Last Song of the Exile Miguel Teurbe Tolón

 

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Last Song of the Exile Miguel Teurbe Tolón translated from the Spanish by Francisco Javier Vingut                                  I.    Hard my path on earth is closed; Light is dead within my heart. Star of Hope! thou art gone down;    Clay and spirit now must part!                                   II.     Land of flowers! no more thy breezes Sweetly shall my forehead kiss. Sky of Love! Thy beams of light    Shed no more celestial bliss!                                   III.    Foreign shores, o’er seas afar, I sought alone with many a tear Home is lost! no more of love,    No more of friends, no mother dear!                                   IV.    Harp of mine! thy woeful strains, Sadly echoing, soon shall die; Words no more with notes shall twine,——    Winds mid graves my lullaby.                                   V.    Dark and lone my grave will be From Cuba far, unmarked, unknown: Birds will chant my requiem wild,    And dew-drops fall for tears alone.                                   VI.    Fate, O Fate! I fain would read The record in thy book for me;—— Death, draw near! I list thy call;    Ope thy gates, Eternity

the cherry end of your cigarette against the pale sky by Levi Romero

 

the cherry end of your cigarette against the pale sky

Levi Romero

outside the prickling air burned hot against what we’d left behind and all that we scraped and cupped ourselves for while trying to catch the last vestiges of someone’s history their life here and back and somewhere in that hummed and whistled journey across the plains and valleys and state lines invisible to hunger and thirst and the pursuit of want and need tomorrow the railroad tracks will shimmer in the heat of the summer that arrived as we were heading out of town because as in those things past we too have someplace we need to go what does it matter that there are no words to compensate for the longing and emptiness of the evening’s solitude brought in by the winds of our own stormy reluctance unwilling to settle for anything less than what we give in our taking our own words muted by a laughter-less language rattling bucket-empty like a windmill spinning against a prairie horizon that does not distinguish between yesterday or tomorrow them or us his or hers yours or mine it was what you didn’t say that caught my attention and how you pressed your lips to the wind your eyes blazing in the moonless night

To Wahilla Enhotulle By Alexander Posey

 

To Wahilla Enhotulle

Alexander Posey

(To the South Wind) O Wind, hast thou a sigh    Robbed from her lips divine Upon this sunbright day—    A token or a sign? Oh, take me, Wind, into    Thy confidence, and tell Me, whispering soft and low,    The secrets of the dell. Oh, teach me what it is    The meadow flowers say As to and fro they nod    Thro’ all the golden day. Oh, hear, Wind of the South,    And whispering softer yet, Unfold the story of    The lone pine tree’s regret. Oh, waft me echoes sweet    That haunt the meadow glen— The scent of new-mown hay,    And songs of harvest men; The coolness of the sea    And forest dark and deep— The soft reed notes of Pan,    And bleat of straying sheep. Oh, make me, Wind, to know    The language of the bee— The burden of the wild    Bird’s rapturous melody; The password of the leaves    Upon the cottonwood; And let me join them in    Their mystic brotherhood.

Scotty and the Rib Tips By Bob Holman

 

Scotty and the Rib Tips

Bob Holman

So they tell me, get your act together Write something, make it new for a change Give up on those errant habits Go to Chicago Be there for Birth of Slam Knock down a few bowling pin icons Bowling allies, new stain t-shirts Statues of lint and a make-my-day jockstrap I’ll sit in with Scotty and the Rib Tips Watch true brews slide down that mahogany bar Run it by my man Sergio over at Weeds as we Wait for the Queen of Poetry to drive in from el Boss Town So tune up the poems performed to Marsyas’ flute Keep the meddlesome chthonic wordslingers cranky Invent a bonus alley, grab the moon Climb on top of the speaker system and fly Write a book and get it out Invent a pseudonym to review it, rave Rave rave along the Lake Rehearse the verse all ears radar Michigan And fall in love a few times so nobody knows about it Keep it to myself, a few poems quit, quite, and quiet Outside of so-called competition and the waving blades Making slow smoky patterns at the old Green Mill

