“Other people’s comfort keeps me up at night”¹ by Clara B. Jones

I am not a silent poet

I Art a life
of ham-hocks and cornbread.

I Art Pope.L
and Côte d’Azure.

I Art Brooklyn
near Junior’s®.

I Art on the backs of slaves
and the fields of Appomattox.

I Art Phyllis Wheatley
and global warming.

I Art Newark’s ecosystem
and Chicago’s coral reef.

I Art high fashion
and blue eyes.

I Art Armani®
at Paris Fashion Week.

I Art Lobster Thermidor
and Walmart®.

I Art Billie Holiday
and hedge funds.

Trump Arts himself
and he is Arting.

¹Morgan Parker (2015)

Clara B. Jones is a retired scientist, currently practicing poetry in Silver Spring, MD (USA). As a woman of color, she writes about the “performance” of identity & power & conducts research on experimental poetry & radical publishing. Clara is author of three chapbooks, & her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in numerous venues.

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a quiet man by Alan Corkish

I am not a silent poet

i do not like a quiet man
never trust them, seldom can
the thoughts that they refuse to speak
are suspect, hateful, grim or bleak
inside their heads, chained and secure
polluted thoughts; coldly impure
pace in shame, afraid to reveal
the rottenness which they conceal
within this tainted unripe cell
ignorant half-framed fears dwell
here walks the immigrant silently accused
the wife who cowers cursed and abused
the lazy idle labour-shirker
who unlike him is not a ‘worker’
the sons and daughters, brains washed white
with ‘Jesus’ or some other shite
the striker at the factory gates
is fighting for everything he hates
this quiet man observes and judges
his partial-sight is stained with fudges…

so i do not like a quiet man
never trust them, seldom can
their heads are stuffed with jealous violence
…the greatest sin on earth is silence

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