Poets  A to M

Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal -Four
Poems

THE ELECTRIC
CAR

You are keeping
me
from important
work.
I was working on
the gridlock
problem.

Don't you know
about
the electric
car?
I have the
patent
inside my safety

deposit box.
This
must be why you
want
to keep me here
to
steal my patent
and

take all the
glory
for yourself.  I'm
not
mad.  I happen
to
be a member of

the C.I.A.
Once
my colleagues find
me
captive in this place
they
will close this place
down.

PUNCHING AT
SPIRITS

I did not
beat upon
my mother.

I was just
punching at
the spirits

dancing on
top of her
head.  If I

hit her, it
was just by
accident.

It was for
her own good.
She did not

believe that
the spirits
were there.
She

never did
thank me for
knocking them

out of her
head.  I
had
to protect

her from them.
I told her
that I was

sorry if
I struck her
by mistake.

THE WINDOW
WASHER

I clean windows.
I wash cars.
I collect cans.
That's how I
eat.
That's how I
make a living.
I don't need to
be in here.
I got cars
waiting for me.
There are cans
to be picked up.
This medicine
makes me sleep.
It's not like
beer.
I'm not that
sick.
There are folks
worse off than
me.

I'M FINE

I'm fine.
I don't really
need the oxygen.
I'm fine.
I want to smoke.
The doctor said
no.

I don't
smoke crack like
I
used to.  I don't
know
why I
tested so high.
I just had one
hit.

I'm fine.
I could go back
to the mission
where
I have
a room, some
clothes,
and some food to
eat.

I've been
back how many
times in the past
year?
Five, six
times?  I guess
I
just miss the
doctors.

The food
is not so bad.
I sleep well in
here.
After
a day or so
I'm ready to go.

My heart
hurts some times,
I
get light headed
too.
It must
be age creeping
up on me, you
see.

Dan Burke - Three
Poems

eyewitness.

i dreamed this,
once.
standing knee-deep in
surf,
watching the winter
storms
curl up the
coast.

determined to make the most of
it,
we let the foam
drift between our
knees
until thunder
and a muted
flash
compelled our departure from the
swells.

with chattering
teeth
we stretched one towel
wide,
the pale dunes connecting to the
Pacific
at steady
intervals;
a wax and
wane of disarray.

we imagined we could
hear:
the chiming of shells against that
rotted lifeguard tower,
their melodies drowning out the
hush of the waves;
porches groaning under our bare
feet,
so long now without treatment
against the mists;
an empty
boardwalk,
silenced by sea breezes and
maturity.

standing here,
a solitary
figure
against
this motionless, amber sky,
the details blur into the
present.

it was raining where you are
now.

the view from 6th
street.

the curve of the unfamiliar
highway
flinging you
home
to
the north
redirects the swarm of brake
lights
(a
school of steel fish
fleeing
the city¢s jaws)
through the grayed-out
grid
of underpasses
and hesitating exit
signs.

it bends you
around
greeting the eastern
hills
lit
up
as though every
window
was paralleling a distant
sun.
and when the earth
shifts
the occupants
rotate
through rooms
and toggle
lights
numbly accommodating the moving
star field.

we sat in that worn coffee
shop
hands stacked, kisses behind the
menu
and watched the attic
window
in that third house from the
left
next to that blue
one
blink on, and
off,
and
on.

repose.

it stares back into
you
until you forget how to
blink.
and your unnerved
gaze
hits the puddles of your former
lives.

when we have
delayed
just long enough to be
polite
we will abandon
ourselves
to Doppler-shifted
sirens;
we
swayed under tender white skies.

i was the
cathedral
and
you were the crucifix
over the beds of the
lifeless.

we counted weeks in the coldest
years.

Shevonna Blackshire - Two
Poems

Mirror

She is standing right before
me
and still she ignores my
existence.
I look deep into her eyes and I
mirror her pain.

