In the Woods
by ROBERT A. DAVIES
In bed last night I smelled like firs
unmistakably
and was in Timber again
no other task than watching.
Again I was looking for beaver.
A red-breasted sapsucker meowed
and I answered in kind
as he continued pecking and sucking sap
neat rows of bleeding holes.
A hummingbird in midair stopped.
I was waiting for dusk on the longest day of the year.
The beavers didn’t show up.
In the dark before I fell asleep
an accusation rang out:
You merely give names to this and that
a particular tree
a particular bird.
You know nothing of the woods.
(Previously published in Windfall.)
Ethan Tries a Little Introspection
by ROBERT A. DAVIES
Sonny is sitting at a desk
an old beat-up one
he found god knows where.
It’s a big surprise but just for a minute.
Sonny is boss of receiving and shipping
at the Cooperative’s warehouse.
There isn’t a lot of sitting.
There are only three of us.
I’m only 14
but I see it’s a war for his importance.
I don’t betray myself
Doherty’s eyes shine.
Doherty goes on binges
but works hard and is wise,
knows the importance of dignity,
of seeming busy at all times.
He translates the desperate streets
that I walk after school and Saturdays
through Boston’s South End.
It is 1941.
Don’t expect much of him
the teacher tells my mother
and I’m right there.
I’m still called Cabbage Head back home.
After service in one of the wars
and a gradual recovery
and a few ups and downs
I’m now a CEO
sitting pretty
with this puzzling ache in the back of my neck.
Robert A. Davies lives in Portland, Oregon. rjdavies3@comcast.net
Literacy Test (AKA The New Jim Crow)
by HAKIM BELLAMY
Any person who shall attempt to teach any free person of color,
or slave,
to spell, read or write,
shall, upon conviction thereof by indictment,
be fined in a sum not less than two hundred fifty dollars.
–from the Alabama Slavery Code of 1833
When they can no longer steal our land
They’ll steal our books
Because every genocide
Starts with the mind
Since every revolution
Begins with a thought
And heart
They will
Will sacrifice
Our freedom of teach
And only
By the grace of the laws they created
Can they not
Sacrifice our hearts
To stakes
And nooses
Bombs, gunfire and arson
But believe me
They’ve tried
They’ve tried
To remove our hearts
From our lifeless bodies
But our love never subsided
So Plan B
Is to make us
Love ourselves less
If burning women at the stake
Couldn’t kill feminism
How the hell
They think they gon’ ban Chicanismo?
We ain’t scared of a state
That will burn and ban people
Because we are burnt and banned people
Won’t even let us keep
The perfect bound papers we got
So these hypocrites
Are fittin’ to get THEIR history undocumented
Displace pen from paper
Like people from places
Remove Mexican-American hands
From the first Catholic Church
Ever built
In Solomonville, Arizona
1887
Or the first Presbyterian Church
In Morenci
1889
Remove the pictures
Of brown Jesus
Who looks
more Mexican
than Methodist
Remove the Immaculate Heart of Mary Church
We built
Because we were tired
Of being forced to listen to mass
In the basement
Of St. Mary’s
Erase the deportation
Of a thousand copper miners
On strike in Bisbee
Left on a train car
In the New Mexican desert
By vigilantes
With no food
Or water
A government
That so badly wants
The history of how
We “got it”
To be forgotten
They will remove fingerprints
From a crime scene
Remove Cesar Chavez’s birth
From Yuma
Will Remove
Cesar Chavez
Gloria Anzaldua
Tomas Rivera
Luis Valdez
Martin Espada
Isabelle Allende
Rudolfo Anaya
Rodolfo Acuna and Gonzales
Cause they will have us drink Kool-aid
Instead of Cultura
No E.S. Martinez
Not even in pictures
No mexican white boys
And no women hollerin’ creek
No! Sherman Alexie
Just like Pocahontas and John Smith
Thanksgiving and bull shit
The Lone Ranger and Tonto
Will NOT fist fight in heaven
They will hold hands
No Zoot Suit
Nobody’s son
Everybody’s “Bro”
No Codexes
Only Rolexes
No black mesa poems
Arizona
Wouldn’t even leave
Baldwin and Zinn alone
Said F.U. Rosales
Abu-Jamal
AND Henry David Thoreau
No Rethinking Columbus
No rethinking anything
As a matter of fact
No thinking
Period
Cause there is no single act
Worse than
The revisionist history they hate
Than removing books
From schools
I want to tell America
That bleaching the brown
Off your history
Will not make you clean
That there is no way
To separate your guilt
From truth
That there IS
An X in La Raza II
I want to tell them
It’s too late too
Too late to remove “us”
From “u”
And just because
Your history
Is unswallowable without milk
And we
Are like water for chocolate
That’s no excuse…
So we’ll build
A bridge of banned books
Cross the border
And when you find yourself
So far from God
That you need to borrow
That bridge to get back
We won’t even ask
For your papers
We’ll just open our history books
And keep track
Because the only people
That are afraid of the past
Are people who are afraid of facts
You want to remove books?
