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steven ray smith – issue #2: food, power, and powerlessness

For a whole week they spoke habanero — and coconut pottery,

lime squeeze, bright mint walls with piggy pink trim, papaya

lintels and periwinkle roofs, yuba on a goatskin stretched

across a rum-barrel, delight in the bite of night midges,

and fermentation of everything:  mauby, pikliz, chicha, pulque.

They believed it was their real life, real language, real food:

primordial, liberating, and they wanted nothing else.

Back home, they stammered.

The language from that magical week

suddenly sounded dense and incoherent.

The food was too hot, too sour, too fierce.

Only upon resuming compliance with familiar

curfews and deadlines, the snipped words and matte

colors of the censor’s list, and flavors in identifiable

shapes, did they accomplish their important tasks.

And their first accomplishment was to abolish

everything carnivalesque and everyone

who reminded them such vivacity was possible.

For they preferred clarity to episodic joy,

assurance to memory, prim food and cautious words

to anything syncopated or too too

exquisite.

Before

Let’s start over — before

there was a before,

year 0, 

the year after before

Christ and before anno Domini —

the Capsicum annuum growing on a shrub

outside Teotihuacan before

the fibula from Praeneste declares in Latin,

Manios me fhefhaked Numasioi, and before

Latin can reclassify chiltepín, the flea pepper,

as the potato pepper — before

Latin begets Spanish begets Latin America, before

the flea pepper seeds the jalapeño, bell, and cayenne.

When fiery seeds spit laughing

on La Calzada de los Muertos upon a dare

turned to a lick was still just a harmless lick,

and there was no one else to be.

The flaming seed grew to a flea.

Steven Ray Smith is the author of a two minute forty second night (FutureCycle Press, 2022). The book was shortlisted for the Steel Toe Book Award in 2020. His poetry has been published in Verse Daily, The Yale Review, Southwest Review, The Kenyon Review, Slice, Barrow Street, Poet Lore, The Hollins Critic and others. He is an assistant editor for THINK: A Journal of Poetry, Fiction, and Essays. More information about his work can be found at StevenRaySmith.com.

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catherine harnett – issue #2: food, power, and powerlessness

FROM THE HOUSE OF COMMONS                     

            5/24/1847       

            We must acknowledge the Irish are dense,

            superstitious; count on God for magic

            interventions: pots of gold, good crops,

            rents forgiven. One must admit it’s tragic,

            them shuffling to the work-house,

            with their pack of little monkeys, clinging.

            We’re the ones deprived of maids, drivers;

            we knew the Irish lack ambition; they can’t

            even stay alive.  


            ELLEN O’CONNOR A BABY DYING                  

            12/3/ 1848

            You will always be my babe, my sweet.

            I did not see us dying on the same day

            in the rain and starving, cold; I did try

            to keep you clothed and fed, there was

            no way to find sustenance. Or warmth.

            I know God will soon visit us, take us

            to a place of eternal rest, vast food.

            It’s not hard to go; I shall hold you, kiss

            your pale face.

            FROM THE CORK EXAMINER,

            BY JERIMIAH O’CALLAGAN


            DAMNING THE GUARDIANS                              

            6/16/ 1847

            How dare they call themselves guardians;

            men who deny clean water to the poor.

            They should see hundreds of the decomposed,

            then be forced to say their names; and to pray

            they never see their own dead children laid

            next to rotting paupers, in the jaws of dogs

            and rats. And their ample wives afraid to starve,

            tossed in a ditch with the unloved.

            ENDLESS BURIALS                                               

            2/2/1847         

            More deaths, less relief; the dearth of coffins

            and plots have shaken me to the core. Some are

            of the belief trap coffins give dignity

            to the dead. A hinged box, stuffed with two

            or three deceased, is brought to a pit, and bodies

            are fed into the earth; then re-used to increase efficient

            burial. Poor lads can build only so many each day,

            they are weak and scarcely fed.

