Poetry – Page 5 – Writers Resist

Slowcookery

By Amy L. Bernstein

“Because when it comes to truly explaining racial injustice in this country, the table should never be set quickly” – Nikole Hannah-Jones, “What is Owed,” New York Times Magazine, 2020

I stand on the far shore of the fast-moving
Combahee River,
opposite the Collective,

afforded a distant glimpse through a lead-paned window
into a snug, low-slung house on the riverbank where

Barbara, Demita, Beverly,
Sharon, Cheryl, Margo, Gloria
are in the kitchen
crowded hip to hip
making dinner to please themselves

the roast has just gone in to
marinate in its juices,

the carrots and potatoes will grow
fork-tender

but not for hours,
not until the pan is bubbling

I see them drinking wine and dancing
slowly
the river moves fast,
conveying time along wet ribs

and the ever-echoing shots of Harriet’s raid

but inside the house,
all is marination

the womyn are steeped in life—
schooled and schooling others

they slip in and out of the
dining room,

setting the table for dinner
one plate cup fork knife at a time,

for nothing about this meal is
taken for granted,
handed out,
handed over

it is so-so-so not easy
yet will be savored
by them
in their own good time

as the Combahee parades
its flowing witness.

Amy L. Bernstein writes stories, essays, and poems that let readers feel while making them think. Her novels include The Potrero Complex, the award-winning The Nighthawkers, Dreams of Song Times, and Fran, The Second Time Around. Amy’s poetry has appeared in Yellow Arrow Journal, Loch Raven Review, Lost Boys Press, Parliament Literary Journal, Passaic-Voluspa, She Is Kindred, and elsewhere, and in an anthology chapbook, Baltimore, I (want to) Love You.

Image credit: “Through Forests, Through Rivers, Up Mountains” by Jacob Lawrence 1967, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.

Editor’s notes:

Read about Harriet Tubman and the Combahee Ferry Raid of 1863.

Read the “Combahee River Collective Statement.”

A note from Writers Resist

Thank you for reading! If you appreciate creative resistance and would like to support it, you can make a small, medium or large donation to Writers Resist from our Give a Sawbuck page.

The Whale

By Kerry Loughman

never budged

becalmed she was

bleached by sun

& beached on relentless rise

of blue water liquid leeched

from her eyes her orifices

her great mouth agape

her lungs did evaporate

Climate-changed her

wishes drowned

in sand

Kerry Loughman is a retired educator and photographer living in the Boston area. She writes about memory, art, family, and nature in the city, looking for small transient moments of beauty . . . or discord. Her work has appeared in Mass Poetry’s The Hard Work of Hope and Poem of the Moment, Nixes’ Mate, What Rough Beast, The Main Street Rag and is forthcoming in Lily Poetry Review.

Image credit: “The Whale” by Christopher Michel via a Creative Commons license.

A note from Writers Resist

Thank you for reading! If you appreciate creative resistance and would like to support it, you can make a small, medium or large donation to Writers Resist from our Give a Sawbuck page.

Two Poems by Linda Parsons

How a Woman Becomes Herself

When the neighbor’s weed tree drapes over the power lines and shades her garden, she contemplates going out by moonlight to dump salt on the roots—but that could backfire and flow instead into the garden, be its ruination. These good neighbors invite her over for fine smoked brisket and can’t even see the problem from their side, so why doesn’t she just grow a pair and tell them, but she takes the aluminum ladder and reaches to the highest branches she can lop off with her superloppers, so maybe they will see her teetering and mistake her for a dragonfly. Truth be told, she’s out there iridescing for her ownself and no one else, her own muscles braided in the sun, yes, muscles at seventy, her arches hugging the top step, balanced as the scales in her Libra rising, Libra the sign of lovingkindness, and maybe they’ll hear her prayer for a little rain, a prayer that some of the body’s salt sours a root or two—because she’s no old wife in this tale, no wife at all, and who can say how it pours when it rains, how in the end it all comes out in the wash—weed, pride, sweat—all but the wings, or the shadow of wings.

Sassafras

Don’t you be sassafras, my daughter
says to her daughters, and so it goes,
straight from my mother’s shush of seen
and not heard, my mouth not to dispute

her word. Now a woman of a certain age,
word-hunger rages to depths even I
cannot sound, tongue burnt with all
manner of truths: a voice unrecused

to witness, laced with cinnamon bark,
cardamon fire, tea for fatigue and fever.
I speak my palmate self, canopy untold,
oils applied to sting and sprain,

my unquiet seams. I purify the blood,
neither sugar nor spice, but healing sear
for whatever stubborn wound the world
hands out. More than match struck

to tinder, more than knocking on wood’s
door long enough to shatter the walls,
more than sass or backtalk or sulled-up lip
or any tabula rasa, I will be sassafras

and more, all that indisputable more.

