Mitchell L. H. Douglas at the InKY Reading Series (by InKYReadingSeries)
Yes Mitch is a Cave Canem fellow. Give to CC http://www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/cavecanem-fellows2012/cavecanemfellowsfundraising
Me reading the poem ‘modulation’ from my book Hellfightin’. Find out more about the book and get your copy at http://www.makbandele.com/buy-hellfightin
essay by my girl Kamilah Aisha Moon
HEALTH: It’s Not The Load That Breaks You Down; It’s The Way You Carry It > The Feminist Wire
by makalani bandele
“…you studied his face because you couldn’t see his hands. he did everything but play square…”
-—Stewart Johnson
he begins with a leave me alone, squint-eyed, i’m gone baby gone and i might not ever come back home scowl like the crossroad pimp/preacher papa legba after a big swig of rum. eyes amplify and ice over in coldness of the rhythm. mouth agape, air around him jumping with perspiration, ashe, and exhalation of dead alive dancing. somewhere between coming around and going around, at the exact point where the sun conjuncts neptune, and he only knows where the one is; he opens his left eye udjat, digs how deep into this righteousness you is, and grins.
-—from Hellfightin’ (Willow Books 2011)
by Randall Horton
unlike venice this is not a water city, aesthetic
lakes accent woodlands too distant to color.
the skyline opens gray, dragonflies break
fast over the water’s surface. one solemn face
looking back into a woman’s reflection. sometimes
bodies transparent themselves. the woman
graven but more by gravity’s dead weight. down
& through ravines a lone raven sings. graffiti
scribbled on the moving train out of focus,
the woman blinks twice to see herself clearer
by the prosthetic arm attached below elbow.
her hand grazes over an outline to brush away
wind blowing hair into sight, irises burned
by the sun; it was hung in the sky before noon.
she could not google nor question by internet,
erratic discovery should be left to imagination.
by makalani bandele
sidney bechet bought an old, beat-up soprano saxophone, when it is difficult enough to play one in tune. he was gallant like that; when he was want, he planted petite fleur in quiet imaginations. similar to the way he might enter a blossom, wrap himself in the bouquet, buzz his malediction, and retreat to paris, a pilgrim sets out on a journey to find her holy place, an ice cube wanders discursively along an aqueous path till it has fully realized new liquid form; this i am sure of, if only because i am myself a b7 minor, sanctum, and slowly melting. what line is not after another? what note either in a lucent solo? railroad tracks run from east coast to west coast and back, the train takes the tramp wherever she wants to go. at some point she will find herself along the banks of the ohio in a river city looking for lost treasure— a gold medal tossed into the great waterway by an ex-patriot. the lilies in this city have no sweet odor for they are made iron, and rust with time. the meter also changes— it is in the variation of timing and stress that a feel is created that gets the whole storyville jumping. and while the cathouse wholly throbs with vice, poets make the polite music of the middle class. you can make poetry whorish, but you can’t make it unpopular. a breeze stumbles in on this gruesome scene and pets the wilting yellow iris in a vase. she is a flower of basin street, her occupation is to be known, and known well. why do we try so hard to be beautiful, when we already are? he was rough, and before she knew it was all over, her little flower was gone.
-published in The Louisville Review, Special Kentucky Issue, 2012. Nominated for a Pushcart Prize 2012
