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stephen barile poetry april 2025

When cousin Primo came home

From the Viet Nam War,

I was in my junior year

At Roosevelt High School.

The same high school he attended

Two years earlier, kicked out

A week before graduation

For smoking a cigarette.

He enlisted that summer,

Otherwise going to jail 

Was a real probability. 

He was sent to Boot Camp 

And Germany that first year.

The Army quickly determined

He was jungle-scout material,

Lead man in a three-man squad

Sent to the Viet Nam war.

He was shot five times,

The other two were killed.

Four bullets in the torso,

Shot once in the head,    

He was given up for dead.

A surgeon at a MASH hospital

Found him on a stretcher,

Put a fiberglass plate 

In his head under his scalp

To cover the path of the bullet.

The day that I saw him

He was in my mother’s kitchen

Wearing a hat to cover the wound.

He lifted the hat

Revealing a wide pink scar 

The entire length of his skull

Growing his brown hair to conceal.

He never wore a hat before.

I reeled from the sight,

Wanted to cry for him,

That would have been un-manly.

He chortled a sardonic laugh.

One-hundred percent disabled,

He would never work again

Or lift anything heavy. 

I also envisioned my fate

There in my mother’s kitchen,

A dilemma similar to Primo’s.

A dumb kid from the neighborhood

Unready for the likelihood  

Of being drafted at age 18

And unable to vote until 21.     


Stephen Barile is an award-winning poet from Fresno, California and a Pushcart Prize nominee. He attended Fresno City College, Fresno Pacific University, and California State University, Fresno. His poems have been anthologized, and published in numerous journals, both print and on-line. He taught writing at Madera College, and CSU Fresno

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tamara j. madison poetry march 2025

after “Born Again and Again” by DaMaris B. Hill, Breath Better Spent

“Your woman tongue can hoist bodies into heaven.”


That’s why I keep my

lips lightly rouged,

pressed, rarely wet.

My mouth opens

only upon conviction.

Heaven got no rooms for irreverent

‘hoes, liars, cheats, beasts.

Meanwhile, hell writing another bill of sale,

buying territory for expansion,

gentrifying dreams, redlining

degrees of treachery.

In a world of flames,

rent ain’t affordable.


My mouth opens

only upon conviction

in case heaven runs short-

free rooms Gabriel

prematurely assigned.


Tamara J. Madison, poet, writer, and editor, is the author of Threed, This Road Not Damascus (Trio House Press – print and EAT Poems – audio). Her writing is inspired by her ancestry and relations. Her work has been reviewed and published in various journals and literary magazines including The Amistad, Appalachian Review, Poetry International, Cider Press Review, and World Literature Today.  Tamara has also shared her poetry on the TEDx platform. She is a MFA graduate of New England College and an Anaphora Arts and Ucross fellow. She currently teaches English and Creative Writing and is completing a new full-length mixed-genre collection. Find her @tamarajmadison on Instagram, Facebook, and X/Twitter.

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leslie dianne poetry march 2025

I read that you walked

across the continent

searching for your

ancestral home

3 small moving dots

seen from the wide

sky’s view

the clouds pulling you

East whenever you lost

your way, the ocean mist

hiding you from your

enemies and turning

you into motion poems

ancient songs were

carried by magical

lizards and snakes and

spread across the earth

to show you the way

and you gather the

stories of your people

and hold them inside

your bones


There you are in

the midst of the past

dancing and dancing in

the flow of time

tying an invisible knot

to the constellations

strengthening your lifeline

to your people’s wisdom

as the ghosts of your people

appear around you like

notes to be played

and songs to 

be sung


Leslie Dianne is a poet, novelist, screenwriter, playwright, and performer whose work has been acclaimed internationally at the Harrogate Fringe Festival in Great Britian, the International Arts Festival in Tuscany, Italy and at La Mama, ETC in New York. Her stage plays have been produced in New York at the American Theater of Actors, Raw Space, Puerto Rican Traveling Theater, and Lamb’s Theater. She holds a BA in French Literature from CUNY and her poems appear in The Wild Word, Sparks of Calliope, Quaranzine, Flashes, and elsewhere. She is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee.