            A FATHER’S CHOICE                                            

            1847

            A cat has little meat on it; when one is mad from hunger,

            anything will do. The father’s choice is brutal. Eat nothing

            or eat the poisoned cat. They knew the cruel lord’s men

            would soon be at the door to throw them out. It would

            have been human to dig them graves in the seized field,

            what more could they ask for: a place for their remains. 

            WARNING

            11/15/1847

            They are right, the farmers; they hear the fields’

            bleating, feel decay with their own hands, cracked

            and calloused, the smell of rot. They know yields

            are nil, the starving season has them backed against

            the wall. They’ve all been driven to madness.

            Food grown by the famished is laid waste or pilfered,

            shipped to the English who never miss meals.

            OUTRAGE                                                                

            1/1/1848

            The widow cannot speak, is always at the mercy

            of such men who unearth small growings from her

            sparse plot, quite aware that she and five children

            will die in cold fall. She watches them dig raw

            potatoes out of her patch; praying it would yield

            something this time. Who loosed these thugs,

            marauding louts, on paupers who have little to nothing.

            A CONCERNED READER WRITES         

            2/5/1849

            His days were spent starving; his life was deemed

            extinct, a miserable creature. His fate was sealed,

            being Irish. Pat’s Ma had dreamed her boy would

            be safe and fed; not a plate of nettles for his last meal.

            He was sawed open by the coroner: who would eat

            what sheep eat? This man, a bag of bones clawed

            at dirt to loosen roots, having no meat.

            A READER DESPISES THE QUEEN        

            10/26/ 1850

            The Famine Queen is so pleased to eat our food, tons

            and tons of meat and butter; the Monarch’s

            not keen to see our cankered fields, the skin

            and bones our children are. We are not her

            kind, no fancy tea at four, we do not eat scones;

            or anything, having nothing to grow.

            HONORA’S MIDDLE DAUGHTER, LIZZIE        

            2/5/1849

            Where do we go, our Ma dropping dead right

            in front of me eyes? She’s not a wretch or creature,

            she’s been a good mother. It might be a crime

            to hunt turnips, it’s food for us, not jewels

            or cattle, she would never steal from the rich,

            just root vegetables. How do we live

            without our Ma? Don’t ever split us; we’re one,

            not three, she made a vow.

Catherine Harnett is is poet and fiction author. She has published three books of poetry, and her work appears in numerous magazines and anthologies. Sheretired from the federal government and currently lives in Virginia with her daughter. Her short fiction has been published by the Hudson Review and a number of other magazines, including upstreet, the Wisconsin Review, Assisi and Storyscape. Her story, “Her Gorgeous Grief,” was chosen for inclusion in Writes of Passage: Coming-of-Age Stories and Memoirs from The Hudson Review, and was nominated for a Pushcart. She can be found at catherineharnett.com

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leslie b. neustadt – issue #2: food, power, and powerlessness

Inspired by We Wanted More by Justin Torres

I    

Cornucopia

Our veritable stock-house bulged at the seams. My father would order prime cuts

of lamb, clams and mussels, saffron, soy sauce, and pickled ginger. Pastries from

miles away, baklava, croissant, linzer torte, black & whites, and rugelach.

He reinvented himself as a wholesale candy and tobacco dealer in Poughkeepsie.

If we wanted a Mars bar, he brought home a case. We have mouths full of

mercury. Two of my mother’s brothers, both dentists, filled our cavities.

II  

Hunger

There were four of us—David, Paul, Laurie Ellen, and me. We never went hungry

unless our father locked us in our rooms without dinner. If Mother failed to sneak

us a snack in her apron pocket, we ate toothpaste to fill our grumbling bellies.

We were always hungry, but food had nothing to do with it. We hungered

for a cease fire. For a cessation of screaming. For doors to close gently

rather than slam as my father left in a rage, spewing epithets like shrapnel.

We were hungry to be called our sacred names, given at birth.

Names never sullied by our father. When he called me cunt,

Shanah Leah could only do so much.