She is afraid.
afraid to know what she
wants,
Afraid she”ll want too much or what
she cannot have.

I question whether or not her
existence
will ever compliment The
earth.

I desperately want to mold her into
the woman
everyone wants her to be, but once
again we struggle.
In the end after we”ve struggled
over who she should
be, We realize that she and I are
one and if “we”
continue this battle “I” will end
up losing.

Blood on his
hands

How do you explain the
bloodshed?
Can you rationalize why
blood
Is thicker than oil but not as
valued?
Why American blood is of more value
than
Their blood?

You stand before us with your smug
grin
and your un-eloquent one liners
and
You pretend to know the
answers.

if you look down at your
hands
You will see that the blood is
spilling over!

Instead of your dreams of power and
domination
I wish you nightmares of blood
oozing up from the
earth and spilling from your
ceilings like raindrops
Pelting your face until you are
awakened!

Until you are awakened, it will
continue to bleed
From earth to sea not only in their
land
But our land. It will burst up
strong and angry like
Tsunamis and it will continue to
flow and flow and
flow Until you are drenched into
awareness!

Amadeo Dellago  - One
Poem

Insomnia

2 p. m.
perpetual

Mind is the clear
fact
emptying the
corners

2 p. m.
time already
squeezed
like a lemon
so sad
obsessively
doing nothing

The lasting weight of a
rumour:
consumption
of another world

There is an
insomnia
of things
staring of their purposeless
eye
an absurd
awakening of
matter

Redundant
contours

2 p. m.

maybe the white of
things
illiterate core

Mind is the clear
fact
emptying the
corners

Margarita Engle - Five
Poems

THE LIGHTNING
STORM

Close lightning flies
up
from earth
while falling
from sky.

Just beyond
our backyard
fence
the shriek of
light
meets itself
in midair
splitting our
natures
into fearful and
bold
primitive
and daring.

We rise up
to watch
the invention
of fire.

TO A HAVANA
COURTYARD

You share your quiet garden of life
with a headless statue
of a marble woman overlooking the
sea
even though she does not have
eyes.

Your tiles and tree trunks look
smooth in deep shade
beneath sunlit leaves of uncounted
blues and yellows
experimenting with the alchemy of
green.

Who can say whether your statue is
broken?
Perhaps the sculptor carved her
this way
headless and
looming.

There is always a possibility of
time travel---
the marble head with flowing hair
and cool stone eyes
left behind in a distant
land
or propelled ahead, into the
unknown future.

Your truth does not matter in the
ordinary way.
Only these scented vines with
clasping tendrils
can reach me and touch me across
the movement of waves
in our shared, sunlit yellow
expanse of blue sea.

PRECARIOUS

Squatters come to the
land
like dragonflies or
swans
soundless and
winged
bearing dreams of
freedom.

The food that grows
swiftly
is simple and
filling
corn, tropical yams,
sugarcane
purslane and
orka.

Time adds trees
the half-wild
groves
of bananas and
guavas
browsed by roaming
sows
and speckled guinea
hens.

The squatters
know
their survival is
precarious.
When geophagous
foreigners
arrive, devouring the
land
with yellow
bulldozers
and green army
trucks

the precarious
ones
are already in
motion
floating silently
away
toward the next
valley
of roots and
feathers.

DROUGHT

The manmade lake
recedes
new shorelines
revealed
as ancient
kitchens

the grinding
stones
where women prepared
acorns
for storage

during dry
seasons
when even nomads
loved to plan
ahead

imagining this
the fear
of climate
change

a world
burning up

the essence

of myth

somehow
always true.

Los Pordioseros/THE
BEGGARS

When I was a
child
there were no
borders
between my own
wounds
and the sorrows
of others

every true story
made me weep.

Now, the
boundaries
of adulthood
are fading.

Once again, the
homeless
stranger's face
as he plays his
guitar
under a bridge
in the rain

seeps into my
language
por Dios
for God.

