EP: America by Allen Ginsberg

America I’ve given you all and now I’m nothing. America two dollars and twentyseven cents January 17, 1956.    I can’t stand my own mind. America when will we end the human war? Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb. I don’t feel good don’t bother me. I won’t write my poem till I’m in my…

EP: No Good Bones by Maggie Smith

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.Life is short, and I’ve shortened minein a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,a thousand deliciously ill-advised waysI’ll keep from my children. The world is at leastfifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservativeestimate, though I keep this from my children.For every bird there is a stone thrown at…

EP: Oracle of the Povo by Dambudzo Marechera

Her vision’s scrubland Of out-of-work heroes Who yesterday a country won And today poverty tasted And some to the hills hurried their thirst And others to arson and blasphemy Waving down tourists and buses Unleashing havoc no tongue can tell – Her vision’s Droughtstricken acres Of lean harried squatters And fat pompous armed overlords Touching…

Grace Never Showed

Song said the sound was sweetbut it went down like tamarind We haven’t been savedwe’re lost in plain sightSunday’s hymn isn’t meStepfather taught us fearGrace never materializedTen unrelieved years passed She’s just an old rumorI am here, but there’sno safety and no escortjust a wilted, rotted faithWere homeless wretches, whose snared flesh did fail So…

Sunday Bus Back 

A few minutes ago, a young boy showed me his rest stop ice cream. The vanilla cream painted his lips as a mother discussed the day with her family one row ahead. It was a sprinkled moment. A short glimps at innocence. His short black hair didn’t hide his dark brown eyes as the beige cone rested…

EP: A Woman Speaks by Audre Lorde

Moon marked and touched by sunmy magic is unwrittenbut when the sea turns backit will leave my shape behind.I seek no favoruntouched by bloodunrelenting as the curse of lovepermanent as my errorsor my prideI do not mixlove with pitynor hate with scornand if you would know melook into the entrails of Uranuswhere the restless oceans…

EP: Occupation by Suji Kwock Kim

The soldiers are hard at work, building a house. They hammer bodies into the earth like nails, they paint the walls with blood. Inside, the doors are locked, shut like eyes of stones. And the stairs are icy, all flights go down. There is no floor, only a roof, where ash is falling- dark snow,…

EP: An Hymn to the Morning By Phillis Wheatley

Attend my lays, ye ever honour’d nine, Assist my labours, and my strains refine; In smoothest numbers pour the notes along, For bright Aurora now demands my song. Aurora hail, and all the thousand dies, Which deck thy progress through the vaulted skies: The morn awakes, and wide extends her rays, On ev’ry leaf the…

EP: Someone Leans Near By Toni Morrison

Someone leans nearAnd sees the salt your eyes have shed. You wait, longing to hearWords of reason, love or playTo lash or lull you toward the hollow day. Silence kneads your fearOf crumbled star-ash sifting downClouding the rooms here, here. You shore up your heart to run. To stay.But no sign or design marks the…

A Ruby

An almost perfect gem even in the mined soil She still wears a hard smile as her friends struggle to fill the fracture A radiated joy that cant be devoured or consumed The music has not stopped, it’s just a break so I can practice Those tiny feet are still moving waiting for me to…