Before going to the Barbershop
By Gabriel RamirezI gotta call my barber Eric to
let him know I’m pullin’ up. Yo hello?
Yea yea who this? ahhhh yo what up homie?
How you been kid?
Search Results
Ode to the Black Men Playing Lil’ Jon Outside the Waterfront Safeway
By Alexa PatrickHeads heavy with 1’s and 2’s,
they perch outside the grocery,
sucking teeth at new neighbors
rushing home with La Croix boxes,
neighbors who don’t make eye contact,
The Silver Screen Asks, “What’s Up Danger?” After We Enter
By Steven Leyvaa lobby shaped like a yawn, lined with lodestone
leftover from making the marquee. The congress
of picture shows and pulp flicks it seems
named this movie house, the Senator.
saturday afternoon
By Kenneth Carroll IIIwe ride in on the red line
our laces coming undone as we float over fair gates
until we fall into a night
ripe
with everything our tongues have been yearning for
God or a Lottery Ticket in a Black Woman’s Purse
By Angelique PalmerTrying to find faith
in a world that is slowly killing me and blaming me for why they can’t do it right
or why survival might be the only thing in the way of enjoying life
Say-So
By Cherryl T. Cooley=POET, I believe you [stop] Mean well [stop] Do well [stop] Bring teeth’s teeth for your bite [stop] Make your ditties and dirges hum [stop]
excerpt from “Nation Induced Disorder”
By Mahogany L. Browneif my mother were ever convicted for her addiction like my father I wonder
who I would be robbing now
the data from the Fragile Families Study say
my kind of survival displays more behavioral problems
& early juvenile delinquencies
My Dead
By Arisa WhiteEverybody she died another is dead everybody
dead and AIDS of AIDS my dead she is
there are more I know with the same story hiding
lips stitched hesitant to speak of someone you knew
water
By Lauren Mayme and all of my selves
we run like we’ve been here before
like we know what’s waiting here
and it's nothing
nothing for us
anyway
how to make her stay
By Shauna M. Morgantell her the new fragrance is nice but she doesn’t have to bathe in it
assert that sarcasm is a talent
tell her that her salwar or lappa is weird and take her to the mall for khakis
do so until she stops wearing that colorful garb