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ashley collins poetry february 2025

if i could color you dark,

i would.

you’d be just like me, a paranoia queen—

your heart always racing,

your ears always keen

for the bigoted men whispering.


if i could color you dark,

i would.

you’d learn how they see you young,

how to push when others hate,

how to live when a brother’s been hung—

you’d learn to carry that weight.


if i could color you dark,

i would.

you’d feel that bullet in your chest

as they wear that silent pin.

they trade your brown skin best

for the unarmed cost of melanin.


if i could color you dark,

i would.

you’d see your dark as the villian—

how they turn when they can’t profit.

white privilege starts to fill in

while your people take the grand hit.


if i could color you dark,

i would.

so you could know the pain is true—

so you could know the hurt it spits

as your color is returned to you

and my skin can’t be purged of it.


I See

I see dark red spilling out

On the concrete grounds.

It’s not mine this time, I say,

It’s not mine.


I see dark red filling the streets,

People are stepping over it.

They don’t want to touch it, they say,

They don’t want to touch it.


I see dark red drying in the crevices

Of the blue man’s shoes.

That boy was no good, he says.

That boy was an animal, he says.

That boy was reaching, he says.

That boy was a black man.


I see dark red spilling out

On the concrete grounds

And I wonder how long I got

‘Till I see my own dark red,

Right there, on the ground,

Drying in the blue man’s crevices.


marginalized

to be black & woman

is to learn how

quick they are

to love you &

how easy it is

for them to

dismiss you.


Ashley Collins is an Oregonian writer who received her MFA at Northern Arizona University. When she isn’t writing or reading, she is thrifting, collecting obsolete items, and watching bad movies.

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jeevan bhagwat poetry february 2025

In a white land                                       

where the antithesis to homogeneity

is a face of colour                                  

sprung from the root of diversity,

it’s easy to feel colonial privilege

weighing down heavy on your sprouting dreams

through closed doors and lost opportunities,

till your voice is voiceless

and you are relegated to nothing more

than a statistic that paints

your otherness grey.


In a white land

a man of colour

sticks out like a sore thumb

at a job interview where the employer

suffers from snow blindness,

or at a routine traffic stop

where the police questions your identity

with their fingers poised on the trigger.


In a white land

a man of colour

struggles to be valued,

to be seen,


to be.


Jeevan Bhagwat lives in Scarborough, Ontario. His work has been widely published in literary journals and websites such as Queen’s Quarterly, The Windsor Review, The Feathertale Review, The Prairie Journal, and is forthcoming in Canadian Literature. In 2003 and 2005, he won The Monica Ladell Prize for Poetry from the Scarborough Arts Council, and in 2015 he was the recipient of the Scarborough Urban Hero Award for Arts & Culture. His poetry books include Across The Universe Poetry Anthology (The Ontario Poetry Society, Beret Days Press, 2024), Luminescence (IN Publications, 2020) and The Weight of Dreams (IN Publications, 2012). You can find him on Twitter/X at @j_bhagwat.

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sarah sands phillips poetry february 2025

Staring at the floorboards,

warm cherry slat knots make

half a bison face.


She stares me down.

Sees I am also in knots.


The stain darkening her ears

also runs from me, trickling through

wood grain hair.


Surrounded by forest, and dripping

sugar bark, everything reminds me

of who I don’t know I am.


Everything almost the same colour

as the hide of her memory

As an already ripe, turning summer.


Sarah Sands Phillips (b. Tsí Tkaròn:to, Canada) is a Red River Métis/British-Irish interdisciplinary artist and poet. She holds an MFA from the Ruskin School of Art at the University of Oxford (2019). Sands Phillips has exhibited in Canada and internationally. Her art and writing have appeared or are forthcoming in tba: Journal of Art, Media, and Visual Culture; Tokyo Poetry Journal; Yellow Medicine Review; NUT: Volume II; and Hart House Review, among others. She is currently based in Tokyo, Japan. She can be found online at www.sarahsandsphillips.com and on Instagram @sarahsandsphillips.

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j.s. Clark poetry january 2025

“Is that a birthmark?”


You’ve kissed every shade of melanin on my body.

And never wondered why a hue was born.

Until now.


Curiosity is flattering

After all, desire is the dream of knowing


The dream of knowing love

The dream of knowing a lover


As far as you know now, every spot on my body was completed at conception

A divine design unmarred by clumsy falls and cruel hands.


