Featured Poet: Ryan Clark

Arizona SB 1070: A Homophonic Translation

Set in our / Arizona, / in / our legislature, / in our air, a session / wanted to / stop a living / act.

Men live in fear of Arizona, or visit statues near there of fear in Arizona, or visit statues of frightened faces near nothing, there in tears in our faces, tattoos of our terror in Arizona, or visit statues bitten, sawed, torn and then turned to a fence or a wall of fear, a wall of any word for ending, or if all of Arizona revisits statues, and if art chopped here all of our Arizona, or visits to a dissection of our event, of our relation to lawfully present lines.

 

(these awful lines of ache)

1       See a person who violates this section as guilty.

2       Words justify the house in dollars,

3       the violence in hate, full of armor I legalize.

4       Is fear an object to find in

5       rivers of love.

6       Is it under our love, ours, our vices too. Is amen read

7       under the love in empathy. Is a line of rope en-

8       ough for our volume of n-

9       ecks. I feel a noose inside our riv-

10     er made of fence.

11     An employer shall not knowingly employ an unauthorized alien.

12     If we name a race, contract an other toward a r-

13     iver, drag remainders

14     to work for us--our alien, our right to

15     personness, our contraction, our line, our form.

16     Our other violates us, us, us.

17     Beat the other river. Say trash rips open and foreign

18     violations come

19     out breaking social security. Ameri-

20     ca never arrived as some foreigner in a riv-

21     er, or as a foreigner illegally, a noun--

22     hardly a noun--a feral race on the shores

23     of a state. Hurt them, lawyer. Shove violence in.

24     I fucked her, shoved it inside her, scripted it

25     for her, for our country. May I never touch

26     her violated cunt again. This subsection shall

27     be construed to prohibit the feeling of us and our-

28     s. My fear is a river over-

29     flowing our race,

30     our national origin, as if they were

31     us also, under our noise. All

32     unauthored aliens are waste mired in river-

33     s of our agency, mazes of state-

34     ment. One of us is an attorney for our count-

35     ry, for our authors, authoriz-

36     ing a whiter government for us, to get the dust out.

37     Their river is dust relocated, emptied

38     in a bin gently from a nation, churning, stir-

39     ring into us, in me, ours. A surer

40     author than us will verify our governed person-

41     hood. Say this is our version of life as a

42     failure of us. Say we are this section of faces at r-

43     est in war.

1       After an investigation, the attorney general or county attorney

2       determine some plan. This isn’t a frivolous

3       need here for learners to find

4       status. Migrate into us in formation. Author us alien.

5       What river country holds all

6       of our meanings in the horizon

7       there, sure enough for us not to try to cr-

8       ross over, to not see if the land

9       is really filled with horror

10     and revulsion. A sun set on us he-

11     re, against the Arizona tourist air,

12     where rise alien employees or lawyers and

13     attorneys all drenched in a river of violen-

14     ce. Say this occurs before rivers. Show us the end.

15     A view of this is based only on an author’s alien w-

16     orld that morphed during a short r-

17     evolution of this section, our section, our subsection A.

18     A foreign actor researched a r-

19     ole dying in a river as

20     practical data.

21     If I dive into this

22     one, a river of line as described in our graph here, what is

23     on the shore.

24     A short order: Return nation

25     unheard alien.

26     Be ashore, reader, for us. Tether your

27     fear to our fear, for the current is a line

28     perforating the rope. In a river we flow where

29     carried in a form proven to tear us f-

30     rom every other. This is

31     location, our authored line for a reader.

32     Color it for us to ride off with. The

33     country in here is safer, ordered

34     off as a state. There is remain-

35     der in this. Say and. The fear will

36     inch away, lurking on the horizon instead.

37     Courts ordered the appropriate agency to U.S. lines, subjected

38     this division to our reality. Fear here is

39     a signature. Division trained our signs

40     for order. I is all I, an us that are suspended under this.

41     Dive in here, in us ending at river, in

42     aid of a white country not white anyway. Our

43     view is fences, our stately

44     terror fences, for ours is divid-

45     ed. Hours spent revising our I’s shut.

© 2012 Ryan Clark

 

Featured Poet: Melissa Severin

Silent Service

Back to maps and time

lapse text encoded, wired across air

bridges with incalculable density.

That it exists at all is a question

for space. Held in the palm but in amounts

much less than a breath, the between bodies

small slats of light fit to disintegrate.

Seconds work against the influence of skin.

And salt. And ocean. What direction

when cold meets warm, stirs currents. Convection

closing in—if not under, unseen, between

pushing north without fail. Tide is licking

clocks to cut the distance of continents

as if land moves perceptibly as the second hand.

The city vanished beneath sternum has to be resuscitated,

resurrected by a stranger in the next seat over

who goes to sea for 17 weeks.  He leaves atlases shelved

and waves to bark back into darkness, queued in the doldrums;

awaits the wind, unrequited, bored before it begins.

Quick to dismiss anticipation—board the boat,

sink where stars reflect themselves. 

Untreated—

The voice turned gravel, lost

under fog, soundless winded lungs

lurching through the neck bones of a dead man.

Transplanted is how you’ll speak, injected

with the kiss skin and no-tell

larynx chain link to a single hand clapping

beats in 4/4 time. If measurement is melody,

distance the repetition of chorus navigated by bright guitars,

there would be four moonless months, an airport

with one gate, the ocean would be connected

by walk-only bridges between every land once called far away.

Over there is one step in front of the other, the silent return,

the no-one-is-waiting welcome back. This is not

a place anyone is from; it’s interim, willful

as pinched nerves—tensile then paralyzed

—gone permanent.

