The Shine Journal

 

 

Zimbabwe (aka Mozambique & Darfur)

 

 

 

 

Photo by:Flávio Takemoto

 

 

 

From shimmering oil

of ebony still

 

will come flailing of limbs

will come hacking, quick slashing

 

of hands now untied

tattooing no pattern

 

not even a maze

depriving gray walls of their stone

 

will come spittle

wild churning rivers

 

agush from slack jaws

of blanching gray hounds

 

till one day at dawn

will come quiet

 

 

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Caseworker: Yams and Plantain

 

 

         Cabrini-Green Housing Project

Chicago

 

 

Image by Rodolfo Clix

 

 

 

 

 

Bienvenido’s comin’ over,

says his wife,

to ‘splain me

 

why the kids

have got no rice,

no beans,

 

how the landlord’s

shovin’ notes beneath

the door again.

 

In Puerto Rico Bienvenido

dug up yams,

was paid in plantain,

 

came over here,

brought his wife,

then his kids.

 

First New York,

then Chicago,

gave up yams,

 

gave up plantain,

just to drum

and make a living.

 

 

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Country Cafeteria

 

            in Shelby County, Illinois, 1989

 

 

 

Photo by: Nico Van Der Merwe

 

 

 

 

The two weeks

I spent in that small town

on assignment, I saw no blacks

except for two older women

regal in every way,

hair coifed in silver gray,

working in the Country Cafeteria.

They walked like pastors’ wives

as they bused their 20 tables.

White badges on their uniforms

announced in red their names,

their years of service.

They never said a word,

not even to each other.

They just took the cups and plates away

and wiped oil tablecloths pristine.

I took three meals a day in silence there,

the only place in town to eat.

I was the stranger in a suit and tie,

a city weed among stout farmers in old coveralls

who came to town each day to note 

“no rain yet” and “the corn is dyin’.”

Before each meal instead of saying Grace,

I wanted to stand and ask these ladies

as they bowed before the clutter on their tables:

If you have worked here all these years,

and lived in this town also,

where in the Name of God,

other than at home or church,

are you free to talk or laugh or sing

or clap your hands in emancipation?

 

 

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BIO: I have worked as an editor for The Chicago Sun-Times,  Loyola University Press, McDonnell Douglas Corporation (now  Boeing), and Washington University in St. Louis. Other places where his work has been published are: The Wisconsin  Review, Revival (Ireland), The Kansas Quarterly, Commonweal, The Beloit Poetry Journal, The Shine Journal,The Christian Science Monitor, The Chicago Sunday Tribune Magazine,  and others.

 

I've returned to writing in retirement and have sent out some new  stuff and have been lucky enough to have about 60 poems accepted in a variety of print and online publications.