I am an American

 

A group of poems offered by the poets to be a part of the "I Am An American" show at Cove St. Arts, Portland, Maine. 

What is the face of America

granite, limestone, rock face

upthrust delta rich

soil and deep forest

swift rivers flowing

deep ice and first peoples

where are the borders

mountain, river, glacier's edge

everything moving

wind water night sky stars

great flocks flying

great schools swimming

great herds moving

crossing, crossing

touching the edge of ice

seeds on the breeze

put your roots down and

you are welcome here

Gary Lawless

*****************************

Ten Haiku

1

The Earth-wide waste dump

is half full

half empty

2

The chain saw

to the giant trunk of the tree

nothing lasts

3

If there is smoke

there is a gun

or a barbecue

4

I am alone in the basement

panting on the treadmill

how vast this country

5

Driving on I-95

I think how the Mississippi River

flows only in one direction

6

Spring 2019

all the cherry trees blossomed

even those around the White House

7

From the top of the Washington Monument

I see the capital city from all directions

my hand touches the air

8

Silk Road Silk Road

everybody is talking about the Silk Road

caterpillar go in your cocoon

9

It may take a deluge

for my house to float

toward your house

10

There is light

at the end of the tunnel

of hope

Sharif Elmusa

*****************************

I Am An Arab American

Because I tend the fig tree as earnestly as the dogwood and the pine

Because nutmeg and anise, cumin and cardamom inhabit my shelves and senses

Because I make both baklava and blueberry pie for my family

Because melodies of the oud and guitar dwell in my ears

Because poems by Mahmoud Darwish and Lucille Clifton are my daily bread

Because I am awed by the blueness of the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea

Because I see Gaza when a protester raises a fist in Ferguson

Because I've touched the splendor of a brown child in my womb

Because I write in languages that flow in opposite directions

Because Arabic and English are both my touchstones

Because my name is unfamiliar to some and a comforting word to others

Because I grow jasmine to conjure the fragrance of my first home

Because to me, the olive tree is an ancestor, a food source, a healer

Because my Palestinian parents were refugees and I am an immigrant

Because my children see more than one world, inherit stories that astonish

Because I want to protect the purple mountains and shining seas everywhere

Because I know that everything we decide now affects the next seven generations

Zeina Azzam

**********************************

I am an American. 

Today, not someday.

Inserting my authentic African self in every city, every state, and every history book that

has been written.

I am an American.

Not because I was born here.

But because my heart, my soul, my sorrows, and my future promises are buried deep

down into the soil and concrete of this nation.

Yes, I am an American.

Not because I speak English.

But because my tongue knows how to roar in many languages,

knows how to comprehend, read, and rewrite the stories that haven't been written.

I am an American.

Not because I drink my morning coffee with a little cream but because I drink it dark,

just like how I was taught in the motherland.

With every sip I take tasting the bitterness of my experiences.

I am an American.

Not because I take the subway to my place of work, but because I have walked miles on

stones to find my final destination that I call home.

I am an American.

Not because I wear a T-shirt and pants but because I wear my Abaya and hijab proudly

with no fear.

Not sitting at the dining room table or eating from one plate, it's the floor in the center

of our living room that has become our threshold.

Our Thanksgiving meal does not include turkey, mashed potatoes with gravy, but expect

Fufu and plantains to be at the center of our meal.

I am an American not because my father fought in the Civil War that eventually ended

slavery,

but because he, I, and many others still have cut open wounds with no medication or a

plan for a renewal healing.

My eyes cry for my America while my feet dance to my African beats.

Holding on to home on the tip of my tongue.

Sewing this diverse piece of fabric of my many identities,

leaving each needle to write its own story.

I am an American.

Ekhlas Ahmed

***********************************

DOLMA

Whole Food dolma, I explain, is simply

grapeleaves rolled with rice, a paradox

oilysmooth, lemontart, crisp stone

mountains wrapped in viridescent fields

breeze leavened, the hot summer days.