Dear Sister by Emma Trelles

 

Dear Sister

Emma Trelles

Winter is ceaseless ~ streets ~ phantom trees caged in fog ~ light and its beautiful doom ~ The scent of leaves ~  green and dead ~ arrives through windows like a timid fantasma ~ There are tiny spiders in the eaves ~ the color of forgettable stones ~ I don’t have the heart ~ to kill them ~ Today ~ I found a squirrel ~ dreaming ~  the sleep of the young and unknowing ~ I pray for a world ~ scatter-starred with that kind ~ of tenderness ~ Nothing hears me ~ Let’s pretend ~ the clock is frozen ~ in its sturdy shroud ~  that our 3,000 weeks ~  are the start ~ We began ~  in the land of mangroves and abandonment ~ hibiscus and metal ~ egret and engine ~  predator sun ~  skin, so much skin ~  sky with its commandments ~  sky like no other ~  concrete rising ~  falling ~  altars and offerings ~ cigar smoke santos hope gold velas blood gallina rum ~ shells to guard the crossroads ~  the drilling eyes of reptiles and men ~  my people who I long for ~  my people who I hide from ~ My sister,  I write these words ~ a lifetime away ~ at the foot of the mountains ~  another sea ~ vaster galaxy ~  primordial and without memories ~ House of my nightmares, gone ~  Graves unattended ~ You ask me why I left ~ I say I am a triple horse ~  forever running ~ to the next to the next to the next ~  Where will I end? ~ My baby cronedom has arrived ~  The track now points to my bones ~ in flecks or stashed beneath ~ the thorned trunk of a ceiba  ~  I know just the one.

The Crypt Seed By Jackie Wang

 

The Crypt Seed

Jackie Wang

The seed is a wound in the form of a little girl buried alive. Buried inside me the sol de la terre. What do I remember of last night’s dream, that the children were painting a mural that spread beyond the surface of the wall. There was a blue spirit a benevolent ghost with no eyes that hung over the children like a cloud reaching out its arms. Did the image fatigue me? I was fatigued by everything. There were space chairs facing the walls and I kept falling asleep.  Cry at my library carrel. Cry when I step off the bus. A crystal-clear sky over midtown and I no longer have the energy (will?) to masticate subjective experience. Wrote nothing about the breakup. It’s as though nothing actually happens to me.  I wanted a quiet life—to keep the casket. They don’t even notice I’m half-here, while the other half lives in the crypt. Go down to the grotto with your headlamp and crowbar. Release the girl lost and afraid. I’m not here. No one touches her. Reserve a little for myself. To self-witness. But what’s become of my mind there is no world. What did I want to say to him—that there’s a crypt-shaped seed I show to no one: it is my fate. The impossibility of making a day, leaking one’s soul for want of an angel. The night was forever. And pearls of light rained down on me I lost myself in the lonely expedition toward the center of everything I would become: nothing there’s no time but love was a thing hanging in the air at night when I’d stalk the streets with my heart in my mouth.  Bury my heart in the haute mer. Find me not I’ve flushed it to spare myself the humiliation of being seen. She’s nowhere to be found or maybe there’s a casket bobbing on the ocean with a note inside that says, “The secret to survival is to disappear.”

Little soul lost, little shining ghost William Archila

 

Little soul lost, little shining ghost

William Archila

Little soul lost, little shining ghost, prepare yourself to descend into the small chambers that flicker like fireflies. Prepare cattle & rapid fire which should be the pallor, tenderness of patient flowers. I want to tell you about my childhood, ten times the nerve, which is stitching darkness, which is mine alone tattooed, black as the black craters in an isthmus, worse than the worst mind during the war deranged, always the strange order of smoke, always in praise of the elder tongue, which I’d like to think, is afraid of the dark forest of trees. But never mind all that, how it mocks what is & what is not. All the while I didn’t know when I claimed you my apostrophe I meant an adagio with ink, meant dead ringer in the wind, but worst. What remains is this deer at the edge of the woods, my dappled antlers my toiled meaning & no meaning making music like a heretic. After all what is a soul crawling out of the black dirt if it has no teeth or nails.

