ETS

ECLECTIC TRUTH
representing
2015
POETRY SLAM TEAM ANTHOLOGY
BATON ROUGE at the
NATIONAL
POETRY SLAM IN OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA
NEXT LEFT PRESS ASCENSION, LA


Eclectic Truth Poetry Slam Team Anthology 2015
Printed in the United States ofAmerica Next Left Press
Geismar, LA 70734
“Rape Prevention Potluck”, “The Gutting” & “Alone In A Bathroom” Copyright © 2015 Rebecca Cooper. “Everything is A-Okay-L-A-H-O-M-A”, “The Eye of the Storm” & “Chained to a Tree” Copyright © 2015 William Brian Sain. “Questioning God”, “Fracture” & “Don’t Mind the Rust” Copyright © 2015 Jim Dulin. “For The Unborn Black Boys”, “5th Grade in the Lunchroom” & “Grits” Copyright © 2015 Rodrick Minor.
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereofmay not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations for either a book review or promotion.
Author Photos: Reminisce Photography by Leslie D. Rose
Layout & Design by Geoff Munsterman [email protected]
To Book a Performance or More Information Contact: @xxxxxxxx.com


CONTENTS
Foreword by Rose & Dallagiacomo v
Rape Prevention Potluck 1 The Gutting 2 Alone In A Bathroom 4 Everything is A-Okay-L-A-H-O-M-A 7 The Eye of the Storm 9
Chained to a Tree 12 Questioning God 15 Fracture 17 Don’t Mind the Rust 20 For The Unborn Black Boys 23 5th Grade in the Lunchroom 25 Grits 28




FOREWORD
In Baton Rouge, we have so many different stories. This year’s slam team is an exemplary look at the vast spectrum of poets we foster at our weekly readings.!What a gift, to have these voices side-by-side in one anthology; Red dirt and Mississippi mud, Rustbelt and Redwoods. In these poems the reader takes a journey through each region of the country and is humbly offered a look into the people that this country makes. The joyous, devastating, complicated lives of some of the storytellers in our city.!
The poets of the Eclectic Truth slam scene place a high premium on craft and integrity in their writing. The exciting thing about this year's team is how much they vary in years of experience, but all bring a wealth of skill to the table. We look forward to guiding the 2015 team to their highest capacity, which is pretty ambitious seeing that these poets have an unlimited amount of talent.
Donney Rose & Desireé Dallagiacomo Coaches, 2015 Eclectic Truth Poetry Slam Team
v


Beck Cooper is a New Orleans-based spoken word artist and two-time member of the Baton Rouge National Poetry Slam Team. Her work has been featured on Button Poetry and Upworthy. She is the Operations Director for the Lower Ninth Ward Living Museum.


BECK COOPER
RAPE PREVENTION POTLUCK
It has been brought to my attention by The Man With All The Answers that I am too fat to be raped.
Said none would dare lie with me in all my morbidity. If a man donates his body to the inside of mine,
I should just be grateful.
Said I could smother any man beneath my fat folds. If a man makes it out of my body alive,
I must have consented.
Fat girls are all green light—never say no. Not to chocolate cake.
Not to getting raped.
God I wish I had known this earlier—could have saved money on Pepper Spray
Longer Skirts
Looser Sweaters
Rape Whistles Drug-detecting Nail Polish
Don’t want to be raped? Easy,
fatten up.
Right now, a Rape Prevention Potluck.
We will eat everything— bathtubs filled with mac & cheese, cakes the size of crop circles.
And why stop there? While we’re at it, let’s make meatloaf of my rapist—
use his bones to pick our teeth, and
once we’re stuffed and plump, a toast to the promise that
fat bodies can never be raped.
1