Poet, playwright, essayist, and editor, Linda Parsons is the poetry editor for Madville Publishing and the copy editor for Chapter 16, the literary website of Humanities Tennessee. She is published in such journals as The Georgia Review, Iowa Review, Prairie Schooner, Southern Poetry Review, Terrain, The Chattahoochee Review, Baltimore Review, Shenandoah, and American Life in Poetry. Her sixth collection, Valediction, contains poems and prose. Five of her plays have been produced by Flying Anvil Theatre in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Image credit: Erich Ferdinand via a Creative Commons license.

A note from Writers Resist

Thank you for reading! If you appreciate creative resistance and would like to support it, you can make a small, medium or large donation to Writers Resist from our Give a Sawbuck page.

Wildness Unafraid

By Tim Murphy

What if trees could talk?
No. Of course they do.
What if we could hear
them speak
just beneath our feet?

What if birds of all feathers
who lift the sky with song
and frame it with flight
told us
what names to call them?

What if we could simply bathe
in wonder at the coyote’s
wild music of the night,
not needing to demonize
to feel alive?

What if we listened deeply,
heeding the ancient wisdom
of the many worlds unknown
contained in this one
we don’t own?

What if we let other beings
live alongside us
outside the long, lonely shadows

cast by our fear
of our own wildness?

Tim Murphy (he/him) is a disabled civil rights attorney, environmentalist, and poet who lives in Portland, Oregon. His writing explores the natural world, disability, and the climate crisis. Tim’s work is featured in Remington Review, Livina Press, and The Long Covid Reader, a collection published in November 2023. Tim can be found on Instagram and Twitter, @brokenwingpoet.

Image credit: “Howl” by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

A note from Writers Resist

Thank you for reading! If you appreciate creative resistance and would like to support it, you can make a small, medium or large donation to Writers Resist from our Give a Sawbuck page.

Wrong Rainbow

By L. Acadia

Describing our droomhuis for Dutch class, my
worksheet filled with my dream house’s garden:
Hollyhocks, hydrangea higher than I,
wrought iron table for morning coffee,
serenading birds, frogs ringing a pond.
My love wrote an interior my mind
couldn’t fit: puppy-claw impervious
tile floors, dormer bedroom, dinner-party
primed kitchen, postprandial dancing space.

Years later, we recall the exercise,
tossing balkon, keuken, venster, fit now
to a dream house: open-plan high-ceilinged
flat—wood beams leading the gaze towards mountains,
snug loft for out-of-town or drunken friends,
green balcony, community garden,
busses to work: a millennial dream.

Rooftop looking out to summer salons
poetry, perhaps acoustic guitar.
Headlights flooding the street below create
a waterfall of light, mist spraying to stars.

We call our droomhuis “Jesus house” for the
forest of crosses, scandalous portraits
of unfashionably long-haired white men with
palm-wounds. The seller greets us cordially,
his wife places hands over their kids’ chests,
as though guarding their hearts from our inter-
racial lesbianism’s tick’ling daggers.

When they ghosted our offer, we enquired
through a new realtor. The Jesus house dad
asked, “are your clients a normal couple?”
Nee.

L. Acadia is a lit professor at National Taiwan University and member of the Taipei Poetry Collective, with poetry in Autostraddle, New Orleans Review, Strange Horizons, trampset, and elsewhere. Twitter and Instagram: @acadialogue

Image credit: Jim Choate via a Creative Commons license.

A note from Writers Resist

Thank you for reading! If you appreciate creative resistance and would like to support it, you can make a small, medium or large donation to Writers Resist from our Give a Sawbuck page.

Two Poems by Deborah Hochberg

Congregation of Ibis

“A barrage of storms has resurrected what was once the largest body of fresh water west of the Mississippi River, setting the stage for a disaster this spring.”

– from “Tulare Lake Was Drained Off the Map. Nature Would Like a Word,” Soumya Karlamangla and Shawn Hubler, New York Times, April 2, 2023

They drained the Great Lake
in the late 19th century

Humans took
the vast waters from us
to grow their cotton, their tomatoes

Like gods, they separated
the land and the skies from the water
and the water was no more

They came, and they took
what was ours
and we had no say

And they did what they willed
with the earth

And the earth was obedient
for decades, over a century

And then the earth decided —
I have had enough
I am taking it back
I miss the lake
I will bring back the lake

And the atmospheric rivers
raged through the skies

And the land received the waters
waters that the mammoths
once drank

The farms, homes, brewery, and cafe
the crops and ranches
were inundated

And then we returned —
the ibis
and the herons, pelicans, and coots

Soon the snowpack will melt
without mercy
for agriculture
or prisons

The lake, like a surging
aqueous ghost, a watery resurrection
has again staked its claim