So, I hesitate.


Not wanting to shatter perfection.


Perception.


My skin collects memories of pain in pigment

I am at my core, a nostalgic being


These markings are curated on my surface

Like masterpieces of a gallery

Viewed but never known


But as a creator of art

The maker of my marks

I owe my audience truth


“No, It’s a scar”


 Honesty is blissful in our world

Laying in your arms


The birth of the scar delivered from my memory

Transferred from my skin to your mind

By your fingertips


Caressing the outline of my creation.


J.S. CLARK (she/her) is an essayist and poet known for powerful explorations of vulnerability, love, growth, trust, and resistance. As a queer Black Brazilian-American writer, her intersectional identities deeply influence her work which seamlessly blends personal and collective experiences. Clark’s essays and poetry offer raw honesty and profound introspection, capturing the complexities of human relationships, framing sensitivity as a strength, telling stories of truth, and highlighting the transformative power of love. Her unique style and perspective make her a refreshing new face in contemporary literature, inspiring and connecting with diverse audiences through her compelling literary voice.

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Decolonial Passage is honored to announce the nominations for next year’s Best Small Fictions Anthology.  This list includes writing published from January to December 2024.  Congratulations to the nominees!

Flash Fiction

“A Striking Space” by Katie Coleman


“Fufu, Sardines, and Tomato Sauce” by Sabrina Moella


“Memory/I send myself” by Wangũi wa Kamonji


Prose Poetry


“I Come to You by Chance” by Richard De-Graft Tawiah

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eleanor jones poetry january 2025

how did Grandpa Brown get his land?

one hundred fertile acres incited

centuries of silly questions

like “were mules included?”

truth faded into mystery,

answers, hearsay

from dead voices.

Great Grand Lee of native blood whispered,

“do what white folks say,

and they won’t kill you.”

his life, our land depended on smiles and waves.


we were not warriors.

land rich. impoverished.

what remains?

battered boards,

remnants of our homemade 5-room shanty.

grouted well

that nourished 16 children, livestock, cotton.

pine trees

rooted in proud carolina soil.

dusty roads

with boot prints bound for northern highways.


after Grandpa died, i never returned to the farm.

in my mailbox, form letters from profiteers

begging for land or timber.

is there guilt in selling one’s homeland?

truth discovered it is not my land. it is God’s land.

no guilt or commandment in a smile. only life.


Eleanor Jones is an African American with Catawba and Monacan Native ancestry. A communications executive and equestrian, her Southern United States poetry and prose have been recognized internationally through contests and publications sponsored by Sun Magazine, Current Words Publishing, Maryland Writers’ Association, Washington Writers’ Publishing House, and Wingless Dreamer Publishing. Eleanor’s nonfiction has appeared in Essence, People and The Washington Post. Check out her new Instagram @eleanorjjjoneswriter.

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P. Aubham edouhou poetry december 2024

Kɛl, bula pɛ ngur nɛ nam

Sister, go back to the abandoned village with me



P. Aubham Edouhou was born in Makokou (Gabon) and is a Bekwel and Ikota speaker. He graduated in Letters (Portuguese-English) from Pelotas Federal University (UFPel) in 2019. He has a Master’s degree in Letters (Language Studies) from the Federal University of Rio Grande (FURG) and is currently a doctoral student in Letters (Literary Studies) at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) where he studies Kandian (African) Literature in Kandian languages. He promotes the hieroglyphization, coptization and meroitization of Kandian languages. Find him on Facebook at Obam Edhuu.

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Decolonial Passage is honored to announce the nominations for next year’s Pushcart Prize Anthology. This list includes writing published during the 2024 calendar year. Congratulations to the nominees!


Poetry

Byron Armstrong – “We are Music”

Ada Chinara – “Gliding”


Short Stories

Musu Bangura – “Night Watch”

Nwafor Emmanuel – “You Are No Longer Welcome Here”

Michael Ogah – “Forgotten Memories”


Essays/Memoirs

Eraldo Souza dos Santos – “Everything Disappears”

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kamaria muntu poetry november 2024

O you couldn’t buy this incredible night beyond tender,

wouldn’t take nothing for the glory of it

the incense, the food, the fire

remembrance squared in golden frame.

