zaria’s Reviews > The Essential June Jordan > Status Update

it’s hard to keep a clean shirt clean

‘what’s anyone of us to do / about what’s done’

‘water as transparent / as a wish the moon stayed out / all day’

last poem for a little while

‘holidays do loosen up the holocaust’

‘i would go pray a sorrow Songmy song / but the last time i looked the american flag was flying / from the center of the crucifix.’

focus in real time

‘a bowl of rice / as food / as politics / of metaphor / as something valuable and good / or something common to consume/exploit/ignore’

‘who will sit beside the bowl or fight for rice / who will write about the hands that hold the bowl / who will want to own the land / a bow of rice’

poem about my rights

‘i am not wrong; wrong is not my name’

who look at me

‘(when they finally sit down / who will stand up /for them?)’

‘i am // impossible to explain / remote from the old and new interpretations / and yet / not exactly’

‘see me darkly covered ribs / around my heart across my skull / thin skin protects the part / that dulls from longing’

‘to begin is no more agony / than opening your hand’