And we are here —
as long as the lake
can sustain its deep
irriguous expanse

Migrant Child

Home
is a thing
that does not yet exist
Existed as a point of departure
But a home
where one cannot live
is not a home
My feet are my home
My legs are my home
My sneakers are my home
They carry me
through arduous terrains
that seek to have me
lie down
and sink
into the mud
Mud-child
I hold my own hand
This way, I say
No, this way
Journey of a thousand steps
Countless steps, numerous
as stars in the sky
Stars that blanket me
on cold nights
No longer human
I move through the mud
like a turtle
Did I just crawl
over a border?
I have forgotten
thoughts of home
and now think only
of movement
This journey, a trial
and I am guilty
of what I do not know
Hope
is a thing
that grips you
around your throat
Pulls you
like a leash
and won’t let go

Deborah Hochberg is from Detroit, Michigan, and studied at Wayne State University. She is a musician, a gardener, and a health care provider. She is the author of two collections of poetry entitled Waiting For the Snow and Memory’s Reservoir.

Image credit: Bob Peterson via a Creative Commons license.

A note from Writers Resist

Thank you for reading! If you appreciate creative resistance and would like to support it, you can make a small, medium or large donation to Writers Resist from our Give a Sawbuck page.

what happened before the good sex

By Bryana Joy

for God’s sake no more games
she said setting the last set
of lace panties in the trash

i am befuddled by all this
rigmarole this muddle this hullabaloo
she threw a negligee out the door
and all of her lipstick tubes

i am i the only one
you are you the only one
my house is as you see it
if you want to come in
Come

Bryana is a poet and illustrator who has lived in Türkiye, Texas, and England, and now resides in Eastern Pennsylvania. Her poetry has appeared in more than 50 literary journals, and her book, Summer of the Oystercatchers, is forthcoming from Fernwood Press. Since 2021, she has been teaching regular online poetry workshops to foster meaningful arts community and support writers. Find her at www.bryanajoy.com or on Instagram and Threads at @_bryana_joy.

Image credit: Public domain

A note from Writers Resist

Thank you for reading! If you appreciate creative resistance and would like to support it, you can make a small, medium or large donation to Writers Resist from our Give a Sawbuck page.

that name

By William Palmer

tide in—

imagine
waves scraping away

that name
and the lies upon lies

that feed off it,
dissolving them in foam

imagine
the mugshot gone

the blue suits gone
the long red ties

around our country’s neck
gone

William Palmer’s poetry has appeared recently in JAMA, J Journal, One Art, On the Seawall, Talking River Review, and The Westchester Review. He lives in Traverse City, Michigan.

Image credit: Sean P on Unsplash.

A note from Writers Resist

Thank you for reading! If you appreciate creative resistance and would like to support it, you can make a small, medium or large donation to Writers Resist from our Give a Sawbuck page.

Point Blank

An Illustrated Poem by Jane Muschenetz

MIT grad and former Bain Management Consultant, Jane Muschenetz arrived in the United States as a child refugee from Soviet Ukraine. She is a 2023 City of Encinitas Exhibiting Artist and winner of The Good Life Review 2022 Poetry Prize. Her debut poetry collection, All the Bad Girls Wear Russian Accents (Kelsay, 2023), was shortlisted for the Jacar Press Chapbook Prize. Jane is Director of Partnerships at San Diego Entertainment & Arts Guild and Co-Founder of the San Diego Chapter of Women Who Submit Lit. Connect with Jane’s work at her website, www.PalmFrondZoo.com, and in various publications. Follow her on social media @PalmFrondZoo.

1 Incident of firearm mortality per 100K population by global developed economies, https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2022-us-gun-violence-world-comparison/. M.McGough, K. Amin, N. Panchal, C. Cox, “Child and Teen Firearm Mortality in the U.S. and Peer Countries,” KFF.org, Jul, 2022; https://www.kff.org/global-health-policy/issue-brief/child-and-teen-firearm-mortality-in-the-u-s-and-peer-countries/; USA child+teen data from 2020.

A note from Writers Resist

Thank you for reading! If you appreciate creative resistance and would like to support it, you can make a small, medium or large donation to Writers Resist from our Give a Sawbuck page.

The Last Revolution

By Lorraine Schein

The Last Revolution was yesterday.
It was so successful, that all future revolutions were cancelled forever.

A lesbian and her lover were elected President and Vice-President.
Their lovemaking is televised nationally as part of the inaugural proceedings
and greeted with applause by an appreciative at-home audience.

Poets have been elected to Congress. It is now a requirement for election to any political office that the candidate be a poet.
Poems are published in every daily newspaper and online.
Headlines announce the dates of public readings and news about famous poets.

Crowds go to hear poets the way they used to go to see rock stars or football games.
They cheer loudly, in iambic pentameter, for their favorite poet.

“I can’t wait to go to tomorrow’s poetry reading!” people say,
and tickets are sold out months in advance.

Work has been abolished by the smashing of clocks and digital time devices.
Now there can be no office work, or work at all, since there is no way
of measuring a workday.