We are here to know you beyond a funeral of clutter

beyond a dessert of thieves, beyond

the oppression of earth stationed dreams ——

here is where we break bread

here is where we play cards

here is where we pound our fists

here is where we down our wine

here is where we lay out the cloth

to spread the bounty in

a house of tables


Here is where we place the centrepiece of life

the brass hued glow of our every breath

here is where we figure the time we must eat and sip

the undercurrents in our warmest conversations

here is where we repeat like the ones before us

but right here in front of us now

as we offer libation with their eyes and contours

as our countrymen seam us in death shrouds

as we bring the scissors and the bandages

the liquor and balm for our mangled backs

our roughened sores

here is where we gobble the turkey

and lay our heads down in the midnight hour

while our loved one’s sleep

in a house of tables.


Here is where we take the minutes

at the meeting place

as we draw plans to stave off darksome shadows

sheeted white

imploding in our conscious wake

like ashes of our beloved children, boiled

and hailing over hallowed congregations

via fires direct from hell


Here is the good linen I tell you to cover the water spot

as we feed the living with communal potluck,

Hoppin’ John and hog maws,


            sweet potatoes and greens,


as we oblige the mirror of ourselves in ourselves,

keepers of our secrets, colours of our flesh

as we implore our gods as to the ways of our murderers

and the whys of our own self hatred

as we shine the wood and flick ashes in trays made by little ones

in a house of tables


Here is the universal thing,

favours of anniversary, christening and homegoing,

teaching grandfather to read by lamplight

the back and forth, the generations

the way we propped up that one short leg with the encyclopaedia,

a conceit handed down from mother to daughter in

a house of tables.


Kamaria Muntu is an African-American multidisciplinary artist whose poetry and essays have been published in Call and Response: The Riverside Anthology for the African American Literary Tradition, A Lime Jewel: An Anthology of Poetry and Short Stories in Aid of Haiti, Phati’tude Literary Journal, GIS Watch, Fertile Ground: Memories and Visions, Intersectionality in Social Work: Activism and Practice in Context, and The Journal of Pan African Studies. She has read at arts festivals and literary venues throughout the US and UK. Find her on Instagram at @kamariamuntu.

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michelle smith poetry november 2024

A Black man is born

not expected to thrive

disposable in ’Nam

not expected to survive


In the bushland encampment

he bled the same red

shed tears of sorrow

when his brothers returned dead


Heard their mothers’ screams

hoped for a safe return

yet the privileged alongside him

had a different reason to yearn


For their welcome home

heroism was revered;

those who looked like him—

the n-word they’d still hear


Treated as subhuman

he toils fiercely to earn less

his soul roughened at its edges

must persevere in righteous quest


Restrict him to the ’hood

deceptive paths down which he’s led

send him to the slammer

where he’ll find his unseemly bed


Emancipation? False liberation—

no glory, just strife

as he’s stripped of the prospect

to forge a purposeful life.


Michelle Smith is an award-winning poet and writer. Her essays have appeared in The Sun and Ms. Magazine. A member of the Authors Guild and the Dramatists Guild, her monologue Ode to Jesse was performed in 2024 in collaboration with an award-winning choreographer. Her awards include First Place for humor prose in the 2021 SouthWest Writers competition and First Place in 2024 for poetry. She earned high recognition in the Writer’s Digest 2023 Poetry Competition and the 2019 She Writes Press and SparkPress Toward Equality in Publishing novel competition. You can find her at www.theebonyquill.com and on instagram at thequillster.

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olubukola Odusanya poetry october 2024

And we carry ours. 

Our cross is an emblem of suffering and shame, 

Pain specifically carved for us to carry. 

The wood was cut down from an old tree, 

A tree that was scrambled after by thieves.

Our cross carries memories of what it means to be less than human, 

Its lore sounds like the swishing of whips before it breaks skin, courage, and bravery. 

Our cross is embellished with charms of generational suffering: 

A gold chain that our great-great-grandfather got from barter at the slave market. 

Our great-grandmother’s wrapper, where she kept the money she got from selling her father’s land, 

To have a slice of the white man’s intelligence in her family. 