BECK COOPER
THE GUTTING
It is said he who holds the hook
is aware in what water many fish are swimming. I was full once, before the night he gutted me. The night I heard my own no echo
into his cavernous, moaning mouth.
Even then I was only a fish and what else was I good for but an easy catch.
I should have known better
than to swim alone
along such a dark and foreign shoreline, where grown men with rolled up sleeves reach beneath the surface
groping the river for
anything alive—anything
to turn into meat.
He did not look like a fisherman.
His clothing was not soaked
in the blood of prey, nor did he smell
of the sea. I mistook him
for lighthouse, buoy—something innocuous.
He must have slid the hook down my throat as he brushed my hair behind my ear, bought my second gin & tonic—
it is customary to keep fish wet
until you scale them.
I was so taken by the act of being chosen, I didn’t notice the pierce,
blood drip behind my tongue,
and this is my story.
I let a man spread open my abdomen
with his fingers, reach in, bypass my refusal, remove parts of me into his bucket.
The thing about being raped I need you to understand is that it doesn’t always happen on concrete.
Sometimes the gutting takes place inside a bedroom. Sometimes it is accompanied by wet lips and kind words. Sometimes it is easier to believe you deserve it.
2


To believe you owe it to him.
To wake up the next morning and serve him the pulp of you he scraped from your bones
on a breakfast tray with a glass of orange juice.
To let him walk you home holding your hand, let the stranger whisper young love, and when you arrive at your front door,
remove the hook from the back of your throat, and with a sore and grateful tongue
thank him—for choosing to catch and release.
Even now—in the retelling—what I would give to tell you I was a python coiled around
the flesh of his neck,
ringing the life out of him slowly.
What I would give to tell you
I was an alligator, hyena, grizzly bear— anything but a fish. Anything that
does not go down without a fight.
What I would give to tell you I spit
on him, pushed him off of me,
carved into his abdomen with my teeth,
but I am only a fish—and what else
is a fish good for but to be
consumed, even during the holiest of lent, without ever breaking his fast. And now,
the first man since the gutting to take me into his bed, peels
back my scales to find me empty.
My heart, liver, kidneys, tongue removed. My body stitched from gill to pelvic fin. My eyes cloudy and sunken.
Underneath his sheets, he thrusts into me. Asks me what’s wrong,
if it’s his fault, asks me why I’m lying there, lifeless—like a dead fish.
BECK COOPER
3


BECK COOPER
ALONE IN A BATHROOM
My second grade secret was a quiet exit from the dinner table, mouth full of corned beef to spit and flush in private.
Did this until the night my mother found me
panicking, crouched before an overflowing toilet.
Last week, at the Firehouse Gallery, I slipped away
during a poem to the bathroom upstairs, empty,
quiet besides the dripping faucet—I threw up two pieces of pizza.
I tell you this in a body thick enough to bury a ribcage with no sharp corners to trigger your concern.
I heave into toilet bowls and I stay fat.
Nobody sees me and thinks, “feed her.” Nobody knows not to trust
me alone in a bathroom.
I think I learned to lie out of love.
About the corned beef, to not hurt my mother’s feelings. Lied last night about eating dinner
so my friends wouldn’t ask me why.
Just hid in a New Orleans bar bathroom, dizzy,
hadn’t eaten since breakfast the morning before, and for a moment I saw the toilet giving birth to corned beef, forcing its way
out the pipe again—toilet water rising with it.
I can’t stop it from overflowing this time.
Can’t convince myself I have control anymore. Can’t trust myself alone in a bathroom anymore.
So tell me this is not my fault,
tell me again how a mind can be not right.
I say love your body and turn mine into some broken waste pipe. When I’m not spewing sewage
in some bathroom, I am an empty septic tank forcing my body to eat itself.
4


I am the clogged toilet in my mother’s bathroom.
This corned beef secret I thought I could keep, here it all comes, spilling over, up and out of my toilet bowl mouth.
The room is filling up with water again, the truth is pooling at the feet of the people I love.
A quiet exit to the bathroom. A starving stomach hidden beneath a deceiving belly.
I am 23,
this is still my secret, and I don’t expect anybody to believe me.
BECK COOPER
5


William Brian Sain is an English teacher in Baton Rouge. He is the managing editor of the poetry periodical TURN & works with his partner in crime Geoff Munsterman publishing books for Next Left Press. Recovering addict & obsessed with Kafka, he lives with his book collection & cat Lili.