The gods and goddesses return, and run rampant.

Children and animals are allowed to run for president also.
Next election day, a little girl and her teddy bear running-mate
look to be the winning ticket.

For toys have been given equal rights and a voice, too—
in what matters most.

Lorraine Schein is a New York writer and poet. Her work has appeared in VICE Terraform, Strange Horizons, NewMyths and Michigan Quarterly, and in the anthologies Wild Women and Tragedy Queens: Stories Inspired by Lana del Rey & Sylvia Plath. The Futurist’s Mistress, her poetry collection, is available from Mayapple Press. Her book, The Lady Anarchist Cafe, is available from Autonomedia.

Image credit: Beatrice Murch via a Creative Commons license.

A note from Writers Resist

Thank you for reading! If you appreciate creative resistance and would like to support it, you can make a small, medium or large donation to Writers Resist from our Give a Sawbuck page.

Two Poems by Nancy Squires

As the Waters Rise

O God, look down
On all our drowned.
Hear us, we beg—
We’re on our knees.
Sorry, so sorry
About the trees,

The polar bears, the birds,
The bees; the icebergs
Gone, the thirsty lawns,
Plastic gyres, redwood
Pyres and all the many,
many cars. The eclipsed stars

We never see. Our Father
In Heaven, we pray
To Thee: Give us
This day.
We promise, oh we swear
On a stack of extinctions

We will repair
Our awful ways
And lead us not into oblivion
Although we can’t pretend
We had no clue. Save us
Now—before
Amen.

It’s No Use, Ron DeSantis

Before Marie Kondo-ing
I had a pile of beads
in a drawer, cheap baubles
from Gay Prides past:
Chicago, where the crowd spilled
into Halsted, slowing the procession
to a crawl; New York,
where drag queens rode the floats
in headdresses three feet tall
just like Carnival; and Boston,
many years—the one
where Kevin was The Little Mermaid
on the Disney float—his costume
(which he stitched himself),
perfection and his makeup,
animated glam. That woman on the Harley
who dyed her mohawk rainbow
every year, and the time
Sally spotted her coworker
coming down the route—
she was surprised to see him
in a wine-colored corset.
No beads
from Lansing, Michigan,
my first Pride—not
a parade but a march
and what got thrown
at us were insults, curses, glares
from people holding signs
that said God hated us.
So let’s say gay
and everything else
there is to say.
I should’ve kept that pile
of shiny plastic beads—
not sure if it was joy
they sparked but something—
Kevin reclining up there
amongst the other Disney folk
his shimmery mermaid tail
sparkling in the morning sun.
Say it: gay.
All the livelong day.
She and he and them
and they: we
aren’t going back
inside the boxes.

Nancy Squires is a writer, lawyer, and freelance copy editor. Her creative nonfiction and poetry have appeared or are forthcoming in Dunes Review, Split Rock Review, and Blueline Magazine. She grew up, and currently resides, in Michigan.

Photo credit: Linda De Volder via a Creative Commons license.

A note from Writers Resist

Thank you for reading! If you appreciate creative resistance and would like to support it, you can make a small, medium or large donation to Writers Resist from our Give a Sawbuck page.

Crying in Texas

By M.R. Mandell

after “Kissing” by Dorianne Laux

Crying as they hope for blood,
crying as they flush the strips,
crying as they hide their bumps.
They are crying in bathroom stalls,
behind Sugarland’s Kroger store.
They are crying on Houston corners,
outside the boarded-up laundromat.
They are crying in each other’s arms,
at the Hampton Inn off Highway 10.
They are crying in their Walmart
uniforms, and their Ann Taylor
suits, in their Wrangler jeans,
and Zara boots. They are crying
alone, on the edge, salt burning
their skin. They are crying as doctors
turn them away. They are crying
harder than before,
before the pious Robes lied.
Crying as they hope for blood.

M.R. Mandell (she/her) is a poet living in Los Angeles. A transplant from Katy, Texas, she now lives by the beach with her muse, a Golden Retriever named Chester Blue (at her feet), and her longtime partner (by her side). You can find her work in Chill Subs, Boats Against the Current, The Final Girl Bulletin Board, Dorothy Parker’s Ashes, The Bloom, JAKE, Roi Fainéant, sage cigarettes, Anti-Heroin Chic, Stanchion Zine, Fine Print and others. She has works forthcoming in Drunk Monkeys, unstamatic (photo), and Olney Magazine (photos)

Photo credit: Ernesto Andrade via a Creative Commons license.

A note from Writers Resist

Thank you for reading! If you appreciate creative resistance and would like to support it, you can make a small, medium or large donation to Writers Resist from our Give a Sawbuck page.

Montana

By Jeremy Nathan Marks

For Zooey Zephyr

The big sky fifty-mile
vistas where the Greasy Grass runs
willowed valleys sweeping memory
from the water to the sky an arrow long
ago fired but whose arc is heard
surely this land can contain one woman
who says of our laws that while we pray
to remain humbled that blood in our palms
is a great glacier melting as though we were
the sun.