Leslie B. Neustadt is a retired attorney, poet, and collagist. The author of the book Bearing Fruit: A Poetic Journey, her work is inspired by the beauty and power of the natural world, mortal joys and struggles, and an unwavering commitment to human and civil rights. Her poems have been published in numerous anthologies and journals. She is artistic director of Women Writers and Artists Matrix, and a former board member of the International Women’s Writing Guild. She produces a bi-monthly workshop series for the Guild and has taught writing workshops in the Capital region of New York.

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toti o’brien – issue #2: Food, power, and powerlessness

Emma stares at the mound of ice cream

you gave her, silver spoon dangling from

her index and thumb, an air of perplexity

on her small, square-cut face. She won’t

touch it until completely melted. She sits

on a metal chair in the patio. Her eyes

shift from the cup to a coiled garden hose.

You have told her again, with perfunctory

grace, she looks pretty. Your words slid

down her double-breasted suit.

She is your bodyguard, not your mistress.

Leave her alone. Her black hair, thick like

rope, has a luster of wax in sunshine.

Her features are sewn up, sealed, mute.

She guards both your body and the wealth

of which you are the symptom, the

cause, the result, the cherry on the pie.

Now you are crossing the emerald lawn

towards the main entrance like a knife

bisects the top floor of a wedding cake

its blade drowned in frosting.

Toti O’Brien is an Italian accordionist with an Irish last name. Born in Rome, living in Los Angeles, she is an artist, musician and dancer. She is the author of Other Maidens (BlazeVOX, 2020), An Alphabet of Birds (Moonrise Press, 2020), In Her Terms (Cholla Needles Press, 2021), Pages of a Broken Diary (Pski’s Porch, 2022) and Alter Alter (Elyssar Press, 2022). She can be found on Facebook at Toti O’Brien.

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jane ward – issue #2: food, power, and powerlessness

Chop the red onions small. Don’t worry about cilantro stems; you can throw them in. Roll the limes hard to release the juice. Sea salt if you have it.


And yet.


If you hold that impossible plumpness in your hand,
if you tickle that leathery peel with a paring knife and
press firmly with your thumbs — oh, don’t let up!


There are worlds in here.
There’s golden fire, a moon and a sunset both, a dusky pasture, a sweet sweet rain.
There’s a farmer in a hat, loading his cart for the walk to a town you will never see.


You’ll take one quick taste, but next you’re swooped low over the bowl.
The pieces slip, make a run for it, but you’re faster,
and soon you’re gnawing the stones, the skins. Another. There must be another.


Forgive us.


Jane Ward is a poet, healthcare communications worker, and sometime adjunct writing professor who is delighted to be included in this important issue. Jane has been published once before in Green Briar Review. She holds an MPhil in Irish Literature from Trinity College, Dublin and lives in Northwest New Jersey with her husband. They have four children. She can be found on instagram at janesays6.

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patrice wilson – issue #2: food, power, and powerlessness

My body lies down

in muck and mire,

taunts me with its needs—

food, water, a place

to rest.

My body walks,

talks to people

asks for fifty cents

or a dollar, for a bus ride

to some place where it

can eat and drink.

I no longer know where this body

came from, ghosts

and signs from God telling me

I must keep moving

or the loud ugly crowd

will close in.

Sometimes other bodies blur

on the sidewalk,

they are me, too, or

they would not be here,

would they—?

Where my body lies down

is not a created space.

Sleep comes quick and hard.

I wonder why I still wake up,

every morning pushing hunger

upon me.

I don’t think about

an ending.  Every moment

is the end.  Every minute

dies in a luckless line

of unfed breaths.

Yet in faded dreams

I can almost see

green lands where yams

and plantains and children grow strong,

even though I’ve never been there.

Yes, my body breathes

wherever it wanders,

sits or lies, but because

in this city I can barely

see the sky, I no longer know

why.