WILLIAM BRIAN SAIN
EVERYTHING IS A-OKAY-L-A-H-O-M-A
The sun rises, another empty Sunday,
sprinkling gold on Oklahoma plains’ darkness— standing by the bed of my white Silverado parked in a cow field next to a pond
me & an old friend used to fish in,
finishing off a Camel
adding another empty Budweiser
to the pile of aluminum waste
another wasted Saturday night alone left me. Tears smother my blank stare into the sun, drown my face until they fall,
puddle on red dirt at my feet.
Light another Camel off the butt of the last one non-smokers call this chain smoking,
I call this trying to breathe.
Sometimes fresh air is suffocating. The morning dew is drying off
but the sun is powerless in drying up the results of wit’s end emotion.
The world is waking up,
all I can think about is going to sleep, something I haven’t done in five days, something I’d like to do for a lifetime.
I feel this dead end closing in
stuck in a wide open field,
sticking myself between barbed wire eighteen years of red dirt reinforcing fences used to keep animals imprisoned.
7


WILLIAM BRIAN SAIN
I look around for suicide: maybe start my truck
take bong hits off the exhaust pipe, maybe tie intricate knots
fasten my hands to the steering wheel drive into the pond,
maybe find a nice tree
to tie a mean noose around,
maybe use my coke cutting razorblade slash open my jugular vein,
maybe swallow all my meth while smoking an
entire crack rock,
maybe grab the bull by his horns
piss him off
I’m already wearing red.
I look at the red mud my tears created,
smile at the fact I’ve constructed an ocean
in the middle of a cow field.
I remain marooned on a red dirt island
surrounded by my own salt water,
look at the time on my cell phone
it’s nine-thirty-six a.m. on Sunday.
Grandma is in church with my aunts, uncles, & cousins
in Minco, Oklahoma. The Sooners won their football game yesterday.
Everyone is wonderful.
Mom’s getting groceries to feed my brother
in Lafayette, Louisiana. Brother’s sleeping off a night shift at a restaurant.
They’re all fantastic.
I am contemplating suicide
in Nowhere, Oklahoma.
The family is doing great. Everything is beautiful, everything is picture perfect, everything is A-okay.
8


WILLIAM BRIAN SAIN
THE EYE OF THE STORM
My home state is a tornado
but the only aftermath scenes the other forty-nine sees
are the EF4s & EF5s on TV.
These are just babies
compared to the whirlwind which resides inside state lines all the time.
Oklahoma is the heart of The Bible Belt. Like any good Christian my state hides its true self behind white sheets of purity hanging on clotheslines, blowing in the constant wind. Oklahoma goes to church on Sundays so it can sin again on Mondays. What goes on behind closed doors violates the most immoral people’s morals.
The lucky few who don’t continue to get sucked into the whirlwind get flung out,
no matter how grim the place they land in seems
it’s always better than being stuck in the eye of the storm.
This poem is dedicated to the ones who never made it out.
Three years ago I went to my younger cousin’s funeral, he had just turned twenty-one. It’s surreal to see someone so young lying lifeless in a coffin, face caked with make-up to paint expression on an expressionless canvas. When I put my letter of last words beside him I wanted to ask him, what he was searching for at the bottom of that pill bottle. How did the tornado feel as it swirled down into your stomach?
Another one of my cousins is serving a life sentence. How did the tornado feel
9


