Peak Poetry Weather
New poetry by Robin Gow, Nicholas Karavatos, The Poet Mj and Barry Wallenstein.
Happy summer, everyone!
June is poetry weather and I'm out here with a palm leaf built from fresh-forged poetic fiber for that glowing sun upstairs.
Robin Gow has won our poetry challenge in celebration of Pride month with an amazing work of literature inspired by deep dives into the Stonewall archives at the New York Public Library. Our Australian correspondent The Poet Mj takes on those that would use environmental crises as Instagram fodder. Sean Kelbley writes about the heroes that shouldn't be in American classrooms as we head into summer break. And New York writer Barry Wallenstein has hopeful words for a new kind of border town, featuring bespoke art by Jeffrey Cyphers Wright.
Also, for the writers out there, I'm hyped about our new poetry open call about the Hong Kong protests. Check it out! Send us your words! Deadline is Tuesday at 5 p.m.
All good things,
Elle Aviv Newton
Editor-in-Chief
Poets Reading the News
WE THE HOMOSEXUALS
By Robin Gow
WE THE HOMOSEXUALS PLEAD WITH
OUR PEOPLE TO PLEASE HELP
MAINTAIN PEACEFUL AND QUIET
CONDUCT ON THE STREETS OF
THE VILLAGE—MATTACHINE 1969
When you have no more paper,
write with sound
on the windows of a body,
fill street with body,
break street with body.
We plead with our bodies
to know how far breaking can go,
how far street can fall,
and what sound it makes
on the subway cart’s skull,
gravel on metal
on rail.
There is nothing left,
but maintaining.
There is no more quiet in us.
We used our quiet on nights
eating each other’s names out of fear,
hunger to know the depth
of another person.
Now even, now,
I remember
there are always bodies under me,
the rattle of metal,
the travel of soul
under earth.
Layers of apartments,
tucked one beneath the next
like bodies,
sweating
with June humidity.
I want a Village for us
with all kind of windows.
I need to break them,
inside, a sort of quiet,
the kind of quiet we had
when there was only mouth,
no gender,
just teeth
and subway,
running like a sob
underneath skin.
Alphabet Soup
By The Poet Mj
cocktail culture
glitters genteel philosophies
zonal patches, crowds sway
bolstered by sparkling ale
fantastical fabrications
xenon, minuscule fragments
tracing air
wi-fi words hurdle
liberation struggles
elegant strapless dresses
as do bats
hang on curving caverns
pseudo-progressives
inclinations bubble
jangle, jumble victimhoods
new vogues, with heels
rogue identity grouplets
vapour, splinter pairs
deers in headlights
yields, collisions of dogma
kebab nibbles, vegetarian
overtly whites, criminating privilege
scrumptious
umbrage taken, environment left
quip ‘Koala Bears extinct’
dark comedy of remembrance
Gold Stars
By Sean Kelbley
There’s nothing kids won’t do for them.
So I won’t tell your kids to be distractions,
to throw books when The Shooter comes,
no matter what the sheriff says. Just run,
and I will do the grown-up job, will grab
the plastic blue 5-gallon bucket every teacher got
a couple dozen deaths ago, will fumble
for the can of aerosol-propelled wasp
killer, aim for his eyes and if I hit,
give me a star, and if I’m hit, give stars
to every kid who didn’t stick around to
splint and pack me like the nurses taught.
I hate gold stars. I hate that bucket,
into which a 3rd-grader threw up last time
we did a lockdown drill. I love Kendrick
Castillo. I call him hero in my heart,
but I won’t say the word around your kids
because this isn’t indoor voice or walking feet
or random acts of kindness, and there’s nothing
they won’t do to meet an expectation. I hate
this poem. I hate this stupid war, and I am sad
and sorry for its Gold Star moms and dads.
I hate, already, hero shifting into show your
work. It’s not their work, but there is
nothing I can do if you won’t say so.
If the sheriff with his big gold star
comes back to do his job, comes back
to teach how best to make more child heroes,
I can’t stop your kids from nodding, learning.
As if they knew the lesson all along.
There is a Border No Skin Can Cross
By Barry Wallenstein
The guards, filed teeth,
eyes neither warm nor cold,
are armed and armored
against the would-be travelers.
So no one moves forward.
The crowds at the checkpoint
thicken and stamp.
But then, faint music hovers over;
boundaries collapse –
stones become smooth sand
barbed wires fall down.
Where did it come from,
this tune with its swing tones melodic
that carries a strand of souls
across the border to meet and greet
the others?
It came from a town
called Fearless
where the people are various
and polylingual.
They circle and open all the day long.