Jeremy Nathan Marks lives in the Great Lakes Region of Canada. He is the author of the collection, Of Fat Dogs & Amorous Insects (Alien Buddha, 2021). He holds two passports and does not maintain a social media presence.

Photo credit: Michael Bourgault on Unsplash.

A note from Writers Resist

Thank you for reading! If you appreciate creative resistance and would like to support it, you can make a small, medium or large donation to Writers Resist from our Give a Sawbuck page.

The first day of cherry season,

By Emily Hockaday

the sky becomes apocalyptic. The air is
wool in my throat. I wear a mask to pick
my daughter up from school. The fruit vendors
sit next to their colorful carts like the world
isn’t ending, and I suppose it isn’t for now
or it is just very slowly. And what did
the vendors do at Pompeii? Skewer meat
and sling it under an eerie sky. I bring home
3 lbs of the jeweled fruits. The sun
is the same bright pink behind the haze—
a Rainier cherry hanging above us.
My daughter is studying wildfires
at school, or perhaps just the lifecycles
of trees. She tells me forest fires can be good
for the Earth, right? Because redwood seeds
need fire to grow. Our hallway smells
of smoke from the skylight. We move inside
a yellow cloud. Even as the air quality
outside becomes a disaster, we make plans
to cap our stove’s gas line. I think of
my daughter’s new pink lungs.
I was reckless with mine, but hers
are pristine, and I want to preserve them.
I imagine her serotinous redwood cones
cracking in the heat. I hope that’s
what humanity will do too. Crack
so that seeds release. At night
I roll a towel against her window.
The fires can only burn for so long.

Emily Hockaday’s second collection, In a Body, an ecopoetry collection with themes of parenting, chronic illness, and grief, is coming out in October 2023 with Harbor Editions. Her debut, Naming the Ghost, was released with Cornerstone Press in 2022. She has received grants from the City Artists Corp, Cafe Royal Cultural Foundation, the De Groot Foundation, and the NYFA Queens Art Fund. She is a fellow with the Office Hours Poetry workshop and was a 2022 resident at Bethany Arts Community.

Photo credit: Denise Kitagawa via a Creative Commons license.

A note from Writers Resist

Thank you for reading! If you appreciate creative resistance and would like to support it, you can make a small, medium or large donation to Writers Resist from our Give a Sawbuck page.

The Lure of Socks on Warm Feet

By Amelia Díaz Ettinger

Never forget, September 20, 2017 and Maria

In my La-Z-Boy I sit, a Puerto Rican queen,
feet-up admiring my knitted socks.
I made these socks by knit and purl.
5,746 miles away from you
it is easy to say, I worship.

—And oh! How I preach this veneration,

the warmth of pale green light
the whiteness of sand
the contrast of ocean currents
the dwarf forest, and the crowded towns—

Yet, the truth can’t be changed—I left.
Abandon your Central Cordillera for the Blues,
an exchange of choice, not necessity.

I saw the hurricane while wearing star-banded socks,
glued to a television where electricity is constant,
three hot meals a day, sitting at home.
There were no cold cuts day after bloody day,

no Samaritan truck around the corner,
no spoils of mud, and expiring life
no kitchens without a roof
no bottled water in locked warehouses
the trees bare of leaves, not a single flower
petals can’t contain the hurts.

That September, out my window,
the meadow was full of lupines.
Purple or gold,
their curious heads sat one on top of another
a soft pyramid greening gently in the breeze.
The sight of those flowers,
a hurricane of shame.

Amelia Díaz Ettinger is a ‘Mexi-Rican,’ born in México but raised in Puerto Rico. As a BIPOC poet and writer, she has two full-length poetry books published; Learning to Love a Western Sky by Airlie Press, a bilingual poetry book, Speaking at a Time /Hablando a la Vez by Redbat Press, and a poetry chapbook, Fossils in a Red Flag by Finishing Line Press. Her poetry and short stories have appeared in literary journals and anthologies, and she has an MFA in creative writing from Eastern Oregon University. Presently, she and her partner reside in Summerville, Oregon, with two dogs, two cats, and too many chickens.

Photo credit: Carissa Bonham via a Creative Commons license.

A note from Writers Resist

Thank you for reading! If you appreciate creative resistance and would like to support it, you can make a small, medium or large donation to Writers Resist from our Give a Sawbuck page.

Ho’oponopono

By Kelsey D. Mahaffey

“In the book of the earth, it is written:
nothing can die.” – Mary Oliver

The morning after it happens
again—weary with all
the thoughtless use of prayer,
I return to the Native path—

for solace,
for remembrance,
for release—

But grief is a heavy hold.

Last night, I lay awake
searching each shooting
star—the moon a wound
the sky refused to heal.