From our tragically
Underperforming education system
Maintaining “It’s not about race”
When it’s obvious
That it’s not about class
How smart is that?
This is a
“You are not allowed to have a history” lesson
Where there are only
Closed book tests
Because you don’t want us…
To pass.
(Written for the Librotraficante Caravan Press Conference in Albuquerque in response to the ban of books & ethnic studies in Arizona.)
Hakim Bellamy is a national and regional Poetry Slam Champion and holds three consecutive collegiate poetry slam titles at the University of New Mexico. His poetry has been published in Albuquerque inner-city buses and various anthologies. Bellamy was recognized as an honorable mention for the University of New Mexico Paul Bartlett Re Peace Prize for his work as a community organizer and journalist and was recently bestowed the populist honor of “Best Poet” by Local iQ (“Smart List 2010, 2011 & 2012”) and Alibi (“Best of Burque 2010 & 2011”). He is the co-creator of the multi-media Hip Hop theater production Urban Verbs: Hip-Hop Conservatory & Theater
And now, here’s this year’s birthday poem:
Birthday Poem, 2012
by MARC BEAUDIN
Dreams of the Bomb over D.C.
but all we can find on TV are sit-coms
& action movies
A trio of swans at the lagoon
disappointed in me for not thinking
to bring them some bread crumbs
This picnic table says, “I Heart U”
but I don’t believe it
Fresh snow on the Sleeping Giant
glimmers like a new pair of shoes
as shadows are peeled from his face
w/ the plodding round-dance of the sun
This is another of those years
where I can’t quite remember how old I am –
it’s somewhere between 43 and Surrealism
but I don’t feel a day over Armageddon
Two days from now,
at the Boiling River,
an elk and an eagle will leave calling cards for my soul
& I’ll fair slightly well at being a gracious host,
but then,
there’s that pawn shop bike
I’d like to buy & ride all over town
to get my blood flowing
once again
Editorial Note: (Please Read Closely Before Submitting)
To submit to Poets’ Basement, send an e-mail to CounterPunch’s poetry editor, Marc Beaudin at counterpunchpoetry@gmail.com with your name, the titles being submitted, and your website url or e-mail address (if you’d like this to appear with your work). Also indicate whether or not your poems have been previously published and where. For translations, include poem in original language and documentation of granted reprint/translation rights. Attach up to 5 poems and a short bio, written in 3rd person, as a single Word Document (.doc or .rtf attachments only; no .docx – use “Save As” to change docx or odt files to “.doc”). Expect a response within one month (occasionally longer during periods of heavy submissions).
Poems accepted for online publication will be considered for possible inclusion of an upcoming print anthology.
For more details, tips and suggestions, visit CrowVoiceJournal.blogspot.com and check the links on the top right. Thanks!