WILLIAM BRIAN SAIN
when you released it on the mother of your children?
One of my friends is in the same pen as him serving twenty-five for grand theft auto, a stolen gun, check fraud, & trafficking.
How did the tornado feel
when it sucked you in?
My best friend, now a walking skeleton, likes his coke with extra ice. If he had the teeth or the brains to answer me I’d ask him how the tornado feels as it slowly sucks away his life. We always said we would never get caught-up but how many times have you went down to keep loading your ice pipe up?
My friend from high school
used to let me use his trailer house as a hideout from fiends. After I sold enough meth to pay La Eme,
we would stay up all night
smoking eight-balls of leftover ice
claiming people were watching us.
“I’ve seen that same car drive by a hundred times.”
“How do you know it’s the same car?”
“It has two headlights!”
We would crawl on our knees
searching for an ice-shard I swear to God I lost.
Give us a crystal pipe & a flashlight,
& we’ll smoke every crumb until we find the right one. We hated to watch the sunrise,
it served as an indicator
of how many nights we went without sleep.
We used to talk about life
& what we had to look forward to.
Come to find out,
he blew his fucking brains out.
He put a gun in his mouth
to paint a pretty Jackson Pollock
using blood as his paint & brain matter to add texture. Somehow I feel responsible,
like I should’ve bit the bullet by bringing him with me. I wish I could ask him how the pistol tasted.
How did the tornado feel
when it blew you away?
10


WILLIAM BRIAN SAIN
Oklahoma is a crack-rock. 7-Eleven stops for a glass tube & Brillo, project housing conveniently next door to this convenience store where dope is auctioned off to the highest bidder. Oklahoma is a meth lab. Don’t ask for ice
unless you want directions to the nearest oil-well
or the wrong side of the train tracks.
Oklahoma is a prescription pill swallowed for non-prescribed reasons, our doctors
doctor dope fiends fulfilling yearnings
for another fix. Oklahoma is a lock
without a key, an incurable disease.
We need a savior to lead us to a storm
shelter. We need to call FEMA
for disaster relief assistance.
I hope they have programs
for Methamphetamine epidemics,
but tell them do not bring trailers
because everyone’s already got one.
Oklahoma is a shotgun,
buckshot aimed at everyone.
A million Christian churches
with no Jesus. We’re waving
white flags but no one sees us.
This is Where the Red Fern Grows
& a discontent wind
constantly blows.
My home state is a tornado.
I suggest you don’t go
unless you want to lie
in the farm field
of dead bodies
staring into
the eye
of the
storm.
11


WILLIAM BRIAN SAIN
CHAINED TO A TREE
My brother has a scar on his hand, a dog bite from our childhood.
My father had a Chow named Smokey, his life lived chained to two trees.
One beside the Washita River. My father cautions
never cross the red dirt circle where Smokey encircles himself at the end of his chain,
where apprehensive pacing compacts soil into concrete.
Lesson one: Boundaries. Smokey is mean,Do not cross the line.
doesn’t look mean
looks like a lonely teddy bear.
My brother tries to pet him,
assumes Smokey will appreciate a little love.
Lesson two: Warnings have purpose.
The light is yellow before red for a reason. Smokey’s teeth hold my brother’s hand
before he pets his teddy bear fur, jolts fear into my father
when the sound of his son screaming shocks his eardrums.
Lesson three: Fear
sometimes protects itself in anger.
My father scoops my howling brother into his arms, barks the whole way to the emergency room
about lesson one plus lesson two equals lesson three.
Lesson four: Pain.
Each lesson an echo,
a man screaming in fury,
a dog squealing in agony. How many kicks does it take
to get to the center of a chained-up dog’s issues?
One
kick to the ribs
is why Smokey was never afraid of anyone except my father.
12


Two Three Four
Five
because my brother ignored warnings. because he ignored boundaries.
because the last two were for human errors and these kicks are for dog’s ribs.
for Smokey defending the territory he’s forced to protect because he’s chained to a fucking tree.
Six
Six
Six
I swear
I hear
I think
My father is Kharon,
every kick paddling me deeper into Hades.
until I break
fear.
WILLIAM BRIAN SAIN
to God
so many dull thuds & squeals
the Washita is The River of Styx.
Lesson five: Fear
can also be tears,
muddy rivers running down my face. My father navigates
my rivers like catfish. My tears his habitat, draws pain
without a bite or a kick. Ten years later
realizes I’m no longer afraid of him so he sinks his fist in my nose
to ensure every time I breathe
I remember him,
forced to open my mouth
like Smokey panting,
chained to a tree,
not afraid of anyone except my father.
Lesson six: Regret
is karma consuming,
the return of an antagonistic favor. My father moves,
chains Smokey to his second tree. Smokey dies in five weeks.
My father cries tears
I shed by the Washita,
tears he cries now when I answer his calls.
Lesson seven: Never forget who you are. I am Smokey
chained to a tree in Oklahoma, kicking my father in the ribs
13