And today, as usual, the sun
woke from bended knees—
rising to break
the long hush of night.

So many have left
to hunt for arms—
answers or anger,
who can say? All around,

there are islands of dew
gathering the spring fields,
birds busy with work—
children still to feed.

Forgive us.

Somehow, a worn cradle of
moon still rocks—heaving waves
upon the shore. A ground dust dances
in the merciful arms of wind.

Dearest Mother,
if we ever choose to weep,
let it be tuned to the depths
of your whale’s forgotten song.

Kelsey D. Mahaffey rests her head in Nashville, TN, but keeps half her heart in New Orleans. She needs music and nature like breath and water, and walks the earth barefoot beside three humans and a bow-legged cat. Her work can be seen or is forthcoming in: Eunoia Review, Cumberland River Review, The Sunlight Press, and “The Keeping Room” at Minerva Rising Press.

Photo credit: Debbie Hall, photographer and author, and Writers Resist poetry editor.

A note from Writers Resist

Thank you for reading! If you appreciate creative resistance and would like to support it, you can make a small, medium or large donation to Writers Resist from our Give a Sawbuck page.

Two Poems

[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”no” hundred_percent_height=”no” hundred_percent_height_scroll=”no” hundred_percent_height_center_content=”yes” equal_height_columns=”no” menu_anchor=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” background_color=”” background_image=”” background_position=”center center” background_repeat=”no-repeat” fade=”no” background_parallax=”none” enable_mobile=”no” parallax_speed=”0.3″ video_mp4=”” video_webm=”” video_ogv=”” video_url=”” video_aspect_ratio=”16:9″ video_loop=”yes” video_mute=”yes” video_preview_image=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” margin_top=”” margin_bottom=”” padding_top=”” padding_right=”” padding_bottom=”” padding_left=””][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ layout=”1_1″ spacing=”” center_content=”no” link=”” target=”_self” min_height=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” background_color=”” background_image=”” background_position=”left top” background_repeat=”no-repeat” hover_type=”none” border_size=”0″ border_color=”” border_style=”solid” border_position=”all” padding=”” dimension_margin=”” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”left” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_offset=”” last=”no”][fusion_text]

By Camille Lebel

[/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container][fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”no” hundred_percent_height=”no” hundred_percent_height_scroll=”no” hundred_percent_height_center_content=”yes” equal_height_columns=”no” menu_anchor=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” background_color=”” background_image=”” background_position=”center center” background_repeat=”no-repeat” fade=”no” background_parallax=”none” enable_mobile=”no” parallax_speed=”0.3″ video_mp4=”” video_webm=”” video_ogv=”” video_url=”” video_aspect_ratio=”16:9″ video_loop=”yes” video_mute=”yes” video_preview_image=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” margin_top=”” margin_bottom=”” padding_top=”” padding_right=”” padding_bottom=”” padding_left=””][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ layout=”1_2″ spacing=”” center_content=”no” link=”” target=”_self” min_height=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” background_color=”” background_image=”” background_position=”left top” background_repeat=”no-repeat” hover_type=”none” border_size=”0″ border_color=”” border_style=”solid” border_position=”all” padding=”” dimension_margin=”” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”left” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_offset=”” last=”no”][fusion_text]The First Time, Reclaimed

I choose
the boy who calls every night to discuss a million nothings, our voices hushing
when my mother picks up the line. Sitting behind me in history, watching footage
of the earth imploding, his finger traces the one-inch ribbon of skin exposed
between low-rise denim and a too-tight tee. That one feather touch infusing
recognition of the word, want.

Free
we stitch trust together with running words. We reject awkward Applebee’s dinners, school dances, roaring football games. We find ourselves on sun-soaked park benches, breathing being. We do not perform piety at Sunday morning services, seeking parental approval. From one another, we require no promises of forever to embrace the now.

Shameless
we make informed preparations. We walk the fluorescent-lit aisles of the corner pharmacy,
no repentant red-cheeked glow burning our faces. He asks for explicit consent again.
And again. The night I soak sorrows in Absolut oblivion is not the time. He knows
a lack of protest is not an invitation. Yes. is not always yes.

Vulnerable
when the time comes, we pretend no prowess. We ask questions and listen to answers.
Entwined fingers move together into uncertainty. We explore with intention the paths between flesh and bone. We laugh at frequent fumbles. Eyes bright, he looks at all I am.
I name my needs without hesitation. Less. More. No. Yes.

Gentle
is the joining. Not two falcons spiraling toward the earth, all adrenaline in panicked plummet.
More clematis exploring the garden arbor until deep violet abounds, boards and blooms reaching skyward to the sun. More steady drip of the leaky kitchen faucet. Soft beads
falling patient, steady, until the sink overflows.

Empowered
I have no regrets. My worth is neither the presence or absence of this. I do not pray
for absolution. No aching knots choking my throat. My soul remains snow-pure. Intact.
Content, I turn into the man still beside me, and we sleep. The following day, he remembers
to speak to me.