I cannot make them see

my great-grandmother's hands,

roadside gathering, mason jars filling

browngreen leaves like pondlilies

underwater strata, layers of lost growth.

How once, even my grandmother canned

acorn squash, rich earth of her own garden

tomato vine, hidden arbor. How once,

there were blueberries wild on Federal Hill

my father picked them as a child, his favorite

memory, how morning tasted on the backporch

brightknit like a rainbow afghan and I

leave all these things on my tongue

unspoken, taste the dolma somewoman,

somewhere, has made.

Katherine Hagopian Berry

*********************************

10/30/18

For Adrienne Rich

You tell us that we have

the drive/to connect. The dream of a common language.

That  No one sleeps in this room without/the dream of a common language

But how do you dream

of a common language

when you are surrounded 

by faces that do not know you?

There are those who

have been in this room for a lifetime.

Who dream stories in languages

that aren't written down

in this place.

I once heard a story about a man with dementia who walked into an industrial bread mixer.

No grand metaphor here, just a man

dazed/ and/ confused.

Lost his way.

Walked through a door and a door and a door and off a ledge.

Found himself trapped - in a concave well - mixed in with remnants

yeast/ and/ flour.

Can you imagine?

The smoothness of the walls.

The futility of motion.

The fear giving way to surrender.

And so, as the story goes, he tired and lay still

at the bottom of the basin

in the fetal position.

This is how they found him - covered in white

fetal/ and/ flour.

How could he explain his journey?

What led him to leave his home

to walk, through a door and a door and a door?

What language to describe what compelled him?

How does he respond to the why? To the how?

     How can we name a common language that makes him intelligible to these faces that

     surround him?

     How do I wrap my tongue around that, Adrienne?

You tell us that     Language cannot do everything.

You tell us that     No one lives in this room/ without confronting the whiteness of the wall

/ behind the poems.

For a moment

think of whiteness

and think of

walls.

For a moment

think of other journeys.

think of other migrations.

of collective movement.

of diaspora.

Know that migration is beautiful.

Migration is human.

Migration is animal.

Hold in your mind a tapestry.

Know that behind the poetry of promise

is something ominous

barbs/ and/ teeth

that will shred the tapestry

reconfigure it into a new likeness

translate it beyond recognition

that will scoff at dreams

will deny common language

will bark out

how/ and/ why

will

bruise/

and/

break.

I cannot conjure a common language that will save us.

I don't know what to tell you, Adrienne.

Samaa Abdurraqib

******************************************************

guantanamo

american flags from red wounds

blue bruises   shredded pulp

of human flesh

people torn from ancestral lands

for brown skin   blankets

of blood   bouquets

of ripped muscle

stomped light

crushed back...broken bones

blown up

balloon hands

heads drowned   chained to cold

concrete   starved & suffocated   forced

to take drugs   american citizens safe

comfortable   from the agony

& murder

of brown people

Lisa Panepinto

**********************************

I AM AN AMERICAN (VETERAN OF THE AMERICAN WAR IN VIET NAM)

1.

Low Intensity Warfare (1985)

Up here

we're working up

this winter's wood

Down there

below the Rio

below the Durangoes

in the fruit section

of our global IGA

deep in the sweet underbelly 

of America

Down there

we're stacking up

the bodies

Up here

fall is in the air

the mornings are crisp and clear

the leaves die beautifully

in earth browns

translucent yellows

blood reds

Down there

young peasants

are slipping into puddles

of mangled skin

Down there

Willie Peter*

is hard at work

Down there

the morning air

smells of burning flesh

Up here

business

is as usual

* "Willie Peter" is army slang for white phosphorous

2.

