poetry
Brown Skin, Sin, (compassion) 4,000 Newton’s Will snap your femur And mine. Lives? Hold any close Like-kin. So one says, Stomp and hold One knee to one chest? Is this the best Humanity can serve? So for you, The skin we ware Ain’t always what we choose. Never there a choice. THEREFORE: claim privilege? We did not choose a costume; Random skin. DNA like tidal swirls; Chromosomes link or are undone. I am undone. Your adrenaline hatred. Your scorn for brown skin. Your stump dumb prejudice. Call me Buddha. Come Mohammad Where are you Christ? If the brown baby cried; Would you feed it Like a breast? 4000 Newton’s Of pressure will break Your femur or mine. A feather weight breaks mine. A knee decimates —Jason S. Davis
The Delivery The UPS driver delivered a boxful of my new book. I gave him one. “You’re a writer?” he said. “No,” I said. “I’m a poet.” “Oh, is there a difference?” he said. “Yes, writers write to be understood. Poets write to be remembered,” I said. “Well, I’ll remember you,” he said. “Good,” I said. “Also it couldn’t hurt to understand what you remember.” “Got it,” he said. —JR Solonche
56 POETRY CHRONOGRAM 11/20
EDITED BY Phillip X Levine
The Pros and Cons of Cigarettes Musical accompaniment: Haydn string quartet in C minor op. 17 no. 4 movement 4. When you’re young, they’re something new— they give your hands a task to do; and, then, you’re looking so mundane— just add a top hat and a cane; they buzz a person pretty fast— five minutes in, you’re flabbergast. Sure, drinking hits you more profound but not as quick, just ask around; the soothing of the nerves, also the analytical gusto; they keep your concentration strong, your train of thought they will prolong; at least that’s how it goes at first— it don’t take long to get immersed. Besides to help you concentrate, they’re efficacious to lose weight; suppressing appetites sure hooks some people hung up on their looks; and, then, there are folks who lean t’ward just having smokes because they’re bored; which is another way to say they need `em to get through the day. They give you something of a break and maybe help you stay awake; but when you’re older you’re aware tobacco’s not so debonair; the repetition does infer it’s rather an empty succor; and then there is the vulgar smell you qualify under its spell; it’s true they help to calm you down but notice how your teeth are brown; your skin’s sallow and leathery— you don’t exude salubrity. To get addicted to a plant is rather most inelegant; sure, it was lots of fun at first but now the fun feels all coerced; and every year it’s harder still to get your breath to move uphill. You know they’re going to kill you soon and that will be inopportune; look at the mucus you eject— it’s unrefined if left unchecked; your lungs are gasping from the strain— that smoking, sir, is quite the bane! —Wortley Clutterbuck
Yellow Stave I am the knowledge of the experience of my awareness The shadow ahead is the light behind I am the tree that shadows life —Josh Sweet
Self Medication Often it appears as a slight inflammation, insignificant. Yet the attention is drawn. Even though you know better to leave it, you just have to pick until it becomes really sore. One day you wake; she’s gone to seek a second opinion. —Clifford Henderson
Rubber Band I like a certain type of rubber band, with a band that’s thick and square-shaped. Only the tan ones. They come in boxes with rubber band dust, and then hang above my sink. Not circles, or anything really, shape indistinct, they give you… freedom, and limitation; expansion, and a place to come home. I want love like my rubber bands. —Anna Keville Joyce
Man Song Some plants seed in autumn, And some in the spring. We seed where life takes us, But often in dreams. It takes but a glance, “Yes, my coffee with cream.” But the moment passes, Leaves lost in a stream. —James Lichtenberg
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