Vocabulary Lessons

My son renounces simple language.

Pleading for syllables, his toddler tongue fumbles; focused persistence finding purchase

between jaws, biting into hard consonants with pearly milk-teeth.

He is ravenous for vowels rolling soft across his lips. Furious to be denied another

sweet. Dismayed at skinned flesh of a knee fresh-scraped across pavement.

Twinkling stars? Luminescent. Tiny fingers tying shoes? Infuriated. Plastic dinosaurs

make way for ichthyosaurus, velociraptor, paleontologist: his future endeavors.

I revel in sharing the sweetest delicacies: compassion, community, restoration, justice.

But his palate must abide bitter pills and unsavory days; already

he learns to name villains: avarice, prejudice, ignorance, exclusion. Dropping

succulent words into his open mouth, I offer phonemic morsels on a platter

praying they become blades to chisel hard hearts, transform myopic visions, demolish

fear with a clear, crisp voice speaking life abundant.

[/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][fusion_builder_column type=”1_2″ layout=”1_2″ spacing=”” center_content=”no” link=”” target=”_self” min_height=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” background_color=”” background_image=”” background_position=”left top” background_repeat=”no-repeat” hover_type=”none” border_size=”0″ border_color=”” border_style=”solid” border_position=”all” padding=”” dimension_margin=”” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”left” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_offset=”” last=”no”][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container][fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”no” equal_height_columns=”no” menu_anchor=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” background_color=”” background_image=”” background_position=”center center” background_repeat=”no-repeat” fade=”no” background_parallax=”none” parallax_speed=”0.3″ video_mp4=”” video_webm=”” video_ogv=”” video_url=”” video_aspect_ratio=”16:9″ video_loop=”yes” video_mute=”yes” overlay_color=”” video_preview_image=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” padding_top=”” padding_bottom=”” padding_left=”” padding_right=””][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ layout=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” border_position=”all” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” center_content=”no” last=”no” min_height=”” hover_type=”none” link=””][fusion_text]

Camille Lebel, educator and mother to seven, lives on a small hobby farm outside of Memphis. She’s published or forthcoming in Hidden Peak Press, Rogue Agent Journal, Literary Mama, Sledgehammer Lit, Black Fox Literary Magazine, ONE ART, Inkwell, and more. She enjoys traveling, horse-whispering, and eating dessert first. She largely writes in the school car-line as a way to process special needs parenting, child loss, and religious trauma. You can find her on Instagram @clebelwords.

Photo credit: “Clematis.” by Free the Image via a Creative Commons license.

A note from Writers Resist

Thank you for reading! If you appreciate creative resistance and would like to support it, you can make a small, medium or large donation to Writers Resist from our Give a Sawbuck page.

[/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

The Rise of a Martyr

By Bänoo Zan

For Nika Shakarami 1

At your memorial 2
the Luri 3 song echoed on speakers:
“Mother, mother, it’s time for war . . .” 4

Today would have been your birthday

Forty days before
on the streets of Tehran
dead girl—living God—
burning your hijab—
darkness on fire—
your Derafsh-e Kavian 5—

leading the chants
fearless—undaunted—unstoppable—
you were the female Kaveh
un-lionized in epic

When the dictator’s men closed in
revolutionaries dispersed in all directions
as shooting stars in a galaxy—

and then, they were around you—
tall heavy men—
who beat and threw you into a car—

That night, your phone was disconnected
all your photos and videos—
dances and singing—gone

Today would have been your birthday

The search started in
hospitals, prisons, morgues—

Days after, your mother received a call
“The kid was in our custody for a week
Revolutionary Guards wanted to
s l o w l y interrogate her—
After we built the case file
she was transferred to Evin prison.”

Then “The Call” came—
the family summoned to identify your body—

Today would have been your birthday

At your funeral, hundreds were waiting for
your coffin—that never arrived—

Your lifeless body kidnapped—
buried in some distant place—
But the uprising was where
the people were

At your tomb
that was not your tomb
your mother held up your photo—
no tears in her eyes:

Today would have been your birthday—
but is now your burial day—

Your martyrdom mobarak 6, Nika!
Your birthday mobarak!

Bänoo Zan is a poet, librettist, translator, teacher, editor and poetry curator, with more than 250 published poems and poetry-related pieces as well as three books, including Songs of Exile and Letters to My Father. She is the founder of Shab-e She’r (Poetry Night), Canada’s most diverse poetry reading and open mic series (inception: 2012), a brave space that bridges the gap between communities of poets from different ethnicities, nationalities, religions (or lack thereof), ages, genders, sexual orientations, disabilities, poetic styles, voices, and visions. Bänoo is the Writer-in-Residence at the University of Alberta, Canada, September 2022-May 2023.

Photo credit: val & Julien noé via a Creative Commons license.