Patrice Wilson is poetry editor at Decolonial Passage. She was born in Newark, NJ and has a PhD in English with concentrations in postcolonial theory and literature. She wrote a poetry thesis, “Between the Silence,” for her MA. She has three chapbooks with Finishing Line Press, and one full-length book, Hues of Darkness, Hues of Light, with eLectio Publishing. Her poetry has been published in several journals. Having been a professor and editor of the literary magazine at Hawaii Pacific University, Honolulu, HI, where she lived for many years, she is now retired and resides in Mililani, HI.

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robyn perros – issue #2: food, power, and powerlessness

When The Mannequin gets sad, she calls the lost children to her shop window. Carrying cardboard under their arms like teddy-bears, the lost children climb up onto their tippy-toes to reach the burglar bars. On empty stomachs, they slip The Mannequin the dreams they keep in discarded sweet wrappers. In exchange for their dreams, The Mannequin unbuckles her high-heels and throws them out the window onto the concrete where they land, a pile of bones. Sniffing glue out of Liqui Fruit juice boxes, the lost children stumble back out into the night, dreamless, in shoes they cannot walk in.

Starvation’s weekly planner

Yesterday, her wrists were as thin as serviette holders. Today, her skin is as thin as Rizla. Tomorrow, her spine will be as soft as a fishbone. On no particular day, her frame is carried off by the ants and their whispers.


Robyn Perros is a South African writer, researcher, and multimedia artist. She holds a Master of Arts in Creative Writing from Rhodes University where she is currently a PhD scholar and Teaching Assistant. Her work has been exhibited/published/presented in multiple spaces such as the KwaZulu Natal Society of the Arts (KZNSA), Open Plan Studio (Durban), Theotherroom (Durban), Nature is Louder Literary Project (Makhanda), Symposium for Artistic Research in Analog Photography (Helsinki 2022), Institutions & Death 2022 conference (University of Bath, UK), Mahala, Zigzag, Isele Magazine, and Ons Klyntji zine. She is currently a visiting scholar at the University of Connecticut. Her PhD research is looking at online death practices in South Africa. She lives in Makhanda. She can be found on Tumblr at robynperros.tumblr.com

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paul smith – issue #2: food, power, and powerlessness

The lemon is sour

from citric acid

in the sandy soil

the crowded branches

and the Mexican

that throws it into a

bushel basket

its face smashed into

those he got ripe with

 

The Mexican is sour

because he gets paid by the

bushel basket

and not the hour

his trailer is crowded

with the others

here for la pisca

already planning the trip to

North Carolina or Georgia

for the strawberries

until Christmas

when Ybor City calls them

to make cigars

paid by the box


Paul Smith writes poetry & fiction. He lives in Skokie, Illinois with his wife Flavia. Sometimes he performs poetry at an open mic in Chicago. He believes that brevity is the soul of something he read about once, and whatever that something is or was, it should be cut in half immediately.

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nancy l. meyer – issue #2: food, power, and powerlessness

As far as I know, we enslaved Joseph, Zebulon,

Cesar, Peg, her children Rose, Philis,

and her baby Philis. last was Joshua.  9 people,

1659-1808. Hard enough to admit,

and then

this summer, uncovered in the Phelps’ Barn—

stacks of receipts, bills of lading, “adventures”*

tied in six neat bundles. Signed Charles Phelps,

my 8th great grandmother Elizabeth’s only son,

who failed at law in Cambridge, ventured into

the export trade. One receipt reads

shipped in good order and condition

Phelps and Rand in ship called Great America

under master Jonathan W. in the harbour

of Boston and bound for Copenhagen

32 hogsheads of sugar weighing 15 tons 735 pounds.

Cane born of sweat, starvation, fingers sliced to shreds.

217,000 Africans in Cuba alone; few survived 7 years. 

Two crops a year, round-the-clock, sugar mills cannot stop.

By 1812, 600 U.S. ships sailed from Havana

with the sticky sweet, threading between

Napoleon’s dragoons, England’s navy

Every receipt stamped “citizen of United States”

to protect ships from seizure, sailors from capture.

Charles’ profit: $12.7 million in today’s dollars.

Untie another packet; receipts reveal

Georgia cotton, on the Rebecca.

