Billy-Ray Belcourt (he/him) is a writer and academic from the Driftpile Cree Nation. The above poem was snatched from the essential Survivance zine created by Elizabeth LaPensée, Ph.D., and R.I.S.E. (Radical Indigenous Survivance and Empowerment).
The work available in this series is vibrant, illuminating and broadly necessary. Please support their projects.
One bit of vocab to spotlight here: KOOKUM, I believe, is a Cree word for grandmother.
What is Phillis Wheatley’s name?
What is Phillis Wheatley’s name?
What is Phillis Wheatley’s name?
What is Phillis Wheatley’s name?
What is Phillis Wheatley’s name?
What is Phillis Wheatley’s name?
What is Phillis Wheatley’s name?
(What is Phillis Wheatley’s name?)
“A change in the concept of sexual identity is essential if we are not going to see the old political order reassert itself in every new revolution. … The charisma of Man seems to come purely from his power over [women] and his control over the world by force, not from anything fertile or life-giving in him.” Adrienne Rich, from “When We Dead Awaken”, 1971
from There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé by Morgan Parker
bono ich ichor be the dog's hat an ichor lana brain 19th the hittite lovers whale-sea manninguage show me any persona and i will find you opportunity love lost was manhattan sweat an indo-european in you lover we'll see language has a way a dog's hat is a distinct memory branch show me any persona and i will find you puzzle's love lost ich of their guts shades only sweat ichor-ture not mentioned but black in your eye biblical way intent attention sweat caitlyn jenner show me any persona and i will whisper weakness into the wreck renee ramsey branch ich-ichor attend to sweat ana branch ichor caitlyn jenner known as black indo-european in your eye regional show me any persona tell me about opportunity's lost labor identury attenuated in your eye black unrelated for christina tom gabel your eye black show me any persona where music is buried and i'll find love to lose in you lover chelsea manning bradley renee renee renee ramsey manning the hair gel stuck in the 19th century anatolian core show me any persona deep inside your love lost sometimes uninhabitable true true love lover chelsea manning withhold my free vision bruce jenner bradley renee ramsey show me any persona and i will shake terror of the possible ichor compels ichor sometimes stuck in your eye black indo-european years bruce jenner brain 19th the what the not intention but the christina kahrl angel membered people show me any persona and hold you up to the sun sea convent bono in 19th tether from they're native lover xychelsea maman est morte indo-european luck in 19th thread in 19th century the ichor caitlyn jenner the sweat their guts show me any persona the fire within i'll tell you how stuck in your eye be gone who indo-european ichor language watcher renee related the what your eye biblically sweet a dog's hat in neon show me any persona tempt me the you about blood loss who ich ich of the was hair anatolian plague they're neither enterpreted nor competent aujourd'hui il fait beau sweat monger show me any persona cleave the hog a complete loss the luwians shot all the infants your brain-eye black with the unrelated anatolians the shot of the wettest future show me any persona and i'll tell you about my love lost black is unadorned in 19th defenestration in you lover chelsea manning bruce jenner bradley ichor language who ich ichor caitlyn jenner show me any persona and i'll tell you about my time in the forest hat and hair in sweat tethered in your eye
“If all this be not rebellion, I know not what to call it. I certainly regard it as sufficient legal cause for suspending the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus.” William W. Morris
gray to wear lipstick his mouth
he ate breakfast before lincoln wanted
to like to wear lipstick his mother wore
lincoln wanted to wish away war lincoln
wanted to like his mother school her
wear her caring peach lincoln wanted his mouth
to mother his mouth he watched her
thin serious mouth he wondered what
i could do for him and why she did
most mornings air on most mornings while
budget-bonded why she did it efficient
elegant wary to wear lipstick that
i could why all night she wears lipstick
his mouth he wondered while tightening the draw
strings of his small leather sack why
she did it freshly applied
she did it as commentary
It does not know it glitters
It does not know it flies
It does not know it is this not that.
And, more and more often, agape,
With my Gauloise dying out,
Over a glass of red wine,
I muse on the meaning of being this not that.
Just as long ago, when I was twenty,
But then there was a hope I would be everything,
Perhaps even a butterfly or a thrush, by magic.
Now I see dusty district roads
And a town where the postmaster gets drunk every day
Melancholy with remaining identical to himself.
If only the stars contained me.
If only everything kept happening in such a way
That the so-called world opposed the so-called flesh.
Were I at least not contradictory. Alas.
Source: Miłosz, Czesław. New and Collected Poems 1931-2001. New York: Ecco, 2001. Print. Page 164.
Desirable Difficulties
attention comes in
and Mrs Dennison
smiles
smart in
front of M
her laptop computer’s wallpaper neatly
going
to his lush chair S realizing his lush chair
can’t go through another kid
him
realizing the two men are over
stacks
in
luxurious come their
steelplastic hybrid they capture currents
we can’t
go through
another kid him realizing
a second opinion
computers in two men
Mrs Dennison’s attention
she closes the work
and respects into men
is Mr Dennison smart or what
Sources: - Mrs. Doubtfire. Dir. Chris Colombus. Twentieth Century Fox, 24 Nov. 1993. Screenplay. - Zalubowski, David. JaKarr Sampson, Carmelo Anthony. 8 Mar. 2016. Photograph. 8 Mar. 2016.
“I can lay out a field / a Spectrum / Where in / So what is spoken / is the living / the flesh / & its / Movement—” from Amiri Baraka’s “#19 Death Parallels”
Wire drags west then the department
built a very black of gauze and effect
I’m TOP SECRET//SI//TK//NOFORN
and its proximity says “You this ain’t.”
A violent IC caveat duster
you are alcohol is the issue
but what time?
Intelligence community settlefield
race claims classified destructive
presence in the closive of counteers
that night hears excruciating across
Hawaii Emily she differs on
the thin way to February Marlow
Stern rode in on a Mistan wheel
When into the bleak Pacific
speaks a civil libation except over
government acoustics
“Iran is / the why competing table of centrifuges, wet and / with saying,”
Netanyahu 4 of ther atter year, we're here in place a chasing the work. It's just nuclearned. Iran is the why competing table of centrifuges, wet and with saying, (SPEAKING IN HEBREW), "Be stop its militant Israel's. And such more arsenal doesn't been about it with third, stop them down around that restricted for of what Iran and such more with but lose a matter of years. But Iran fund of great that chasingle it. (APPLAUSE) Well, Iran would before dangers of your life, but now can even time was neight he in too read our liferating up found let Iran's nuclear arsenal of both while interceive body