rode

Along the Niger's bank;

His bridle-reins were golden chains,

And, with a martial clank,

At each leap he could feel his scabbard of steel

Smiting his stallion's flank.

Before him, like a blood-red flag,

The bright flamingoes flew;

From morn till night he followed their flight,

O'er plains where the tamarind grew,

Till he saw the roofs of Caffre huts,

And the ocean rose to view.

At night he heard the lion roar,

And the hyena scream,

And the river-horse, as he crushed the reeds

Beside some hidden stream;

And it passed, like a glorious roll of drums,

Through the triumph of his dream.

The forests, with their myriad tongues,

Shouted of liberty;

And the Blast of the Desert cried aloud,

With a voice so wild and free,

That he started in his sleep and smiled

At their tempestuous glee.

He did not feel the driver's whip,

Nor the burning heat of day;

For Death had illumined the Land of Sleep,

And his lifeless body lay

A worn-out fetter, that the soul

Had broken and thrown away!