Jealpaul Ferro - Two
Poems

IN KEY WEST
ATTICS

In our Bahamian houses, in our ship
wrecker mansions,
all of our dreams packed away in
boxes up in the attic,
lost and tawny and half-forgotten
by the crossbeams;
small things no one else would
remember, small things that
are too precious to throw
away:
an old JFK and LBJ banner from
1960,
an old Cole Porter album mother got
for her birthday,
Cavan crystal packed neatly
away,
a copy of Thoreau’s
Walden,
fading gouaches line up on the
floor one after another,
years in a corner, years in a box,
another year over there,
chaos in a scarf from someone we’ve
have always known,
something over there, another thing
over here,
a piece of paper, some old letters,
a trophy, a secret second
in something that we’ve always
known—
the way a moment can sneak up on us
and place us a thousand
miles away, the way we are
transported for what seems like a
millennium, but really it’s only
for a second.

WHEN WE SAW GLOSS GLOCKNER
TOGETHER

I remember her eyes on sun-filled
days,
broken pediments in New England
graveyards,
the pain of the world in one small
sphere,
her voice asking if she could do
something
in some small way to make me
happy,

happy like we were back in Gloss
Glockner,
the ice of glaciers gushing down
slopes, blue;
and then in ‘43 a thousand miles of
Congo river ,
Leopoldville to Stanleyville
,
the cold we both caught on the
boat,
that bottle of Four Roses she
packed in the overnight bag,
happy together in a year of many
years,
in years of growing old together in
Providence , R.I. ,
of watching each other slowly fade
into past things,
slowly into the decline of time on
our faces;

but then in one day she was
gone,
her bodies’ shadow standing by the
kitchen stove,
bending and turning and looking on
as if a ghost,
all the lost things
remembered,
the blood, the breath, the very
same sight—

how it scares me to hold all these
memories
for both of us
now.

Karen Kelsay - Five
Poems

SOMEONE'S
BROTHER

Phantoms are his good or sinister
playmates.
You may find him hiding behind a
tree,
sword in hand, patiently awaiting
an adversary.
He charges with all the flair of
Zorro
(he has seen every Zorro movie ever
made),
and after achieving complete
victory, he sheathes
his sword, spreads his cape
triumphantly,
and bows gallantly before his
unseen lady to kiss her hand.
Petey is a natural entertainer who
enjoys his audience.
Once, while camping, his sister
found him beside
a tree, engaged in an imaginary
duel. A small crowd
had gathered around—good-naturedly
applauding
his impromptu performance. As a
thirteen-year-old,
starting a new school, she found
her brother an
embarrassment, but now she still
baby-sits for him.
Together they may wander through
the video store.
He always insists on renting the
same movies—
even the ones he already owns; for
he cannot recall
the most-recent purchases or
experiences; only those
that happened long ago. He can't
speak clearly, nor can
he hear very well, but there is
something unmistakably
sweet and endearing about his
demeanor that's never
been hidden. Now he is forty years
old, and his sister
still takes him trick-or- treating.
People wonder who that
tall child in the Spiderman costume
might be—
I really should tell
them:
he is my own
brother.
Funny that he should be the one
wearing the mask.

NO ONE EVER
KNEW

When I first met her, I knew she
was unlike
any other camp counselor. For one
thing,
she didn’t seem interested in any
of us
ten year-old girls in her
cabin.
After the second night, I watched
her sneak
out after the lights went off,
later, I heard about
her boyfriend in the Boys camp. The
next morning,
determined to teach her a lesson, I
headed
on a lonely mission to the nature
hall.
Here, stuffed wild-live exhibits,
let unguarded
in a quite cabin, lay out before
me. Quickly,
I unfolded my pillow case and chose
the skunk.
Slipping it quickly under my
jacket, I made
my way to safety, giggling the
entire way
to my upper bunk. There, I laid him
under
the blanket, while I joined my
friends
at the pool. Evening came, lights
went out--
slowly the cabin door opened and
she slipped
out for her rendezvous. An hour
later, her shadowy
figure back came through the door.
I could barely
contain myself as she pulled back
her sleeping bag
and put one foot inside. A scream
loud enough
to wake all Yosemite echoed through
the redwoods,
before the lights were flicked on.
I lay eyes closed,
shaking with excitement and delight
beneath my pillow--
and no one ever
knew.