Jim Dulin has been on the University of Michigan CUPSI team, joined the Baton Rouge Poetry Alliance, and is a first time member of the Baton Rouge National Slam Team. Additionally, Jim self-published his chapbook, The Flap of a Butterfly’s Wings and is searching to publish his second chapbook, Rules of a Wanderer.


JIM DULIN
QUESTIONING GOD
God, if you exist, why did you set us up like chess pieces?
We are always choosing sides against each other
then threatening the end before the end, check, check mate.
We are always the sacrifice, why would you make some ofus pawns?
Why would you make the queens stronger, but the kings more important? Why is it always about the kings?
God, if you exist, why did you give the loudest voices to people who need to listen the most?
They yell and scream over the best lessons.
Why is my voice so loud?
There is a bullhorn in my belly that thinks it has the answers. It got sick of waiting for your answers.
God, if you exist, why did you give us a choice to believe and then make different promises in different languages? Why did you tell everyone they could only see you one way? They all think they’re right and I think it’s your fault.
God, if you exist, why did you let them translate your words into contradictions? The way they love feels like hate and they say they’re doing it for your sake. They look at me like they’re scared of me sometimes,
like I’m going to break their faith.
God, if you exist, why did you make their faith such a fragile thing? Is this all just a test? Is my family some kind oftest? Did we fail? Are you afraid to give away the answers?
Is there a limit to the space in heaven?
Is that why you chose to hide in metaphors and stories?
God, if you exist, what is the point of Hell?
Are you just the boogieman looming in our decisions? What kind of lesson are you trying to teach with eternity and no second chances?
God, if you exist, are you afraid of questions too?
One of the books that claims to know you says you made us in your image. Are you just as damaged? Are you an angry storm ofviolence?
Is that why we find so many ways to hurt each other
because we have a abusive heavenly father?
15


JIM DULIN
God, if you exist, why do you exist?
Why does any of this exist? None of the stories make any sense
and when I try to come up with my own answers I feel like an outsider. Sometimes I wish I could belong, just believe in you like everyone around me. Is that the point, make it so hard, we have no choice but to seek you out?
God, if you exist, why do they care so much if I acknowledge you? Are you really that petty or is that them?
It must be nice to get all the credit and none ofthe blame.
God, if you exist, am I still a good person if I don’t know?
I don’t think you’re there. I don’t think you can hear any ofthis.
Sometimes I get why people want to believe in you.
It helps make things a little more sure, when I don’t think anything really is.
God, if you exist, I really could use some help down here. Either way I think this praying thing
is usually more about saying what you need to say.
So, if you’re there,
thanks for listening, I guess.
16


JIM DULIN
FRACTURE
I’m not ready for fatherhood.
I’m not ready to fuck up another person’s life.
Fucking up my own is a full-time job.
I’m not ready for dirty diapers, play dates, timeouts.
I’m not ready to watch SpongeBob or Yo Gabba Gabba (sober). And I already said fuck twice...
No, three times in under 30 seconds.
I’m more comfortable with unclehood.
Shorter time periods, less damage.
Seriously, I’m not ready to see if I can be the father I wish my dad was,
there’s too much I don’t know.
I just learned how to apologize.
“I’m sorry” used to come with shields. Now, I take responsibility for my shrapnel.
I finally understand “I love you”
isn’t for special occasions,
it’s for special people.
Now I probably tell my friends I love them too much, I think they’re starting to feel a little uncomfortable.
But if I had kids
I would teach them unconditional,
to put egos aside before hugs and I love you’s. I would teach them how to play,
how to blame the grass for stained jeans. How to friend,
it most definitely is a verb.
I would teach them how to cry
how to snot-bubble, hyperventilate cry. That fake stuff doesn’t work on me.
I would teach them how to laugh
and take the serious parts seriously.
I would teach them how to speak. Up and often.
And more importantly to listen, but to know what to listen for, then challenge,
politely,
17


