On my wrist
is a bracelet
Of the deepest shade of red
Fluid and straight
It stains my skin
And cuts deep into my flesh
Handcrafted with loneliness
And embellished with hate
It glimmers in the darkness
And is masked in the day
A gift
Sent from the boy
Who made my sheets reek
Of black love ...
On Your Wrist
TBD
On my wrist
is a bracelet
Of the deepest shade of red
Fluid and straight
It stains my skin
And cuts deep into my flesh
Handcrafted with loneliness
And embellished with hate
It glimmers in the darkness
And is masked in the day
A gift
Sent from the boy
Who made my sheets reek
Of black love ...
On Your Wrist
TBD
TITLE
NAME
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The Contents of a cabinet
Renee Ferguson
Someone I love so much keeps me up at night. With the banging of cupboards and drawers and the opening and closing of the fridge, with quiet footsteps on carpeted stairs and the sharp squeak of the third stair from the bottom floor. I heard her last Thursday and then I slept out on Saturday but she’s fumbled down the stairs every night this week, too petrified to turn on a light. ..
The Contents of a cabinet
Renee Ferguson
Someone I love so much keeps me up at night. With the banging of cupboards and drawers and the opening and closing of the fridge, with quiet footsteps on carpeted stairs and the sharp squeak of the third stair from the bottom floor. I heard her last Thursday and then I slept out on Saturday but she’s fumbled down the stairs every night this week, too petrified to turn on a light. ..
Grey Bird
A.W. Lion-Cleaver
The grey bird beckons me to join him
Follow me! he says
Follow me!
A nest sprinkled with
Crumbles of ash
Built upon marlboro sticks
and poisonous leaves
Follow me!
Feathers grey, turn grey, turning grey
Feathers with knotted ends
Dipped in black
Feathers rough, turn rough, turning rough
Follow me!
Grey Bird
A.W. Lion-Cleaver
The grey bird beckons me to join him
Follow me! he says
Follow me!
A nest sprinkled with
Crumbles of ash
Built upon marlboro sticks
and poisonous leaves
Follow me!
Feathers grey, turn grey, turning grey
Feathers with knotted ends
Dipped in black
Feathers rough, turn rough, turning rough
Follow me!
The Diversity Question
Aidan Niles
In your search
Your quest
For flesh
There are some things that do not mesh
Your vaunted objective
Your lofty goal
Hoping the answer might make you whole
The truth is somewhere in between
Flesh matters
We haven’t forgotten
Past so darkened
Lore so shameful
Yet we are blinded by fear
Fear of an eternal canvas
Fear of racism
Fear of one color
But what of the mind?
Cleanest of slates
Jewel of consciousness
Seat of our souls
Palace of existence
What of our beliefs?
Beliefs that are not etched into our genes
Tattooed onto our skins
Runes, hieroglyphs, pictograms of a long history
What of our affiliation?
Factions vying for agendas
Seeking, searching, planning for a better tomorrow
We are more than our skin
We are our minds
We are intellectually diverse
Poets, artists, mathematicians, engineers, scientists, communicators
Those who are stratified by a history we live yet have never lived
Descended of the truths our fathers and mothers knew and taught
To simply see us as bags of bones
To see us as genetic material meant to fill your abstract quotas
The pillars you claim that don’t exist
So
That
You
May
Paint your canvas with a variety of color
So you may remark that you are not monochromatic
Are not a racist
When your institution feasts on color
When it constantly hunts the code buried deep within our flesh
Seeking it out with the hungry voraciousness of the predator
Are we to feel safe in your presence?
Safe in the knowledge that we are little more than a cog in your machine
A chess piece in your great game
Do the deeds of the mind pale in comparison to the script of flesh we had no choice in writing?
In seeking to bring us together
Your misguided ways tear us apart
Guided not by hatred, but compassion
Steered by acceptance towards discrimination.
We are trapped in the safe spaces you claim to be free
Trained to fear the neighbors you claim we should love
Damned to the fate of a pariah if we steer from your flock
The flock observed by the cruelest of shepherds.
Is the liberty of creating our own spaces too much?
Does kindred spirit exist in flesh alone?
Does our estrogen or testosterone determine our associates?
We are lost
Confused
Disparate
Scattered
We forgot our essence
We let flesh bar us from the true light of each others souls
Let the darkness of skin become a vast ocean of space that we cannot breach
So we let our words become poisons to ourselves and others
Distilled in the casks of vile prejudice
Fermented in the barrels of imposed guilt
Toxic to those we call sisters and brothers
We have run from the very world we have sought to embrace
We must come back
Bring each other to our minds
To humanity
To be free of our trappings
Gender
Race
Economics
Where we are not bags of flesh and sums of money
To where we are what we were always meant to be
Humanity is my church
Discourse my steeple
If we rediscover these things
We might see we’re all people.
If we can transcend flesh
Fly past our fear
The path to transcendence lies there
In a place near here
The road won’t be easy
Path of mind and of heart
But to begin is somewhere
A place
To start