BOBBY JOE, MONTHS LATER
By James E Cherry Three years later, I browse the shelves of the downtown library in the shadows of late afternoon where Bobby Joe materializes among jazz cd’s, new book releases and the New York Times. He has stumbled through its public doors dishelved, burdened with bags under arm as if he were a scale and life had found him wanting, dreams with holes punched in them. We slap hands, take the edge off awkwardness with idle talk, before I tell him that I’d hope to see him again, that I’d written a book, Loose Change, that one of the poems was about him. He shrugs, turns down the corners of his mouth, rubs his chin, remarks: that poetry is some deep stuff and that he wanted me to take a look at something. We seize a corner table near the periodicals where Bobby Joe pulls a small black and red book from his bag. I finger the book, peruse a few pages, flip back to the front cover: Zen Meditation Book. I tell him that this is in the same family as poetry, may even be a first cousin, just another way of being in the world. I give the book back, but Bobby Joe tells me he has no need for it anymore, that he could live it, if he wanted to. I promise to carry a copy of Loose Change in the trunk of my car for the next time. Bobby Joe pushes himself up, gathers his bags, nods: next time and heads for the new releases where he stands before a wall of books until he becomes one of them. DREAM OF MY FATHER By James E Cherry My father looks the same as the day he died. Such is the nature of dreams. Actually, he looks like the man who dragged eight hour shifts of union dues and assembly lines through the front door at day’s end, frowned at the daily paper, grunted the six o’clock news, whispered grace over supper around a square dinner table. I’m at the head of the table this time. He sits to my left works a plate of cabbage and potatoes, wears the same mask the day I quit the high school basketball team in mid-season, was caught smoking pot in the basement, broke the promise of a college diploma into several pieces. I offer him the roast beef on my plate, but he says nothing, moves away from the table and when I rise to run after him, daybreak catches me around the ankle leaves me sprawled beside the bed to count drops of sunlight spilling from my eyes. THE SEGREGATED WORD By James E Cherry My sister calls from Nashville, asks where is she in my latest collection of poems, Loose Change her voice cloudy as a winter afternoon in 1968 where we climb steps to the public library, enter into its sacred space, follow the memory of our feet to the “Colored” section. I pet Clifford the Big Red Dog, look for my mom from the top of Jack’s Beanstalk, pat my tummy for a house of chocolate cake instead of a gingerbread one. I watch my sister and others, their Black faces bowing at the altar of study, fidget away from them into a land peopled by more books where a white lady with a sharp nose and round glasses rules over them. “Get back over there. Nigger.” Her words welt across my face, take aim at the other cheek before my hand is in my big sister’s and we’re back behind the safety of color lines. She rearranges me in my seat, strides across the aisle where her words grab handfuls of the white woman’s hair, their voices crescendo of curse and epithet. She reappears with a smile and an armful of books, instructs me to “read these” as I open bound leather, where a solitary tear staggers from my eye onto the red nose of a reindeer, its glow neon against the night, my hands grasping for stars and the moon around Rudolph’s neck, my life, strapped upon the back of the wind. © James E Cherry *** James E Cherry is the author of five books: a collection of short fiction, a novel and three volumes of poetry. His latest collection of poetry, Loose Change, was published in 2013 by Stephen F. Austin State University Press. His prose and poetry has been featured in numerous journals and anthologies both in the U.S. as well as in England, France, China, Canada and Nigeria. He has been nominated for an NAACP Image Award, a Lillian Smith Book Award and was a finalist for the Next Generation Indie Book Award for Fiction. Cherry has an MFA in creative writing from the University of Texas at El Paso. His novel, Edge of the Wind, is forthcoming in October 2016 from Stephen F Austin University Press. He lives in Tennessee. Visit: http://www.jamesecherry.com.
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I'm excited that David Munoz has asked me to tend to this corner of Peregrinos. My idea is to use this space to publish creative works in English, and, in doing so, let the writing show how language and words create bridges between everything--cultures, individuals, social structures. Todo.