JIM DULIN
but challenge.
I would teach them how to say yes
when it calls for courage
and how to say no when it calls for more.
I would teach them to wait for yes.
I would teach them to wait until
other people’s opinions don’t matter.
I would teach them to choose.
I would teach them how to change their minds
to the point ofconfusion
because, ironically, that is when we understand life the most.
I would tell them I love them and, no, that is not redundant. “I love you” is never a repeat.
I would teach them to dance, sing, laugh, cry, speak,
and make funny faces like everyone was watching,
but you don’t give a fuck.
I would probably inadvertently teach them how to curse. “No, you can’t say it because daddy said it.”
“Well, life isn’t fair.”
I would teach them some clichés are true.
I would teach them about good food and good music then put up with Easy Mac and it’s musical equivalent. I would get angry with them.
I would tease them about dating.
I would let them win in sports,
at least until about age 10.
I mean you have to grow up sometime.
I would teach them about sarcasm.
I would teach them how to tell what lessons to learn. I would tell them.
Sometimes grown-ups teach silence
when they should show you how to project from your diaphragm
so no one will mistake your voice for a whisper.
Sometimes grown-ups demand stillness. They should show you move.
They should show you jump.
They should show you trip, fall, laugh, but never embarrass.
Sometimes we steal the word create out of children’s mouths
18


JIM DULIN
and stuffthem full ofcommonplace
to save them from the heartache offailed attempts.
Sometimes we make mistakes. Sometimes we crack. Sometimes we break,
but we are spectacular damage, we are broken beautiful,
we are mosaics of shattered moments.
I would tell them, “I love the way you fracture.”
I’m not ready to be a father yet.
I still have to figure out my own wreckage, but some day,
I’m going to be a fucking awesome dad.
19


JIM DULIN
DON’T MIND THE RUST
My home is a rusted over state, but I guess that’s what happens when you craft metal next to lakes and close down the factories.
We are abandoned buildings and used-to-be homes. We are unemployment rates.
We are history.
We are violence.
We are gruff and unwieldy determination.
We know how to work with our hands.
We made them rich,
made them rich in 8-to-12-hour shifts ofsweat.
Have you ever heard the boom-click-bang-shift, the boom-click-bang-shift,
the boom-click-bang-shift
of the assembly line?
The twisted orchestra conducting tedious repetition as workers merge with machinery
and move according to design.
I was hands where the metal wasn’t nimble enough. I was part-time 1st, 2nd, or 3rd shifts
where they filled the thinned ranks
with former full-time employees
and broke college kids home for summer.
It was never 40-hours enough.
It was calling in every morning hoping for work, but getting a busy signal.
It was redial, redial, re-fucking-dial
because it was work,
but you’d never call it steady
because words like steady cut into profit margins.
I learned each position on the line
a different turn, a different lift, bend, shift.
I learned the proper way to load a skid.
I learned what happens when the line breaks
and they don’t have enough knowhow scheduled today.
I learned how little AC helps in a metal warehouse.
I learned a few more reasons to earn that college degree.
20


JIM DULIN
I learned to leave.
Listen, it ain’t a bad job if they treat you right,
but they decided that wasn’t worth doing long before me. So I left, like the jobs.
Left the state.
Tried to call some new place home.
There’s so much leaving back home.
Almost broke us.
You know, I never claimed Detroit til after. Never lived in Detroit,
had family there,
buried family there.
My cousin was 6 o’clock news sprawled out on the concrete. I never met his baby girl til the funeral,
til the room in my Uncle’s house
with the bowed heads and forced small talk,
til they all spoke of Todd’s dreams to leave, to start over with those crying the hardest. That is what home had become,
a place filled with people dying to leave.
Hey, hey, I heard a joke...
What’s the only thing Cleveland has going for it? It ain’t Detroit.
It’s so funny.
The city that’s become punch line
is where I learned how to throw a punch.
My Uncle Billy taught me how to stand,
square up, protect your jaw,
lock your arms in front of your face like prison bars. Hold your guard.
Only drop it to strike.
Sounds so much like Detroit,
like Michigan,
like home
screaming to me, “don’t count us out!” “We still know how to fight.”
We are Motown.
We are Wolverines and Spartans.
We are car chassis and cherry trees.
We are two peninsulas holding up four Great Lakes.
We are a handprint that can fold into a fist when we have to. We are more than the leaving.
We are Michigan.
Please, don’t mind the rust.
21


