History & Politics

I want to begin this poem with two stories:
1. In 1984, my mother was pulled over for speeding in a rural, still unnamed village in Taishan. The cop was a forty-year-old man who let her go because of her age...

this concrete here
is where my brother’s
last breath left
his body began
to circulate
elsewhere; some people
will tell you there’s nothing
poetic
about
black boys murdered

but i have to think
of  it this way,
to understand

                    Mother
Emanuel African Methodist
Episcopal Church Nine
Senior pastor state senator
Name meaning “merciful”
Church eldress, oldest to be shot
Great grandnephew tries to shield her
        First and youngest shot
College administrator and pastor
        Doctor her last name not a title
Sunday school teacher
Track coach and pastor
Librarian
Church sexton
Seventy-four-year-old pastor

Two played...

the sign read
HARMACY after
Frank shot
the P out

...walk into a bar in America.
Butterworth says, I’m being repackaged.
Ben says, I’m being rebranded.
Jemima says, I remember
when they branded my mama     on her back.

The bartender says, I could stand in the middle
of Main Street and kill somebody
and I wouldn’t...

Rotor wash, or the downward-flowing
Air by which our helicopters formed
Imprints in the jungle grass beneath
Now stands effectively for Vietnam
Because our understanding of that war
Omitted many things but not the wind
We bowed our heads and fled. In this case we

Refers effectively...

I don’t know why
most mexicans in my hood
wore nike cortez’s–
why the breakers in my crew
polished ‘em daily,
as if a little spit could
salvage our childhoods–
why we all know cortez’s are best
for c-walking, gang shit,
sick moves thrust
upon an opponent’s pride–
why we thought
by...

Of birds then. The diagram is a symbol that brings nets down, and what gets trapped in nets, as it is expelled from our hands, and rid by water, is a thing, that reflects, traces, and symbolizes.

If I could, I would put on a facemask and walk into the desert to meet with fairies and angels.

I put on a facemask to resist sandstorms, put on a facemask to resist smog, put on a facemask to make...

I come from the kidnapped,
                                    the assaulted—
my country’tis of reparations as in-store credit
                     ...

Here, the sentence will be respected.

I will compose each sentence with care, by minding what the rules of writing dictate.

For example, all sentences will begin with capital letters.

Likewise, the history of the sentence will be honored by ending each one...

But Ukraine is a country of the baroque.
Traveling through it is a pleasure for the eye.
And that’s why the temptation to obliterate everything
is so strong. And no matter how far you travel

you see the consequences: dilapidated walls and houses
maybe from...

Україна ж—це країна бароко.
Мандрувати нею—для ока втіха.
І тому западає спокуса в око:
зруйнувати все. І скільки б ти їхав,

бачиш наслідки: мури і житла хворі
ще, мабуть, від турків. І п’ятикутні
знаки. З криниць повтікали зорі,
тобто їх нема, криниці відсутні,

але є сліди, і це...

                                                            Hunger like her mama
                                                            Most strong in White gaze as in
                                                            a Cowbird’s flirtation
                                                            Sprouted in eyes to tongues
                                                            to bellies pregnant with stolen milk
                                                            to restless hands
                                                            These fingernails filled with Black body,

the world is not as bad as our
                                       neighbors
made it to be that day—
we’ve seen worse days—
and how beautiful
they were, these days...