I begin this space with some of the poems that were published in Peregrinos in October 2015. I repeat this publication to establish a beginning framework for the Vocales y Puentes section ofPeregrinos. Vocales y Puentes means 'Words and Bridges.' By nature, I am an adventurous and curious person. (I write this on a day that I'm departing for a new part of the world --Polynesia.) In my travels I have found it crucial to observe and listen and see who and what is around me, and then determine how I can meet these differences with respect and humility. What I have also found, however, is that this process is equally useful at home--out in public or in the classrooms where I teach. In such an incredibly turbulent time in our world, I wonder, "How can we meet each other with grace and sincerity and even love?" For whatever reason, I have been able to express much of my meeting points through writing, and most specifically through my poetry. I think most writers do this, too, but each writer's meeting point can be different. Hence the need for multiple voices and perspectives. Because of this opportunity that David has afforded me, I hope to make a kind of e-anthology, collecting these voices in a single place, representing in English the kind of breadth and beauty that still inhabits our world, even if it's hard to see. And sometimes, in order to see the beauty, we must also consider the hardness and hardships, and I hope to do that here, too. Thanks for your interest in what is here and in what is to come. Kimberly *** Mexican Postcard Why did I choose this one? Something Where every color, to hold onto, every shape, line, every the edges blue like seawater, and every turn in the card has time I’m afraid of meaning and significance. leaving, I am Orange jaguar dream, orange jaguar I am afraid of staying crouched in I am afraid of losing the turquoise field, I am afraid of being half-feline, half-human wearing lost. I am afraid of that wavy frown, sitting on forgetting. And I am afraid to remember that throne, waiting for the secret that’s only whispered: colors in Mexico are alive, which comes while I’m standing on the steps of Toniná looking over the whole empty emerald world. México Shining: A Poem in Four Parts I. Comal Rising This time México turned north and arrived wafting through the sun across the concrete one Tuesday afternoon in September. How rich the word: copal. In the daylight, it smells of darkness, of Maximon in the cave, an effigy in striped pants propped against the altar, surrounded by candles blinking. In the cave, the copal leads to pox. Hours later, it enters the mouth, sits on the tongue like fermented honey, like love that will not leave. When I close my eyes, the copal becomes the chain kissing the thurible as Father readies the air. II. Mé-xi-co Shining Metl = agave. Xictli = the navel. Co = within. Agave is the navel within. The navel within is made from agave. Within agave the navel forms. México is the agave is the navel within the agave and also Metlxictlico, the center in which the sweetness forms and thrives. III. One Day It all floated towards me at once--copal rising and México shining from my view at the top of Toniná. I said, Love, this is it. Es todo. But he was gone. Already departing, stirring up the sleeping butterflies as he strode through the grass. Alone, I had the white and spinning wings, the day moon, pale and arcing acres of green. I had the sun and the wide, wide air that tasted blue. I had the new memory of my love and it, too, came shining. IV. Red Galactic Moon On the 27th day of September in 2011, on 8 Muluc in the Tzolkin calendar—day of the Red Galactic Moon—day 12.19.18.13.9 in the long count, México arrived in New Mexico as it does daily. This time, blue feathers fanned out from his head and goat hoof shakers hugged his calves. He twisted his inner thigh to let his skin touch the fire showing the world how to burn without singeing. Old Lesson Mexico rose wet with ash. Every day, new words were given to me across counters and grocery aisles, words like: ¡Mira! And justo llegamos. And no, which is the same in both languages, but the vowel comes across the palette in Spanish, brushing the nose. In English, it’s only a matter of lips. Solo works similarly. In either language, you are alone (estás solo), but in Spanish it’s a whisper and the tongue touching teeth. In English, the words start the same way but then the jaw collapses and the throat invades the mouth. In English, if you are solo, you’re simply alone, but in Spanish, using a different verb, eres solo, you’re not only alone, you’re also unattached, single, and very not married. © Kimberly Williams It took Kimberly all of her early years to distinguish her left side from her right. And in sorting all this out, she had to pay great attention to letters and numbers and which direction they were supposed to face. This led to a life-long fascination with letters, words and language. Kimberly has an MFA in Creative Writing from University of Texas El Paso and helps to direct the creative writing program at Glendale Community College in Arizona.
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Kimberly WilliamsKimberly has been fortunate to travel to half the Spanish-speaking countries in the world by the time she was forty. As a traveler into different cultures, she has learned to listen ask questions, and seek points of connections. This page is meant to offer different points of connections between writers, words, ideas, languages, and imaginations. Thank you for visiting. Archives
October 2020
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