Melissa Severin is the author of the chapbook Brute Fact from dancing girl press.

© Copyright 2012 Melissa Severin

Featured Poets Theater Scenes: Daniel Borzutzky, Duriel E. Harris, John Keene, Jacob Saenz, Leila Wilson, and Tim Yu

Click Here to View the Scenes

Seven Corners AWP Off-Site Event

Click to Enlarge

Featured Poet: Kass Fleisher

Flight

Years later in school, Pookie heard the story of the man who flew too close to the sun. Excitedly, she raised her hand; this was one of the few times anything in school had seemed familiar to her.

            —Miss Taylor! Miss Taylor! Pookie said, frantically waving her arm.

            —Yes, what is it, Shawntelle?

            Pookie hated her full name but Miss Taylor said nicknames were disrespectful and refused to use them. School and teachers just didn’t make any sense, most of the time.

            —I saw him, Miss Taylor, I saw him.

            —Saw who, Shawntelle?

            —The flying man, Ickuss, I saw him.

            —Now, Shawntelle, what have I told you about making up stories? His name is pronounced Ic-AR-us, and you couldn’t have seen him because he never really existed. It’s just a story, a myth.

            —But I did, Miss Taylor. He never wore any clothes and lived right across the street from me in the big TV building and one day he flew out his window. . .

            —Shawntelle! Miss Taylor said sternly.

            — . . . all naked and flapping . . .

            —Shawntelle! Stop this nonsense this instant or I’ll send you to the principal’s office again!

            —But that was him, Miss Taylor, I know it was. Mama told me he was just some crazy white boy and Aunt Sarah said he was probably drunk but . . .

            —Shawntelle! That will be enough. March yourself down to the office right now.

            —But, Miss Taylor . . .

            —Now!

            —Yes, ma’am.

            As she walked slowly down the hall, Pookie remembered the day she first saw the naked white man. She had been on the tiny balcony of her family’s apartment looking at the large apartment building that sat on a hill across the street. To Pookie, it was like having a nine-story multi-screened TV to watch. As the youngest, Pookie didn’t have much say in what appeared on the family TV, so she preferred to go out on the balcony and see what was happening on the other side of the sliding glass patio doors (that also doubled as the living room windows) of the apartments of her big TV building. Sometimes it was pretty boring, like when the curtains were drawn, but no one could make her change the channel.

            On that particular summer afternoon, soon after her fourth birthday, Pookie had been at her usual post, standing at the balcony railing watching the sun set and the rush hour traffic crawl by. Every so often, she surveyed the ninth-story windows of the apartment building. It was hard to see

anything that high up, but the curtains were hardly ever closed on that floor so Pookie always gave them close attention.

            Then she saw him. His glass doors were wide open: only a screen and railing stood between him and the open air. He was leaning on the railing, smoking a cigar, and he didn’t have any clothes on at all. Pookie had seen her brothers nude many times, so she knew the man was naked, even if he was white.

            —What’cha lookin’ at, Pookie dear? Aunt Sarah asked her, as she came out onto the balcony to smoke a cigarette.

            —At the naked white man.

            —What? Where?

            —Up there.

            Aunt Sarah followed Pookie’s finger up to the ninth floor, leaned forward to get a better look, then began laughing and pointing.

            —Hey, Ruth, take a look. There’s a white boy flashing the whole neighborhood!

            Pookie’s mama stepped out on the balcony, took one look, snorted in disgust and grabbed Pookie’s arm.

            —C’mon, that isn’t for you.

            —But mama, Pookie protested, I want to stay outside.

            —I won’t have you staring at naked strangers. He may be stupid, but it just isn’t polite.

            Pookie turned to take one more look before she went inside, but by then the naked white man was no longer there.

            Pookie saw the man several times after that, though he was never naked again until the day she saw him fly. It was rush hour again and Pookie was at her usual spot taking in the world. Her eyes methodically checked each window and then she saw him again, naked like the first time. It was difficult to tell, but this time the screen was apparently open, and the man appeared to be standing outside the railing, hanging on with his hands behind his back. Pookie looked around, but her mama and Aunt Sarah weren’t nearby and Pookie wasn’t going to say anything to change that. She turned back just in time to see the naked man stretch out his arms and dive in a slow graceful arc. At first, he seemed to drop straight down, but just before he fell out of sight, he swooped into view again and began a series of wide loops over the parking garage that sat just below the apartment building. Pookie was so excited she began to clap her hands and squeal with delight. Somehow the man heard her over the traffic noise. He looked her way and smiled. Pookie waved to the man and he waved back. Which was a mistake. His swoop began to fail and the man began beating his arms, but it was no use. He fell headfirst onto the roof of the parking garage.

            Pookie screamed and her mama came running. Her mama didn’t believe her story, of course, even after the ambulance came and the fire department arrived with their ladders to take the body off the roof. But Pookie kept insisting until her mama finally sent her to her room, telling Pookie she would never be allowed out on the balcony ever, ever again.

            Sitting in the principal’s office, Pookie resolved never to tell adults anything they hadn’t said first.

            What’s the use, she thought. If they can’t fly, they think nobody can.

            Pookie closed her eyes. She remembered the naked white man’s smile just before he fell, how the light from the setting sun made his skin shimmer like gold, how he hadn’t seemed all that upset about falling.

            Pookie opened her eyes and looked around the office. The secretary was bent over a filing cabinet, so Pookie slipped out the door and headed outside. This would be a good time, she thought, to go looking for the sun.