Rodrick Minor is a four-time member of the Baton Rouge National Poetry Slam Team and a facilitator of The Eclectic Truth Poetry Slam & Open Mic Reading. He is a visual teaching artist for Forward Arts and the author of the chapbook, After the Magnolias Have Blossomed.


RODRICK MINOR
FOR THE UNBORN BLACK BOYS
The American idea ofracial progress
is measured by how fast I become white. —James A. Baldwin
When you become of age
To know that your brown flesh
Can be victim and suspect
Be careful of how your diction
Can be an unmarked weapon
How it doesn’t speak enough yessa messa
To stop an officer for reaching their holster
Be mindful of how this bronze body
Brown eyes and matted hair
Can appear like Samson to man
Propaganda will claim your millisecond of strength As half-God half-beast
A store clerk will follow you To the moon
Because you might just steal A piece of it and the stars
Be cautious of how the news Will vilify you
How evidence will voodoo Into a grain of salt
When your blood
Parts like The Red Sea
After your body
Is gunned down
By a bloodthirsty cop
Hades will welcome you
With open arms
Like the taste of your blood Makes for good wine
To break bread with at supper
Social media will hashtag You as #scapegoat #hehaditcoming #blackboysarehumanstoo
I can’t tell you how to prepare For a war that I’m still learning How to distinguish between Good cop and bad cop
When all I see is bad cop
23


RODRICK MINOR
I can’t tell you that racism
Is a fairy-tale that only exists
In some quasar
Or that this poem will suit fit
For others to call you racist
Or that you’re playing the Race card
As if being treated as a second class citizen Is a step up in the food chain
I can't tell you that the summers Will not harvest another black boy Lying in his own pool of blood That the kindred spirits of Emmett Till
Trayvon Martin Oscar Grant Tamir Rice Michael Brown Eric Garner Amadou Diallo Sean Bell
Are not enough
To be cast as the Sacrificial Lamb
Or another mother will have To teach the world
How to pronounce his name How to bury her grief
When the verdict is not guilty How to know that tomorrow His bedroom will become
A keepsake of memories
You might find yourself Marching light-years away Still wearing black t-shirts With hashtags and a long list Of names that are famous For the wrong reasons
Your closet will be full of ghosts Like hand-me-downs
Because I’ve run out of space in mine You will protest
You will scream
Justice will be an exotic dish That your lips may never taste
To be young, gifted, and black
Will be a duality that you will wrestle For the rest of your life
And the world might be too busy Pulling the trigger
To see you as equal
To see you as someone’s child
To see you as anything
Of value
24


RODRICK MINOR
5TH GRADE IN THE LUNCHROOM
Soc-soc-social studies is my favorite class Ri-righ-right down the hallway
Is Mrs. Chambliss’s room
I’m-in the, I’m-in the, I’m-in the fifth grade Everybody say I’m the cool kid
When we take tests
They-they overlook my st-uttering Because I let them
Copy from my Scantron
Like-like-like it’s a Spartan shield
To keep the barrage of stones
Of-of name-calling away
Like like four-eyes or coke-bottle glasses Is a guillotine that that cuts the kneecaps Of my self-esteem away
Hav-have you ever been called fat boy?
Like your st-st-stomach is some piñata
That’s been beaten around
With a billy club full of insults
Because-because looking at myself in the mirror Is a daredevil stunt
That I haven’t mastered yet
Have you ever smooch
With suicide like I have?
To stop the spitball
Of insults and the ear plucking
To gut open the insides of the sca-scars When your speech
Is a circus act filled with shame
I’ve- I’ve- I’ve been called the cafeteria freak show Like some caged animal
Alone In the zoo
That’s made a spectacle of
For good laughs
25