EMPTY
NEST

Summer slipped away on swallow's
wings,
and graying mornings breathe
their
deep regards; clouds,
shaped
like fluffy thistle
down,
steadily sail
eastward.
In my flower garden,
weaving
between generations of blue
hydrangeas,
roses raise their heads
from
in between glossy
leaves.
Dry now is the concrete bird
bath,
overgrown with morning glory
vines
that entangle the abandoned bird
nest;
where once, last spring, I
discovered
half a dozen freckled
eggs.
I carefully clip a tea
rose,
then make my rounds, in
silence,
along the path of stepping
stones.
Now the landscape seems to
smile
as dormant
memories
awake with every following
flower
that I touch and
cut;
and from wherever you may
be,
I imagine a wistful breeze
returning,
with a belated
kiss.

POINT LOMA
LIGHTHOUSE

Eucalyptus leaves in
various
shimmering shades of
green
dazzle their charms above
me;
willingly, I submit to the
spell
that draws me to the
bluff.
There, wedged between sky and
sea,
balanced like a glistening
pearl
that’s been
admired
for a century and a half,
she
sits four hundred and twenty feet
above the water:
Point Loma’s
Lighthouse—
where ghosts of the past are said
to roam.
Beneath her gentle
view,
tide pools are seeded bare-legged
children,
all determined to make fantastic
new discoveries.
My grandparents are buried
nearby,
and as I relax on the lighthouse
bench,
I sense their wistful presence near
me.
Down below, waves curl around
the
tip of Point Loma--
the
mark my mother, as a
teenager,
swam to each
morning.
Here, as a
youngster,
while visiting grandpa’s
grave,
I wandered the
lawn.
Squinting my eyes, I scan the
horizon,
which, while my thoughts
hover
somewhere between heaven and
earth,
turns into a vast blur of
blue--
I lean my body against the wall of
this sentinel
of a vanished past,
and
my white dress melds into the warm
stucco wall.
Suddenly, memories from another
era
blink through my
mind--
like light through a Fresnel
lens.

HANDMAIDENS OF
SPRING

Slowly, after evening has gathered
her stars,
daybreak quietly spreads over the
meadowland.
Foxglove and larkspur rise like
tranquil towers
floating in the shadowy, purple
dawn.
Briar patches, woven with dewy
blackberries,
hedge around crooked oaks where
sparrows
flit in the branches. Small clouds
of palest pink,
mushroom in the soft-born morning
light,
and linger above the violet
embroidered vales.
Soon, all the budding flowers, like
dainty
handmaidens of Spring, will line
the fragrant
pathways--just to kiss the feet of
June.

Mmaasa
Masai - Three
Poems

AJUMAYI

After
Toyin Adewale-Gabriel`s Olayinka
10th
April, Jos 2003

I am the penultimate seed of your
loins
The one with the moon in his
eyes
Tempered by twilights, stroked by
sea waves
Unfathomable to my
peers,
I am the stories of the
Rain!

*Allahberimin was the first to
stay
Before her, there were eight
others,
My siblings all, who breathed their
last at
Some time of
night,
Omale, my father,
knew
Your pains, so did
Aatuma,
My grand ma,
But we’re here
now,
All seven, sharp and
bright,
Fashioned in strong bones and
brittle talk;
We’re the
consolation.

I am the tale
bearer
I walk the
silkroad
I am the light wind
brought
To you by the most gentle
spell
Like those benevolent
songs
You used to sing about the
Rain

I am the sixth light of your
eyes
Ajumayi, my
mother
And I, your son!