Copyright © 2025 by William Archila. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on January 1, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets

How Shall I Scam Thee? (Sonnet 45-47)

 

How Shall I Scam Thee? (Sonnet 45-47)

How shall I scam thee? Let me count the ways.

I scam thee to the depth and breadth and height

of your stupidity

For whenever I have no liquidity

My empty soul and bank account is replenished

by your gullibility.

I scam thee to the level of every day’s

most quiet needs, with Trump Water, Vodka, and Steaks,

Camo Kitchen Dish Towels,

Stars and Stripes Throw pillows (half-price special break!)

I scam thee freely, my compliant prey.

I scam thee purely, as you sing my praise,

and fill your online shopping carts with

MAGA hats and golf shirts

Inaugural Fleece You Suckers Blankets

and Never Surrender Hi-top Gold (flavored) Sneakers

which will never touch the dirt I heap upon you followers.

I scam thee with the passion put to use

In my old grievances about stolen elections

and my inability to maintain an erection

or an insurrection

Still, I’ll happily take the cure, even as I let you risk

Covid infection.

I scam thee with a love I’ll never lose

unlike my bankrupted casinos and failed

Shuttle airline, football team, University,

mortgage company, GoTrump (not Travelocity)

and the ultimate scam of selling you ephemeral bytes

of NFT images and crypto currency

The Art of the Steal.

I scam thee with all my breath,

leers, and tears, and tiny piece of ear.

I scam thee and all you do is cheer

for all my life

and if God choose

I shall scam thee even better after death.

(Apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

Planet Dread By Safiya Sinclair

 Planet Dread

Safiya Sinclair

Dreadnought, I. Dread from the sea I was drawn, I blue as dread, tender dread, taloned as our future dread. Dread the constellation I was born under, dread I slept under, dread the waves of history, blustering red. Dread my mother’s calm. Dread the harpy’s song. Dread she nursed me, dread she named me. Dread my girlhood under sugar cane. Dread the hurricane. I was a child of dread a psalm of dread, dread pressed into my palm like the blessed herb. A divine dread, Rastaman said. Before I could speak there was dread, before I could stumble. Dread roamed the shore a ghostly spume, dreadless thread of the woman I’m erasing, dread my one coastline crumbling to sea rise, to abyss. Dread my dead tooth unmaking the veil, dread the ointment I, dread the wound I, dread the wail I, dread the johncrow’s eye, smoke of black clouds heralding only dread. Skirmish of youth, my constant banner of dread. Dread at home, dread to the bone, my father dangling his guillotine of dread. Dread as daily bread. Nursed dark by decades of dread, teachers recoiled at my knotted thorns of dread. How the white girls blanched with dread. Scorned for the hair on my head. Beware my Blackheart of dread, the reckless haunt of my dread, girl born of nothing but salt-air and dread. Girl who bore nothing but a vision of dread. Such a savage, dread. Thrum of the natty dread. Congo Bongo dread. Martyred was the dread. Brother still the dread. Blood of my dread. Babylon maiming families of dread, pastors railing against our dread, dread the crown of heavens I wear upon this head. Dread at the root, dread of the fruit. Sister of dread. Daughter of the dread. First woman giving birth to her dread. A gorgon stoning every baldhead, dead.

We Dreamed You Keisha-Gaye Anderson

 

We Dreamed You

Keisha-Gaye Anderson

I see her face when my lids surrender to the limits of this battered body and it makes the cane ash sting less in my throat. She has fat brown cheeks red satin ribbons floating on fluffy plaits. She hums, traaa-la-la-la-la, so sweet like a sugar in a plum. She skips along a carpet of flamboyant petals, red like  the rose apple she nibbles on an already full belly. Laughter like a bird song no thick memory whatsoever of who sent her into this future finally free.

Nabokov

 

Philosophy of science