rattleweed
dayton ohio
september 2021
clifford owensby drives black / with
his three-year-old son / hears sirens
sees blue shirt cops / pulls over / stops
Turn the car off your windows are
too dark / he rolls them down / gives his
i d / My son’s with me / they run
clif’s record / demand
a dog sniff search / Step out
of the car / I
can’t step out
i’m paraplegic / he asks for
a white shirt officer
of higher rank / Step out of
the car / I’m a paraplegic
i had help getting in / We’ll
assist you / There’ll be a lawsuit
if you put yo hands on me for
no reason / he makes a call Hey
bro come down bring people with
cameras so they see / Get Out
Of The Car Or Be Dragged Out
cops unbuckle his seat belt
haul him / Ya’ll might hurt me y’all
gon’ hurt me bro / a white hand drags
him by his dreadlocks / cops shove him
to the ground / flip him stomach down
cuff him behind his back / Help some
body / cam and cell footage show
though the po pos know he can’t
use his legs they drag him over
pavement his pants fall below his
knees / his underwear’s on display
his three-year-old can see this
slave catcher mindset
implicit explicit bias
systemic anti-blackness / i’ve
seen a black man hog tied by
a houston cop / white male violence
multi-generational bone
deep / reform defund re-structure
overhaul whatever it takes
i’ve been detained by a white male
cop as a dreadlocked woman
in black walking two black dogs at
a public rest stop though i’ve no
drug record or weapons charges
a k9 search was done / no drugs
no guns in my car / or in
the car of clifford owensby
a crippled black man / dreadlock-dragged
by a white cop’s hand
palimpsest
haze descends / threats encroach / landscapes
shift / woman draped in evening with
hands of a working queen / she sculpts
word / carves rhyme / cobbles hymn / she mines
luminous earth / dredges this dawn
of a death / casts tableaux
holds terror at bay / she distills
morn noontide dusk moonrise nightfall
weaves dreadlocked sentences / tills
metaphor / myth-looms / wildcrafts hope
pitayas / runes / tart berries in
bramble thru tufted black grass
pheasants rustle / her skirts plume / brush
stroked damselflies summon the soul
of a woman born in umber
breastfed by modern-world angst
daily death / dying / dread
upon her hallowed wheel
she throws presence / into image
breath / sound / spins crackled raku prose
on a page / jazz quatrains penned
in midnight she’s started over
and over begun again and
again / denizen of feral
worlds / she ciphers verse
magic burnt bister incanted
at a river’s edge / ocher earth
shifts / haze descends across badlands
ballads erupt / threats encroach
as this working queen quilts
shaded stanzas like desert
cacti blooming in prayer
ancestral mojo: a summons and supplication
(1)
zaki pony in the kitchen / metaphors
in the pyre cookin up a conjugation
a midnight mojo conjuration / fryin
harjo’s poems / addin fuel to fire
o mi frida / coulda woulda shoulda had
dolores huerta thread the needle pull snake
verses through the hole / i’m chantin charms chewin
mantras / now we’ll see just what the hell unfolds
jimi’s burnin guitar janis yowls
in refrain / leonard c smokes up the island
joni breaks it down plain
50-foot five-fold high
reachin for live wire
(2)
essay girl gone bad
southern gal gone home
bad boy gone great
greatest woman never gone
i’m reachin for live wire
(3)
blues deep in billie rhythm
black seams in bessie stockins
jazz dress hug ella bosom
red stilettos pumpin soul
richard pryor trench mouth riffin fore his drug
induced psychosis caught his face on fire
hot damn lily t whoopi g lenny b’s
obscenity bursts got him fake jail time
robin / will you do ya voodoo could you
mumbo jumbo hoodoo gumbo juju
guru / don’t ya know i cried when you died / i say
kinfolk you ain’t dead / in me you be alive
awaitin ya second comin
(4)
good boy woke lit
bad boy left lone
funny women big hit
great beins never gone
i’m awaitin they second comin
(5)
now it’s time we mix the fixins / one part
ugly star three parts dragon fruit five thorny
berry pincha yang mei six knobby noni
eight horny melons fista black beet bitterroot
i’m pourin potions stirrin unguents smearin
lotions rollin the dice my notion mull n
soak spanglish spell / profanity taste the tongues
of heaven / pig latin suck the tits of hell
touchin the third rail
(6)
badass gal gone for good
iambic gal gone prefigure
fiction witches gone auspicious
playwright wenches omen kisses
we touchin that third rail
(7)
josephine winnie ernestine elizabeth
coretta leontyne / zora pen your way to
freedom / twitch it toni / write it up work the damn
tale / bitches brew be boilin vat be twerkin poem
pot pan pail / hard times’ll make a monkey eat bright
red pepper / snake killer women keep on hittin it
till we get it beat it up down round till
it ferments is live or dead / convene command invoke
proclaim incant i’m huntin for ms alberta
portendin prognosticatin / chaka bo
boo boom baraka boom bang bell / sonia storms
the holy gates she drains poison from earthly wells
we breakin the fourth wall ya’ll
(8)
bad girl turn round
ghazal gal on the roam
southern gal sugar cane
mama dolce never gone
hey ya’ll we breakin that fourth wall
(9)
ring luciano luther and andrea
lift every voice and sing michael masashi
marvin malcolm martin and madiba
we be how-ow-owlin with the wolves i be bein
with the kings / bobby blue smoke stack lightnin hop hook me
up john lee i’m drinkin deep muddy water / ray be
jammin bonnie’s slidin home thru me / koko danez
big mama thornton / set ya whole hawg free
bubba unca buddy unca red ol ant maggie
iris jacsun ossie marinel ruby dee
carol kate / butterfly / dred / donny hath come home / i
bed your rock / rock your bed / birth your land / godx your zone