Sometimes-sometimes- sometimes I draw myself Skinny during recess
In my Tr-Tr-Trapper Keeper
In hope of shoving the word
Han-handsome in my tongue
So when people ask me
Do you find yourself han-handsome I can tell them without
Fear of my classmates
Laughing at me, yes
I find myself han-handsome
I want to be han-handsome Without looking away From the bathroom mirrors
I wanna know I’m worth more Than just some some fa-fa-fat boy With a cheat sheet
Full of bubbled-in answers
I wanna know
What it feels like
To not be rejected
By the girl that sits in front
With the braids
Because I wasn’t ttt-tt-tall enough Or ppppp-popular
I wanna know that fifth grade
Is more than just being the outcast Looking for an exit sign
When depression
Pppp-Punches me in the mouth
In the bathroom stalls
Looking for my confidence
Like I owe him lunch money
Can you sit
With me for lunch today? So I won’t feel like some
RODRICK MINOR
26


Guinea pig at the ttt-ta-table So I can feel normal
So I can know what it feels like To not drown
In the names and depression That after this I can
Draw myself a lil chubby
On the side with thick glasses And I can pin the words Ch-ch-charming Han-handsome
Coo-coo-Cool
Normal
I can define myself
While staring in the mirror
My name is Rodrick
I’m in the fifth grade Loving myself
Is like I’m lost in a wildfire Without a compass
I just need to find which way is north I just need to find how to love myself Again
RODRICK MINOR
27


RODRICK MINOR
GRITS
The following poem
Is rated R
It contains strong language, adult content, And a passion for one substance
It is intended only for mature audiences Viewer discretion is advised
In 1952
A publication in
Charleston, South Carolina
Declared the cure for all bad isms and ills
In society by this quote:
An inexpensive, simple, and thoroughly digestible food, ______ should be made popular throughout the world. Given enough of it, the inhabitants of planet Earth would have nothing to fight about. A man full of ______ is a man of peace.
We are gathered here tonight
To engage upon this peacemaker
This substance is my unequivocal lover After one too many Sade’s songs Doesn’t stop the heartbreaks
Is none other
Than a hot bowl of grits!
Yes!! I’ve come to the conclusion That a hot bowl of grits
Can be the icebreaker
And the solution
To America’s trillion dollar debt
1 tablespoon of butter ! cup of grits
1 cup of water
And a dash of salt Can make
America
China
And Russia
Sing Kumbaya on Wall Street
28


That’s my baby Grits
She’s a superstar in her own right
Did you know that three-quarters
Of her is sold
From Texas through Virginia each day? Historians have dubbed
These regional states
As the “grits belt”
Haven’t you felt such conviction
In your loins that you had
To tell somebody of the new gospel
Of your significant other?
I have
That’s what I do for my baby Grits
Sometimes I make a scene When I can’t be in her presence I even protested
For her love one time
In the Hampton Inn
In a belligerent voice
I yelled
How damn you have no grits
But you have a fitness center!!! Really!!
A fitness center!
She was discriminated
Against that day
And it bothered me
She was racially profiled
For her creamy oozy background substance
Haven’t you found yourself Consoling your lover
With silly impersonations During tough times
To make her smile? To see reciprocity Boomerang itself Over in your face Like an episode That never gets old
RODRICK MINOR
29


RODRICK MINOR
To keep the flame burning
I tell my baby Grits
It’s going to be ok
And sometimes when she’s steaming Hot, mad, and boiling
She wants me to put on that Horrible Captain Kirk impersonation To make her smile
And I do that
For my baby Grits
So I take a long deep stare Into her creamy oozy eyes And I tell her
Captain’s Log
Star Date 53921
I really need you in my life You are so irresistible Spock leave us be!!
Scotty take us home
30