What of the bent backs, families rent,

forced breeding, bruises?

No comments in his letters on the abolitionist

fervor bubbling in Boston. He worried about

his debts, cost of living, raising capital.

Records his 10 terms in the State Legislature,

wives who died, their 8 children. Says

he is “self-made.”

Not a nod to the lives whittled down

to sugar crystals, fingers that twisted

free each cotton boll, 200,000

to make a bale. No mention

of ships funneling millions of

Africans to plantations far from

the cool green of Hadley.

How the steel-blue Atlantic

laps against the unspoken

shores of our story.

Nancy L. Meyer (she/her) is a 2020 Pushcart nominee, avid cyclist, and grandmother of five from the unceded Raymatush Ohlone lands of San Francisco. Journals include: Gyroscope, BeZine, Book of Matches, Laurel Review, Colorado Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Sugar House Review, and Caesura, among others. Forthcoming writing will appear in International Human Rights Arts Festival, Outcast, and Kind of a Hurricane Press. She is published in eight anthologies, including Dang I Wish I Hadn’t Done That by Ageless Authors and Crossing Class by Wising Up Press.

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matthew johnson – issue #2: food, power, and powerlessness

The white children applaud and laugh 

When they catch you singing those songs of yours,

And they themselves recite some of the Spiritual verses

From when they found and heard you singing them before.


But their parents dislike how you all learned the songs

Of the Church, and then had to blacken them up,

So the music stops whenever they’re nearby in the big house,

And making their meals on an empty stomach 

Somehow feels even worse without the music of God or songs of hard luck. 


And after breakfast, when your apron and head rag

Have been disheveled by batter and sweat,

And your hunger and senses have been tempted to partake,

But you must always wait, they order you still for more; 


They tell you that you may eat after you dust off the parlor mirrors,

Knowing that in your present attire after a morning of household chores,

That the parlor mirrors are at their cruelest with their stares.

Matthew Johnson is a three-time Best of the Net Nominee and author of the poetry collection, Shadow Folks and Soul Songs (Kelsay Books), and a forthcoming title by NYQ Press. His poetry has appeared in Maudlin House, Roanoke Review, Northern New England Review, Up the Staircase Quarterly, amongst others. A former sports journalist for USA Today College and the Daily Star (Oneonta, NY), he now lives in Greensboro, NC. Having earned his M.A. in English from UNC-Greensboro, he’s the managing editor of The Portrait of New England and poetry editor of The Twin Bill. He can be found on his website matthewjohnsonpoetry.com and on twitter @Matt_Johnson_D.

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best of the net nominations september 2022

Decolonial Passage is honored to announce the 2022 nominations for the Best of the Net Anthology.  This list includes writing published between July 1, 2021 and June 30, 2022.  Congratulations to the nominees!

Poetry

“This is the Drum” by Andrew Geoffrey Kwabena Moss

“At Heaven’s Anteroom” by Akinmayowa Adedoyin Shobo

“Where I Am From” by Christian Emecheta

“Netela” by Lalini Shanela Ranaraja

“Certify This Land” by Abdulmueed Balogun

“Climbing Walls” by Eaton Jackson

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zama madinana poetry august 2022

