Poetry Corner
Identity Syntax
Ayomide Bayowa
A child has more than a language baptism
after its olive-wobble sentences and spit bubbles.
My mother’s tongue is the same subway to Pennsylvania.
Bad English was a suitcase she came with to the diaspora.
Should a US missile go missing, it would be a floss in between
her canines. Her peninsula is belted to the root of her family tree.
Pearls of wisdom are traditional black rubbers melting her
hairstyle. Most times, I get nauseous from the hastes of migrating
train lights and whirlpool turn to the directions of exile compasses.
When the whiteness of everything turns a monarchy glove claiming
my teardrops, my mother quits her appointment with her dentist to
help respell, “N*gga is a honey wrap every human wants to tongue.”
Nothing
Mariana Dominguez Rodriguez
Tuning in with the chirping birds that wake you up at sunrise
Leaning your head back to gaze at the cloudless, blue sky
Contemplating your favorite song as you digest each lyric
Meeting a loved one and embracing the silence in their company
Floating, the water in your ears muffling in and out as it guides your motionless body adrift
Closing your book and gasping into the air as you process the fictional tale
Freeing your straight posture as you sigh out the fullness in your stomach
Nestling into a spikey yet silky grass bed as you follow the clouds and mold them into shapes
Shuffling your feet into the cushiony sand as the waves wash over
Driving with no destination
Dancing to your own off-tune cover of a song
Adjusting your eyes to the dancing flames of the fireplace
Bathing in the dark as Epsom salts and bath bombs fizzle across your skin
Whispering your darkest secrets and deepest regrets to the glistening moon
Even nothing is something
Writer’s Block
Cristina Pincente
I raise my sword with the blackest ink,
On a quest to write a poem that doesn’t stink.
I face the danger of an austere deadline,
Let me tell you how it’s going while I still have the time.
I try to write like Percy Bysshe Shelley,
But my courage rumbles. I sense it in my belly.
I am not as heroic as Wordsworth, Keats, or Byron,
I love to read poetry, but to write it is foreign.
I admire them all, from Dr. Seuss to William Shakespeare,
They are my inspiration and the reason I came here.
So here I sit, writing this poem
I’ll finish just in time. I’ll show ‘em!