[1] Sixteen-year-old protestor in the ongoing women’s revolution in Iran killed on 20 September 2022

[2] Chehelom, the 40^th, referring to the 40^th day after someone is buried, an important time in the mourning cycle for a person

[3] Pertaining to Lorestan or Luristan province, Iran

[4] دایه دایه وقت جنگه

[5] Iranian mythology: the standard of the Persian blacksmith Kaveh who led a popular uprising against the foreign demon-like ruler Zahhak, one of the stories versified in the epic Shahnameh, The Book of Kings, by Ferdowsi.

[6] Blessed

A note from Writers Resist

Thank you for reading! If you appreciate creative resistance and would like to support it, you can make a small, medium or large donation to Writers Resist from our Give a Sawbuck page.

The Revolution Is Wherever We Are

By Andrea Dulanto

Yes, I wore the thrift store T-shirts, the torn fishnets,
but I was no riot grrrl.

I was already in my twenties when I read about riot grrrls in Newsweek,
too old to write manifestoes on my body.

No, it was more like I was too afraid of music that gets into all of your nerves
(too loud, too punk, too queer)
visceral.

Despite my sincere lesbian fuck you to everything,
I was secure in the mainstream
or the alternative version of the mainstream.

Dutiful daughter
of conservative South American parents from Argentina and Peru,
raised to pass for/present as white
to be the middle-class Catholic school girl from the gated Miami suburbs
raised to be wary of all that threatens the fabric
of the supermarket and the mall,
the go to work, go to bed at a decent time of night
lifestyle.

raised to be a 1950s white middle-class housewife

raised to believe in American Top 40,
Casey Kasem

I was kept inside with all the safe music, safe as bleach,
nothing safer than strong chemicals to take away the dirt and screams of life.

II.

Christmas 2012, alone in my friend’s living room,
I watch indie films, documentaries
& for the first time, Portlandia.

At 42 years old,
I consider moving to Portland.

But what’s in Portland?

Same lawns, same garage.

I watch every Sleater-Kinney video on YouTube.

Carrie Brownstein is no longer a young young girl playing guitar to kids in record stores

she’s mature, polished
styled

she wears red lipstick

her house is a photo in fashion magazines
hardwood floors, Mad Men furniture.

I am older than Carrie Brownstein,
and I am listening to Sleater-Kinney as if I was 15.

O the red red lipstick

all the songs
I didn’t know.

III.

onstage
Carrie sways and kicks and thrusts her hips over to Corin
their body language, part of their music, their performance
she rests her head on Corin’s shoulder
another level of punk
another level of not caring what anyone else thinks

every queer heart
open (s)

IV.

no revolution in the suburbs

but the revolution
is wherever we are

alone in your friend’s living room
listening to Dig Me Out

a housewife
leaving home

Andrea Dulanto is a Latinx queer writer. Publications include Bending Genres, Entropy, FreezeRay Poetry, peculiar, SWWIM Every Day, Berkeley Poetry Review, Court Green, and others.

Photo credit: “Revolution and LGBT rights” by Nagarjun via a Creative Commons license.

A note from Writers Resist

Thank you for reading! If you appreciate creative resistance and would like to support it, you can make a small, medium or large donation to Writers Resist from our Give a Sawbuck page.

Birthday Wishes

By Phoenix Ning

Sixteen-year-old person of color desires escape from this inferno
where dark-skinned individuals burn, and alabaster spectators
cheer from the sidelines, popping confetti guns and feeding
oil to ancient flames while claiming to be long-awaited saviors.

Eighteen-year-old student desires world history classes with curriculums
that celebrate African kingdoms, Indigenous empires, and South Asian cultures;
textbooks that condemn armor-clad imperialists stripping gowns of freedom;
articles that honor revolutionaries whose empty pockets did not silence their shouting.

Twenty-three-year-old woman desires to shatter the chains created
by men who think all girls are moons trapped by their gravity,
males who believe themselves to be suns instilling life into
fragile females who must offer their bodies as tokens of gratitude.

Twenty-year-old lesbian desires to taste the sweet wine of love
and cavort in inebriated glory with the woman whose gentle touch
sparks wildfires in her heart frozen by acerbic remarks fired by toxic relatives
when she turns her head away from men and smiles at her rough-hewn ladylove.

Phoenix Ning is a twenty-year-old Chinese writer of sapphic antiheroines and queer found families. She is currently a senior studying human-computer interaction. When not writing, she can be found watching C-Dramas and penning raps. A fierce advocate of diversity in media, she hopes that her audience will feel empowered after reading her words or listening to her songs. Learn more at ladyphoenixning.com.

Image credit: Jennifer Rakoczy via a Creative Common license.

A note from Writers Resist

Thank you for reading! If you appreciate creative resistance and would like to support it, you can make a small, medium or large donation to Writers Resist from our Give a Sawbuck page.