Wake Up by Miriam Canut Segura

They ask me to write Slam and I say wake up.

Sometimes I wish

I was born in the early sixties among the counter culture.
When at least a revolution
was something real
made by people;
that was
REAL.

I don’t like how I feel.

I look around

and I see

copies

of copies
of copies.

They ask me to write Slam

and I say “You, wake up!”

People working

in jobs that they hate
to be able to buy shit
that they don’t need.

Always with the strong belief

that they are free.
FREE
FREE!

I say free,

but free FALLING.

Plastic Soldiers;

Clock-Hearted,

Toilet-Headed.

Get away from me

They ask me to write Slam

And I say; “Yo, wake up, right now!”

Take off your mask.

“Why?

There is more plastic underneath.”

As in everyone.

Industrial PLASTIC;

your biggest-biggest

ADDICTION.

Something needs to be done

They ask me to write some slam

and I would like to ask you to stand up.

So why do you watch?

Why do you watch and don’t look?

To look means to realize.

To realize means pain,

and pain,

is not among the last trend.

They ask me to write slam

And I say “Holy shit, please, read some books.”

Wasted minds;

FEAR

and

CONFORMISM

As the Holy Spirit.

Meanwhile

The capitalist leviathan
Eating your brains;
Day,
after day,
after day.
Brain,
after brain,
after brain.

But you are ok;

singing  the songs
that you love to sing,
wearing the clothes
that you love to wear

I would probably love you more

If you would have the niceness of

Please,

PLEASE

stop hiding yourself

underneath

this fake berk,

underneath

those three tons of

makeup.

Make up

your mind.

go search

and find.

TRUTH.

Truth

beyond the line

in this real path

of mine.

“Real eyes

realize
real lies.” ₁

They’ve asked me to write slam

and I said; wake up.

1. Title of a song of the band Machine head

The Lively Night by Thom Hart

The lively night or

Conversations concerning Dimethyltryptamine

Fill your dipper with the milky celestial brew

Touch your lips to the skies, and then lower your gaze

To the fireflies who mirror the stars, while two

Baritone bullfrogs narrate the scene,

A rich chorus of their fellows follow suit

The warmth of the day has not yet left

The ground remembers a kind sun

And the blanket of night is laid upon the land

The bed of the gods is made for rest

An owl calls out for friends in his forest

And the trees are wide-awake dancing

To the vibrations, the beat, the music

The season celebrates itself with much song

But I can only long to taste the first drops

Of a milky celestial brew dipped out of the

Wondrous deep black basin that is the heavens.

 

Congratulations to Thom Hart on having this poem selected by ASAP for their Celebration of Young Writers, to be held 5.12.12 at the Washington Town Hall

The Crack in the Sidewalk by Ian Riley

The crack on the sidewalk was filled with dirt. It was the dirt of the centuries past, it was dirty dirt, the best kind. Dirt is made up of really small rocks. These rocks were really, really small, on account of how old they were. They were so small that a single grain of this dirt was barely visible to the human eye. They filled up the crack on the sidewalk with ease, though.

There was an ant in the crack on the sidewalk too. He liked the dirt because it was easy to move. He called all his ant friends and told them about the crack on the sidewalk. They all came and started to build an ant hill. The landscape was changing. The ants built the dirt high into the sky, out of the crack of the sidewalk and into the open air. They built it high so they could go low. They burrowed into the century-old dirt and started a colony. The crack was soon filled to the brim with ants, and over the brim with dirt. The crack in the sidewalk wasn’t really a crack anymore. It was a crack in the armor of the sidewalk, but it was filled up with dirt and ants. The crack was plugged.

The bottom of the shoe was made of rubber. This rubber had come from a tree in the Amazon forest which was almost as old as the dirt in the crack on the sidewalk. There was a hunter in the forest who had shot a bird which landed on this tree, and the tree was covered in blood and guts. The rubber on the bottom of the shoe was making its way along the sidewalk and saw the century-old dirt rising out of the crack on the sidewalk. The century old dirt was scattered out of the crack on the sidewalk, onto the top surface, and the ants ran away, and the crack was plugged no longer. The blood and guts of the ants that didn’t get away were scattered on the rubber bottom of the shoe.

The shoe was connected to a nine year old leg, and the leg was connected to a nine year old boy. The dirt from the crack on the sidewalk was carried in the blood and guts of the ants on the rubber bottom of the shoe to the bus stop by the nine year old leg connected to the nine year old boy. The nine year old leg connected to the nine year old boy carried the nine year old boy onto a yellow school bus that was nine years old.

The yellow school bus was driven by a man whose name no one knew or cared to know. It had been driven the on same route by the same man for the last five years. He wore the same wrinkled gray shirt, and the same cracked green sunglasses every day. When he was done with his shift, he would take the same route home, and stop at the same coffee shop for the same pastry and the same coffee. His car smelled like fresh pine needles.

The fresh pine needles that the man’s car smelled like smelled like the pine tree in the man whose name no one knew or cared to know’s back yard. The pine tree was located next to the man’s garden, which he tended to each day at the same time when he got home from work. He pulled the flowers out and let the weeds grow. He liked the weeds because they weren’t like him. They grew together to beat out the flowers that would only pop up here and there, always by themselves. It was the same drill over and over.


The man whose name no one knew or cared to know checked his garden that day the same way he always did. He walked towards his house and he smelled the same smell of fresh pine needles from his car. His house smelled like pine needles too.

[Ian wrote this after reading too much Sherwood Anderson.]

photo by Miriam Canut Segura

Poem by Elle Sutherland

click on image to see whole 

Bukchon. Photos by Yea Weon Kim

from a work in progress entitled 

사랑하는 나의 그대, 나의 나라를 찾아 돌아가는 길
Th e Wa y Ba c k t o My Lo v e , Ko r e a

Poem by Lindsay Jerry-Collins

Pride

I am a proud young woman.

My parents raised me to be proud

of who I am.

It’s what I’ve been taught

from a very young age.

I always thought that it was

normal for people to

take pride in the things that

make them unique.

That isn’t always the case

for everyone.

I honestly can’t understand

why there are so many

people who are dissatisfied

with themselves to the point

where they feel the need to change

because society thinks they should;

be it their hair, their body,

or even their personality.

I am a proud young woman.

I’m proud to have curly hair.

I’m proud to be West African, Indian,

Trinidadian, and Native American.

I’m proud to be dark-skinned.

And that’s another thing: my skin

is brown, not black.

But society says otherwise. I disagree.

I don’t conform to what society says

is or should be.

Most of it is complete and total BS.

Society says that the ideal woman

should have an hourglass figure.

Society says that the ideal woman

should have straight hair.

My biggest question: why?

Why try to make us become

something we’re not?

Because that’s exactly what it’s doing.

I see this problem all around me

every day; women and girls

trying to make themselves more appealing

to the eye of society.

I honestly could care less

about what society wants

or doesn’t want from me.

I am me, and that’s not about to change.

I am not my hair. I am not my skin.

I am no one’s expectations.

I am the soul that lives within.

And that’s what society

fails to understand.

I’m not gonna change because

society thinks I should.

Society can kiss my entire ass.

I am who I am. And if anyone

has a problem with it,

then they can take a hike.

‘Cause I don’t give a sh*t.