Prometheus Again  (1976)

When the infantry ran into trouble, they'd call on the artillery to "bring fire down on such-and-such coordinates"

He once brought fire down

on some village children

in that latest crazy forgotten war

of ours

Now he's come home

to spend his days asleep

beneath newspapers of inconsequence

to spend his nights chained

against our trash cans

drunk on

Ripple

Muscatel

Thunderbird

Retching our guts up

into the relentless dawn

3.

Unexploded Ordnance: A Ballad (2007)

for Chuck Searcy and the thousands of Vietnamese who have labored off and on since 1975, working to undo what we have done

So I was maybe all of twenty-one

when they whipped me

into some kind of soul-less shape

Yet another one of America's

weeping mother's sons

sent forth into this world

to raze, pillage, and rape

And now it's coming on

to another Christmas Eve

and the songs of joy and peace

fill up our little town

How I ask myself

could I possibly believe

I could do what I did

and not reap what I had sown

In that land far away

from what I call home

a grandfather leads

his granddaughter by the hand

into a field where we did

what had to be done

They trip into a searing heat

brighter than a thousand suns.

Doug Rawlings

7/15th Artillery

Vietnam 1969-1970

**************************************

I embrace colder than a witch's tit.

New Year's Eve 2017

The predator-elect stated, after comments were made that his 14 cabinet appointees are collectively worth as much as the "bottom" one third of the US population,

"What's wrong with Rich, isn't that what we want?"

I am here to say I embrace

colder than a witch's tit

hoar frost, bitch, dyke,

the entire list of Samantha Bee's vagina monologue.

I embrace squaw mountain, Nasty woman, man hater

I embrace every pejorative name for women,

from mother in law to Indira Gandhi, Margaret Thatcher,

I embrace them in every language for the 3.5 billion women on the planet

I am here to say

We are not backing down,

you can call us whatever, we aren't biting that bait

if you think calling us names will make us think we aren't woman enough,

good enough, smart enough, tough enough sweet enough sexy enough

man enough to play the game and join the club, you're wrong.

Hillary did that, and if she can't break the misogyny wall

if she can't win with 3,000,000 more votes

none of us can.

I am here to say

we are going back to our radical roots,

the ones we never left

we don't want to join the club,

the pistol, the rifle, the drone, the bomb.

We don't want the weapons glorified in the shape of your penis

wreaking havoc and destruction over and over again ad nauseum

We don't want to be rich-queen,

we want none of us to be poor,

and clean water.

I am here to say I am done with

the glorification of the father

the adoration of the son, whatever you call them

I am so over the male narrative, the hero and the golden fleece,

I am so done with boys will be boys.

I am here to say

I totally embrace the mother

and celebrate the daughters

the people who make life happen every sunrise every sunset,

all that unpaid labor

who give birth, get food on the table, laundry done,

who nurse, teach languages, manners,

the women who do all the work at churches, nursing homes hospitals schools

while a few men at the top push papers and a few men off to the side at the

bottom push brooms and fix the washing machines

I embrace the mother goddess,

who has no name in patriarchy

I embrace the 101 names of the mother

the billions of nameless daughters.

And for any men squirming in the audience

I am over White supremacy too,

I reap the benefits of institutionalized racism,

absolutely have access to more resources easier,

cause I'm white.

Being, oh gee, uncomfortable cause we get called out on privilege,

Buck up, become men against patriarchy, white people against racism

I am here to say I am totally over

not acknowledging, recognizing,

this country's wealth was built on

the labor and legacy of black people

being enslaved by white people,

there is no poetry in that

or that our glorious first black president

wasn't obstructed at every point because he was black.

and even he...can and did last week address the nation, saying

"we didn't take the territory of our enemies after the wars, we helped

rebuild."

Completely

leaving out that we took a continent

and nearly annihilated its first people

ain't no poetry in that.

I am here to embrace Nasty woman, Code Pink, One Billion Rising,

Veterans for Peace, Black Lives Matter, Seed Savers, Greenpeace -

I am here to embrace disarmament, Standing Rock.