no wrinkles can dim

the light

of your smile

it silences

the choirs of confusion

on a stage of fear

your love

devours the towers

of despair

mama

i wish to sit in the lap

of your strength

& enjoy the lullabies

of your compassion

sending my stubborn nightmares to sleep

while my baby-mind

hungers

for the breasts of your wisdom

and my back

dances to a freedom song

that lives in the palm of your hand

as you wield your sharp tongue

to wean me from my plate of ignorance

let me grow to be a man who despises arrogance

if winter days of my life come

i want to find warmth in the rooms

of your laughter

not in the dingy taverns

of this township

that turn family men

into

omadakwane*

izibotho ezingcolile*

drowned in toxic dams of booze

but i want to drink

from mphahlele’s

well of knowledge

tiptoe

behind the immortal lamps

of biko & sankara



illing road

the air

wears

the assorted scents

of umuthi*

battle with fruits

& vegetables

on the pavement

and a tavern

coughs out

drunks

with wet gullets

but dried pockets

isiphithiphithi*

buses swallowing up

black men

& women

from various

places

of exploitation


tauland blues

young men sink

in a tavern corner

with cold bottles of hansa pilsner

deep in the oceans of vodka

they soak their livers

they walk you through

the torn pages

of their lives

glued on empty beer crates

oozing stories of bitterness

stories of dying dreams

and broken families

with cracked lips

clung

to cheap

cigarette

skyf*

skyf

skyf

it’s a solemn

morning

trying

to chase bhabhalazi*

away


*omadakwane – drunkards
*izibotho ezingcolile – dirty drunkards
*umuthi – African medicine
*isiphithiphithi – chaos
*skyf – refers to cigarette or smoke in South African slang
*bhabhalazi – hangover


Zama Madinana is a South African poet based in Johannesburg. His work has appeared in The Shallow Tales Review, Stanzas, Africanwriter, Poetry Potion and other literary publications. His poems have been published in Zimbabwe, Nigeria, and the USA. Madinana’s work focuses on love, politics and social issues. In 2021, he won the third prize in the Sol Plaatje EU Poetry Award. His poetry chapbook, Water & Lights, was published in June 2021. He has performed his poetry in various locations, including Cape Town, Mozambique, and Botswana.

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grace louise wood poetry july 2022

When my dad delivered me,
The first thing he saw
Was a thicket of black hair,
Sticking out straight and wet,
Like fur on a freshly licked kitten.
It took a few months to curl into itself,
Grow quick as mint after rain,
Until it had to be gathered
Into soft, twisted bunches,
Always a few determined fronds
Trying to escape.

Our ritual after swimming,
Was two whole hours
Of washing and blow-drying
My drenched ringlets
Into a triangular mane;
Sharp comb teeth
Gnashing at my scalp,
Pools of pain
Welling in my eyes.
He always said sorry;
And I tried not to complain.

My hair was never stroked
By white people;
At sleepovers with friends,
In bed with lovers.
They all seemed scared
It would scratch them
If they treated it gently.
Only Black people, later,
Knew how to whisper to it,
See how soft it really was
Beneath its wildness.

I put my curls to sleep,
On our 11th birthday.
Made them relax with chemicals
That broke them down,
Shocked them straight,
Burnt my scalp to blisters.
Told myself it was worth it
To have hair which moved
In the breeze,
Rather than toward the sun;
The passport to acceptance.

They reawakened 10 years later,
From their drugged stupor;
Regained strength slowly
In the nurturing embrace of plaits,
Interwoven to protect,
Guard, replenish.
Emerged shy and uncertain,
Bit by bit,
Until they were sure it was safe,
And they could gently push
The straight all the way out.

It took me 10 years to fall in love,
Marvel at their shape,
Finger every curve tenderly,
Breathe their smell in deep,
Rejoice with each bounce and spring.
This hair was now acceptable
Enough to put on posters
To sell clothes to white people
Who thought they were woke;
To sell music to Black people
Who should know better.

It only took seven hours
To weave magic into my curls
With a crochet hook;
Wrap them around each other,
Locked in love with themselves,
Accepting their own beauty at last—
None left to fall by the wayside.
Thick glossy roots
Growing with age and wisdom;
Their dreaded power
Will build, each and every day.

 

Grace Louise Wood is a British-Jamaican writer, artist, educator, and curator. An alumnus of Barbican Young Poets, she performed at their poetry showcase in 2013. Her poems have been published in Human Parts on Medium, Drama Queens Ghana COV-19 Zine, Tampered Press (Issues Five and Six), and A Womb with a Heart That Beats All Over the World: African Poetry. She performs her poems at numerous events, including: The Offering at Greenleaf Café, Arts Nkwa’ at The Canvas, Ehalakasa Online – Talk Party, SheSheSlams, and Tampered Press Sixth Issue Launch. She can be found on Medium at Grace – Medium

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wilda morris poetry june 2022

After a day of hunting deer,

chestnut mare and ebony stallion

leaping hedges, following streams,

galloping across cornfields,

the men join their women for a feast:

Anadama bread, blueberry muffins,

corn, peas, sweet potatoes, duck, venison,

home-cured Virginia ham, bear, milk,

flagons of beer and the best French wines.