we rollin the fifth wheel
(10)
acrostic gal on the throne
tanka gal got attitude
ode gal gone epic
story gal ridin the groove
she rollin rollin rollin that fifth wheel
(11)
pagan gals scribe divination we be
diggin tomes rifflin tombs blessin bones / funky
gals bust the gates / bong the got damn bell / write it
down / own ya destiny / eat ya fate / now mix it
two hairy rambutan in red urucu
oil / slice four buddha fingers from arthritic
yellow hands whip in fifty luther love songs
poesy gal pot liquor his hot buttered yams
strip dirge the sixth veil
(12)
colored gal gone hood
native son hither come
madrigal done went lament
taliswoman heaven-sent
let it rip / dirge the sixth veil
(13)
ballad kevalshar salt n honey judith
j ballet the money / tina / never stop
dr mamie rather wear out than rust
or rot / i call you forth bless you thank you
raise you praise you foretoken resurrect you
venerate prince it un-sense it high voltage
hybrid ramp it up erupt tyehimba by
brooks prose kerri’s web by dove shabda fly fly fly
ta-nehisi me i drink your voice eat
your words couplet the night pantoum my blood
cinquain my name enjamb me vision keep we
standard bear torch carry break the ball unchain
panegyric the seventh seal
(14)
galish gal limerick
ladylove concrete
inamorata monologue aubade
beatbox soliloquies
it’s the seventh panegyric seal
(15)
lily african moon i woo you ghost
orchid corpse flower who you ava kasi
ingmar julie spike it hit it mainline shots
of diaspora menstrual blood / blue jade vine
secret verse amulet fuchsia rose haired
rhapsodist sips lavender sugar water
she a gaztelugatxe hummingbird / we
broil sonnet boil caesura sauté some hex
chill rhyme snort wine ensorcell ourselves
she sestina tornado blast volcano
i lightnin fish rain glory cappuccino coast
we catatumbo moonglow palinode
lyric the eighth canzone oxtail
(16)
geechee gal left pastoral
gullah gal come back experimental
man-boy shoots blank free verse
senryu renga and terza rima
we lyric the eighth oxtail canzone
(17)
molten words brazen stanzas in my head
heart hands prophesy hold em feel em fold em
squeeze em smell em lick em soothsay rune foretell
it grind it bind it nobel it slay it spell it
presage north south whisper east west sprinkle sex
powder love power blowtorch the night angela
cicely alfre whitney audre roberta
lorraine / i am your husband mother lover wife
nine spenserians found
(18)
olio gal done come thru blood and blunder
performative introvert done gone asunder
she cleave to prayer walk in awe and wonder / despite
plunder this poet gal aint goin under
i say ninth spenserian found
(19)
candi g j hud ms labelle hit that high
note aretha’s burnin in the kitchen her
second batch of deep-fried chicken auntie
graça’s on the switch jimmy b be fryin fish
sheldon’s rain fire dancin with me on
la river seine seine seine hong kong it
sydney seoul it taiwan joburg unfold it
cause we sho nuff be knowin walkin alice
is a life givin woman writin n rumblin
with me in the roar of thunder cyclone tempest
dust storm nonet earthquake miltonic hurricane
haiku blizzard haibun landslide hard slam bake
s epatha to the tenth power real
(20)
marvagarazeta gal blowin southeast
troubadour sacrament rondelet
epitaph / elegy / epigraph
enchante´ villanesque sista gal
to the tenth power am i the real real deal
(21)
mahalia eartha quakes marian ms simone
i camp your ground i back your bone
monet romare matisse kehinde
pray oeuvre anoint smudge consecrate
dr marlene / charlottesville soyinka benét
providence zhwa pelagie iowa city
ann arbor austin evanston laurie white face
tucson tempe baltimore serengeti
rabat dublin paris prose poem pot pie / all
or nothing now or never black or white do
or die / newark i’m yours ithaca you’re
mine i gotcha boom chaka boom we’re entwined
to the tenth power the real deal’s goin down
(22)
1st riddle live wire
2nd petrarchan comin
3rd elegiac rail
4th wall folktale
5th shakespearean wheel
6th strip dirge black veil
7th panegyric seal
8th spicy hot oxtails
9th spenserian found
10th she the real deal
she for real and the deal’s goin down down down
(23)
now mix it / angelou stevie bruce / come hoochie
coochie jimmy carter bob dylan / come sweet n
juicy akhmatova john lewis / come boujee swag
meta-music jacqui reiko come lisa churnin
reparations come emily p we be celebratin
come futuristic lindsey’s eatin apples off the floor
come mc julia / all allies known / i give requite on
love you’ve shown / queen mother and all ya’ll kinfolk / know
you aint gone you ain’t never ever gone
your prosody lives on in me
(24)
infidels / we / spell write incite zeitgeist
we / summon supplicate speculate recreate
typhoon / we / carry on / and on and on and o-o-o-o-n
Risë Kevalshar Collins is an American artist of African ancestry. She earned a BFA in Drama at Carnegie Mellon University, and was a member of the original Broadway production of Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow is Enuf. She earned an MSW in Clinical and Political Social Work at University of Houston and served as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in Texas, Oregon, Washington State, and North Idaho. Risë earned a BFA in Creative Writing at Boise State University where she served on the editorial staff of Idaho Review. Her nonfiction appears in Michigan Quarterly Review, and The Texas Review; her fiction appears in North American Review, and in The EastOver Press Anthology of Rural Stories, 2023: Writers of Color; her poetry appears in The Indianapolis Review, Tupelo Quarterly, The Minnesota Review, ANMLY, and The Normal School. Risë will begin an MFA in creative writing program in fall 2024. She is the recipient of an Alexa Rose Foundation Artist’s Grant.
Photo credit: Jon Mangold