I am here being

embraced by the Mother,

The Earth, our planet,

that force of nature who gives us the whole kit and kaboodle

every sunrise, every sunset

I don't want a gold throne, to be Queen,

I want no one to be poor and

clean water, clean water...clean air

for the great and glorious diversity

of all living beings

who make my world

So so Rich.

Karin Spitfire

*************************

WORD FOR THE DAY:

hubris.

Greek hu- (in compound hubris) violence, outrage, insolence

+

Latin brutus- (suffix) heavy, unwieldy, dull, stupid, brutish

"pride goeth before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall"

(Book of Proverbs, 16:18)

pride that blinds/ a committer of hubris acts in foolish ways that belie common sense

often associated w/lack of humility; also ignorance

as for pleasure in hubris, its cause is this:

naive men think by ill-treating others

they make superiority their own.

in ancient Greece, hubris was outrage, actions that violated

the natural order,

sometimes for gratification of the abuser

a crime at least from the time of Solon

it indicates overestimation of one's own accomplishments,

lost contact w/normal reality

When the rich or young men think they are better than others they are

hubristic.

hubris lusts for victory not reconciliation

General George Armstrong Custer's decisions in the Battle of the Little Big Horn illustrate

hubris as history:

"Where did all those damned Indians come from?"

asked Custer

or,

as the incumbent president cruises along in his motorcade surrounded by throngs of

adoring supporters, he rasps to the Cabinet Secretary seated beside him,

"Incredible isn't it? After this I could never return to ordering windows.

It would be so boring."

Eero Ruuttila

*******************************************

Sir Thomas's Baptismal Rite on the 5th of July (he was born on the 4th):

Soliloquy from a homeless encampment on the Kennebec River

" Oh and how the dark forces celebrated with

bombs offending the sweet night air, and frightening

the fauna, whose tender steps hurried

to dens to hide from the sulfurous wind. The lights

of war as if boasting that death can assume

yonder rainbow's gentle arc, and the epicurean

crowds in a bacchanalian feast of short haggis, small

bread and mead looked with glee upon this

colored display of fallen innocent ones.

Are we to gaze upon this hour

of our discontent idly whilst the

hounds of hell's dominion smiled

upon by Mars himself decimate

the innocent blush of young lovers

on this plane?

Having not known a kiss from their

beloved, so saddened the crushed

rose upon the hand of darkness where

even Odin is bruised and dug

in the rib as to not allow an unkindness

of ravens to fly the night sky.

Is it the condiment that resembles blood that

makes them thirst for hardship against not their own.

Bloodlust inspired by what they eat, making it possible

for genocidal tendencies towards Native Americans and

putting Africans to slavery, and closing borders to

immigrants, and spending as Midas bringing some

fool's gold to the dark tendencies of their consciousness.

Or perhaps the pickled condiment is the fiend spread

upon their short haggis; does it intimate a

sweet relish for suffering, giving feasts whilst our defeated

army lay in this forest with tattered tents and clothes ill fit.

Methinks it is the mead, however. The sweet elixir of

Falstaff that creates from blank canvas masterpieces

of life's mundane moments, that shows no talent beyond

what a fond moment can be in unrivaled beauty when

articulated with unencumbered mind.

Oh what a day this is, good sir!

What day breaks across the hills, sweet Silas?"

"It is July 5th, sir."

"Come, dear friend, we have only moments before the day

steals our good nature and we become again a huddled mass

of tormented memories unfit for angels, children of

humanity's brutality and apathy."

Thomas leads the community of the homeless and baptizes

in the river. Next week a caseworker will show up and try

to convince Thomas to take medication and to come away

from the forest to live in relative comfort.

His answer is always the same:

"Who shall guard the ramparts of palatine dreams of

righteousness, before innocence is stolen yet again

and the very night air lay heavy with sulfuric wind..."

Jason Grundstrom-Whitney