Our grandfather’s journal, where he emptied his confusion about being black and the need to be like the white man. 

Our father’s degrees and accolades, which he swore he sacrificed his entire life to get. 

Our family heirloom of a life lived on another man’s terms. 

Heavy chains of capitalism looped together by a history of compliance and resistance. 

We carry our cross as Jesus said, 

We carry our cross as the preacher said. 

We carry our cross down the aisle, in a white dress, 

The piano sounds like shrieking heavy industrial metals; old and weary, 

With thousands of eyes staring at us, 

Anticipating if we can make it to the altar.


My Mother’s Essence

There is fight in my blood. 

I am told it is from my journey across the seven seas. 

The scars on my back don’t tell half of the tale that the eye saw. 

Still, I have kept the essence of my mothers in my chest. 

It teaches me to love the earth, 

For like it, I am brown and carry the capacity for growth. 

It tells me tales of dancing around the fire under full moon nights, 

Where mothers told folklore and the men played draughts. 

It reminds me of my mother’s unyielding faith in her creator—even if he was carved of stone. 

It sings of my skin, luscious like camwood,

A beauty that shines with the luminosity of coconut oil. 

Beads on my hips and feet applaud every step I take. 

It shows me love and passion, 

A fire started by a few coy looks yet committed till the end. 

It shows me the divine feminine resting her head on the thighs of her masculine,

It shows me a society where goods were left unattended without fear. 

It shows me a time when words were oaths, 

And the fear of God made humans act decently. 

It showed me strength, 

How our men dug holes in the earth and reaped bountiful harvests, 

And our hands delicately weaved and carved,

It tells me of really sunny days and heavy rains. 

It tells me of resilience, faith, love, and duty. 

It tells me that I am enough.


Let us dance

The maidens have come out to dance tonight, 

Waist beads gyrating to the intoxicating sound of talking drums. 

Anklets are adorned on our feet, while our legs create a symphony. 

Today we celebrate in the face of uncertainty. 

They say death shall come tomorrow. 

When it comes, we shall beat the drums so loud that death will dance with us. 

We shall soak the soil with hot gin; 

Even sorrow shall be intoxicated. 

The movement of our hips will leave death entranced. 

The melodies of our voices shall pique the sun’s curiosity. 

Down it would come to shine its light on us, 

Its reflection against our skin blinding our enemies. 

Prophecy said our waists held the answers, 

So tonight we shall dance. 

We shall let joy seep into us till we are lush like dew on green leaves at dawn. 

We shall become one with our creator, 

Ushering in a new season, 

As we let waists gyrate to the beat of the drums.


Olubukola Odusanya is a poet, fiction writer, and illustrator. She holds a
B.A. in History from the University of Ibadan. She is passionate about
writing stories that document the richness of her culture and sparking
conversations to improve the African psyche. Find her on instagram and twitter/X @bukolathecreato and on Medium at Olubukola.A.

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mthabisi sithole poetry october 2024

I am living on a love borrowed

in a home I’m too broke to own


See how the filth fills the acres of cold

day-by-day, like voices queuing for a vote;

arguing the best of the slaughterhouses’ regime?


Our bodies accrue roadside in a tally

of insanities born of tenements Jozi East

like city deep, stories the same –

leaving me nostalgic for rondavels again.


The coalitions are dead set on fumigating the being

of senses, reason & dream till there are no brighter days.

All around, necklaced freedom

plays favour-the-least-of-the-grim.


Meanwhile borrowed warmths,

and the occasional bluest of skies,

push past the greys, that is…

the hope of broken homes


Mthabisi Sithole,a poet and writer based in Johannesburg, South Africa, has presented poetry performances through various platforms including TPO x Chris Soal’s 2016 Fees Must Fall intervention, Lephephe Print Gatherings 1, Urban Zulu poetry, and Word Art – Young Voices poetry series. Mthabisi’s published work is included in publications such as Teesta Review: A Journal of poetry, Ja. Magazine, Best New African Poets 2019 Anthology, Yesterdays And Imagining Realities: An Anthology of South African Poetry (2020) and the Sol Plaatje European Union Poetry Anthology (2023). Find Mthabisi on Instagram at @nodiction and on Facebook at MthabisiSithole.