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Powerlines: A Decade of Poetry from Chicago's Guild Complex
Every week at the Guild Complex--Chicago's internationally renowned cross-cultural literary center--poets open themselves up to the audience. Power Lines celebrates the first decade of the Guild Complex, its poets, and its publishing wing, Tia Chucha Press.
199 pages, Hardcover
First published October 25, 1999
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August 11, 2020
Better Than The Movies
It was / a summer afternoon / and it was / the sun / that lit our view / and it was / a day to spend / with friends.
And there was / sun light / camera eyes / and action / from a hand gun.
And it was at the corner store / and he laid ./ on the cement floor / and it was / the neighbors / that gathered to see / he that was / fourteen.
And it was / his cheek / stuck on the street / and he had / three bullets / in his back / and he was alone / with no mother / to cry good-bye.
And it was / the police that came / and it was / one cop that smiled / and said, / "This is better / than the movies."
"Mary," you ask, your voice high and uncertain at the wheel, / "Do you think the next generation is less fucked up than we are?" / "Yeah--yeah, I think so," I reply, /
glad when you don't ask me why I think so.
After A Reading At A Black College
Maybe one day we will have / written about this color thing / until we've solved it. Tonight / when I read my poems about / looking white, the audience strains / forward with their whole colored / bodies -- a part of each person praying / that my poems will make sense. / Poems do that sometimes -- take / the craziness and salvage some / small clear part of the soul, / and that is why, though frightened, / I don't stop the spirit. After, / though some people come / to speak to me, some / seem to step away, / as if I've hurt them once / too often and they have / no forgiveness left. I feel myself / hurry from person to person, begging. / Hold steady, Harriet Tubman whispers, / Don't flop around. / Oh my people, / sometimes you look at me / with such unwillingness-- / as I look at you! / I keep trying to prove / I am not what I think you think.
But on this very end of the earth, / in America, the big "A,", / success stands more a rumor than a wish, / its myths spun like prayer wheels.
I saw it on tv. / The Statue of Liberty my father, Mr. Williams, / said, "Give me your poor," / "Give me your homeless." Like we don't have / enough of them already.
how you can build a thing from the concrete up, / burn it like a match, / learn to live in the space / between your breaths.
Loneliness is worse than eating bones.
You are the one we turn to / for stories: to tell us who we are and have been, / who we come from, and where to go next. / To scold, instruct, remind, comfort us, and make us laugh. / How can you leave? We still need scolding, still need comfort.
The Deer
Mikaila clicks stubby fingers on the window / and the deer freezes, torn between its longing / for the ragged grass and the chill of sudden, / insistent sound. It stands in startled still-life / for a full minute while the three-year-old / behind the glass wails, "Reindeer, come inside, / I'm having oatmeal, I love you!" and whines / because her terrified new friend will only / stare in the general direction of all that fun. / We talk about whether it likes Barbie, / how we would teach it to sit on the couch, / dance ballet and eat popsicles. Meanwhile, / wind-blanched branches fascinate the deer, / it makes whole meals out of dryness and / light. It spends the entire morning chomping / the grass in full view of its new best friend, / whose mass of raven hair brands her a / tiny wildwoman, whose passions are simple / and untamed. They are warm to each other / past the window that separates them, though / each time the little first bangs on the pane to / demand attention, the deer gulps and becomes / stone, its whole life moves to its heart. I sip / peppermint tea and watch this small Thursday / drama, realizing that I love a man whose heart / is torn that same way. You can't decide whether / to stay or leave, so you stay, stunned and alert, / but close enough for me to clutch at you in my / sleep, close enough for me to tap on the window / and beg you to come inside.
It was / a summer afternoon / and it was / the sun / that lit our view / and it was / a day to spend / with friends.
And there was / sun light / camera eyes / and action / from a hand gun.
And it was at the corner store / and he laid ./ on the cement floor / and it was / the neighbors / that gathered to see / he that was / fourteen.
And it was / his cheek / stuck on the street / and he had / three bullets / in his back / and he was alone / with no mother / to cry good-bye.
And it was / the police that came / and it was / one cop that smiled / and said, / "This is better / than the movies."
"Mary," you ask, your voice high and uncertain at the wheel, / "Do you think the next generation is less fucked up than we are?" / "Yeah--yeah, I think so," I reply, /
glad when you don't ask me why I think so.
After A Reading At A Black College
Maybe one day we will have / written about this color thing / until we've solved it. Tonight / when I read my poems about / looking white, the audience strains / forward with their whole colored / bodies -- a part of each person praying / that my poems will make sense. / Poems do that sometimes -- take / the craziness and salvage some / small clear part of the soul, / and that is why, though frightened, / I don't stop the spirit. After, / though some people come / to speak to me, some / seem to step away, / as if I've hurt them once / too often and they have / no forgiveness left. I feel myself / hurry from person to person, begging. / Hold steady, Harriet Tubman whispers, / Don't flop around. / Oh my people, / sometimes you look at me / with such unwillingness-- / as I look at you! / I keep trying to prove / I am not what I think you think.
But on this very end of the earth, / in America, the big "A,", / success stands more a rumor than a wish, / its myths spun like prayer wheels.
I saw it on tv. / The Statue of Liberty my father, Mr. Williams, / said, "Give me your poor," / "Give me your homeless." Like we don't have / enough of them already.
how you can build a thing from the concrete up, / burn it like a match, / learn to live in the space / between your breaths.
Loneliness is worse than eating bones.
You are the one we turn to / for stories: to tell us who we are and have been, / who we come from, and where to go next. / To scold, instruct, remind, comfort us, and make us laugh. / How can you leave? We still need scolding, still need comfort.
The Deer
Mikaila clicks stubby fingers on the window / and the deer freezes, torn between its longing / for the ragged grass and the chill of sudden, / insistent sound. It stands in startled still-life / for a full minute while the three-year-old / behind the glass wails, "Reindeer, come inside, / I'm having oatmeal, I love you!" and whines / because her terrified new friend will only / stare in the general direction of all that fun. / We talk about whether it likes Barbie, / how we would teach it to sit on the couch, / dance ballet and eat popsicles. Meanwhile, / wind-blanched branches fascinate the deer, / it makes whole meals out of dryness and / light. It spends the entire morning chomping / the grass in full view of its new best friend, / whose mass of raven hair brands her a / tiny wildwoman, whose passions are simple / and untamed. They are warm to each other / past the window that separates them, though / each time the little first bangs on the pane to / demand attention, the deer gulps and becomes / stone, its whole life moves to its heart. I sip / peppermint tea and watch this small Thursday / drama, realizing that I love a man whose heart / is torn that same way. You can't decide whether / to stay or leave, so you stay, stunned and alert, / but close enough for me to clutch at you in my / sleep, close enough for me to tap on the window / and beg you to come inside.
Displaying 1 of 1 review