* God leave this one for me
(Hausa)

OF BIRDS AND
I

12th
April Jos, 2003
After
Helon Habila’s Nest weaving

I try not to be unkind to
birds
Whether Sparrows or Robins or
pidgins
For they awe me all the time. The
enchantment
Of the euphonies .Their rich
tapestry of
Vocabularies, I keep wishing I knew
their
Every say.

‘’Chip! Chip! Chip! ’’ The little
ones sing away
On dainty steps, ha ha, reminds me
of a
Woman drowning away in luxury .I’ve
never
Seen a sad bird save the ones we
cage!

Noah used a bird to test the new
world
Hitler tied explosives to some
bats
To bomb some cities, only e-mails
surpass
The homing
pidgins

Birds are free to go anywhere,
bringing back
Tidings of other climes, they
labour not
For their feeding. Here, scratching
at my
Writer’s desk, the Nutcracker suite
renders
From the plumage of the peacock,
the robin
Going chip! Chip! Chip! At my
window ledge
Is my kindred.

I also try not to be unkind to
humans,
Especially loves gone sour, for in
this
Undulating rhythm of life, I know
not where
Or when or how or why a sparrow
falls.

SILENCE WATCHES OVER
ME

You don’t understand me? Don’t
worry!
I also have the same problem
sometimes.

I ponder over this life that I’ve
been given…
I think I am the
wind!
I am often poetry
…
I am also Rain!

There’s a rhythm in my soul that
runs to
Pulsating like extracted heart on a
platter
Gift for a Nubian
princess!

Leukaemia killed my
father!
Yea! I’ve known
pain,
Yet I’ve known the
madman’s
Delirious
laughter.
I fly in my sleep. I dream
of
Aquamarine
habitation
I hear fluting at sunset

The stars percius and
andromeda
Are my cousins
Night osmosis day and
deeds
Become memoirs

I walk on,
silently
Tracing my
Rivercourse
And silence watches over
me.

Shilla Mutamba - Three
Poems

DO YOU KNOW SUCH A WOMAN
?

She is bent
double
from a life full of
trouble
Her head, she keeps
down
yet she doesn’t
frown
Do you know such a
woman?

The sound of her
voice
is like the faintest
kiss
Her ideas; though
bright,
are considered not
right
Do you know such a
woman?

Life for her
Is a constant
struggle
Her voice is almost
inaudible
Nothing she suggests is
possible
Do you know such a
woman?

Her voice isn’t
deep
She’s waved to shut
up
She has no single
right
and no right to be
heard.
Have you heard
about this
woman?

She keeps her feelings
clandestine
as she loads the washing
machine
She is full of
guts
but for her guts
there’s no
space.
Have you noticed this
woman?

She doesn’t voice her
opinion
She has layers like an
onion
This poor woman
Does not air her
views
She says NO when she means
YES
She answers YES when she means
NO
She agrees when she
disagrees.

This woman is
superhuman
She smiles when he
snarls
She praises when he
errs
She congratulates when he
fails
and is willing when he
demands.
Do you know such a
woman?
©2007 Shilla
Mutamba

MY DEAR
HUSBAND

My dear husband
is now aged sixty
two
He's been with
me
from age twenty
two.

As he's grown
older
his love has grown
colder.

I gave him
children-
half a dozen
He's from a
family
of two dozen.

When we're in
bed
he sleeps on the
edge
One of these
days
he'll roll off the
bed.

I cook for him good
food
hoping to get
him
into a romantic
mood.
I wish for once
he would look into my
eyes
and take his eyes off his
rice!

YOU CHANGED MY
NAME

You changed my
name
It’s no longer the
same
My birth
name-Ngoni
To you didn’t sound
right
So you named me
Dwight.

You changed my
name
What was wrong with
mine?
I do know Ngoni
But who is
Dwight?

Since you changed my
name
You’ve changed my
identity
Without an
identity
How can I have
dignity?