Men discuss politics, philosophy,

whether to plant tobacco or grain,

Ladies in elegant gowns play piano

and sing, discuss what their children

have learned, strut across the lawn.

Then Mr. Jefferson takes out his fiddle,

plays minuets and the Virginia reel.


My feet can hardly resist dancing,

but I, who worked all day butchering,

plucking feathers from ducks, cleaning

vegetables, sweating at caldrons hung

over the hot fireplace must now wash dishes,

clean the dining room and stay out of reach

of that fine gentleman whose hand found my breast.


Monument: Lincoln, Kansas

The monument on the courthouse lawn

lists ten who died.

Blood oozing on the prairie,

Grandmother said.


Her brother was among those

who lost their lives,

his innocent play interrupted,

by the false Pawnee.


Her telling was graphic, intense,

full of sorrow.

It seemed but yesteryear

tomahawks split heads,

broke settler lives.


Years later,

I saw it all in print,

found it happened

before Grandmother’s birth.

Her vivid recollections

were family tales

she’d heard from crib.


Later, too, I pondered

other dead,

protecting home, family,

forests once full of game,

fields where they had wandered free,

tracked the sacred buffalo.


More lives were shattered

than Grandmother knew or told;

more died than had their names carved

for all to see. I claim each one

as brother, sister. I cannot grieve

the named without the unnamed.


Wilda Morris, Workshop Chair of Poets and Patrons of Chicago and past President of the Illinois State Poetry Society, has published numerous poems in anthologies, webzines, and print publications. She has published two books of poetry, Szechwan Shrimp and Fortune Cookies: Poems from a Chinese Restaurant (RWG Press) and Pequod Poems: Gamming with Moby-Dick (Kelsay Books). Current projects include haiku, rengay, and other poems. Wilda’s grandchildren say she lives in a library. Her poetry blog features a monthly poetry contest and can be found at wildamorris.blogspot.com .

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sean murphy poetry june 2022

He licked it, not like a lollipop, but with intent,

the burden of royal tasters, back in bad old days:

tongue artists whose job was to absorb poison

and ensure it was palatable for noble appetites—

Wolf’s music his way of explaining: I asked you

for water and all you’re giving me is gasoline.


He would lick that mouth organ as if eating

the blues, taking a bite out of this hard life,

as a Black man living always under suspicion

of the same things he sang about: killing floors

& moaning at midnight, white eyes expecting

you to play the fool—or prove your innocence.


He licked the harmonica only because he had to

spend the rest of his time swallowing the gristle

of separate but equal, and all the things awful

about the South—and North; no safe haven then

(& now); either sitting on top of the world or else

you’re going down slow, one spoonful at a time.


Sean Murphy has appeared on NPR’s “All Things Considered” and has been quoted in USA Today, The New York Times, The Huffington Post, and AdAge. A long-time columnist for PopMatters, his work has appeared in Salon, The Village Voice, Washington City Paper, The Good Men Project, Memoir Magazine, and others. His chapbook, The Blackened Blues, was published by Finishing Line Press in July, 2021. This Kind of Man, his first collection of short fiction, is forthcoming from Unsolicited Press. He has been nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize, twice for Best of Net, and his book Please Talk about Me When I’m Gone was the winner of Memoir Magazine’s 2022 Memoir Prize. He served as writer-in-residence of the Noepe Center at Martha’s Vineyard, and is Founding Director of 1455, a non-profit literary organization (www.1455litarts.org). To learn more, and read his published short fiction, poetry, and criticism, please visit seanmurphy.net/ and https://twitter.com/bullmurph