Poetry by Shirley Jones-Luke

Otherness

after Alex Dimitrov

We're on the moon. Years ago, I knew I couldn't
save anyone.  Despite that news, I made sure that
I tried to save anyone thereafter.  But it's easier to say
it than to do it.  The moon doesn't love you.  Without
anyone else, I am just a room devoid of life.  It is almost
impossible to exist without deception. Do you love me?

I must tell you that I've failed at loving you. You wanted a
deep, passionate love from me, but I could not give it. I know
that people need to be loved.  But right now, I see only hate. I hear
only hate. I feel hate growing in my heart.  My country is confusing me.

Our money is not infinite like the oceans. But even oceans lose their currents. Water runs dry. Banks fail.  Our money is better off under a mattress.  Besides, we don't sleep in the same bed anyone. We haven't in years.  I don't miss the warmth of your body. It went cold when my heart did.

We must refuse evil.  We must not abandon our hearts. We must end the worst of life, the debased, racists, religious terrorists and the elite. They exist because we allowed them to.  They exist without love.  Their love is warped. But we aren't pure either. There is still coal inside us diamonds.

I wish this otherness would end.  But there seems to be no ending. Our love struggles onward, life support, breathing tube, ineffective medicines. Oceans are dying. The rich continue to get richer. The poor labor with only love to sustain them. What will sustain us? Something beyond this otherness.





Our Essence is Not a Social Construct

Rebellion loves me
like the sun loves the night sky
I do not know the meaning of belonging
I have self-selected my persona
on this solo journey
to get away from hate
I'm a portrait of the familiar
across a diamond acre
seeking warmth
from an indifferent sun
there are no other options
but to declare my privilege
to be who I choose despite
a society that has already
rejected me





Country Living

after Krysten Hill

My country
is a kind of cage    
that follows you like a stalker
they want you, piercing flashlights
blinds your eyes, tapes mouths shut
then they tell you to sing
I can’t stand the noise
An agonizing clatter
a desperate clamoring
They tell you they want encores
their requests are killing me, killing us
 
They think they know us
but they don't even want us in their homes
they think they are our lovers, but they have
raped us across the lands, seas and centuries
I seek quieter times
away from their crowds
their arrogant smoke, their dull energy
makes me squirm
makes me yearn for their erasure
from our history

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In Release

after Krysten Hill

This tune
released
from its orbit

The moon notes its flight

Indigo star
running from space
rhythm in escape
understood only the stars

A celestial language

This tune
hanging on
releases its lyrics,
drops melodic stardust,
silencing the sun        

This tune
unshackles the cosmos
it happens in nanoseconds

Every word of this tune
is on a lyrical trajectory
through the vein of the universe





Legacy

after Chen Chen

I want to be a better mom,
a better person
to inspire my son

to become a better man
than his father
to love without unnecessary conditions

placed upon his girlfriend/wife. To be comfortable
in his own skin. To be free from disease

unlike his mother & grandmother. In time,
to travel the country & the globe with me
or on his own

To travel across worn paths, dirt roads
& congested highways to meet cousins who only

recently learned that we exist. To find more humor
in the everyday & not be held hostage by tears,
like the ones that stain my cheeks

leaving wet spots on my clothes, when I think
about my mother or people, I don't know who die
before their time

When I'm sad, my eyes bulge like a deer caught
in the headlights of an oncoming car,
speeding for no reason at all

except to feel the thrust of acceleration, the force of momentum
the deer, startled by the brightness,
tries to prance away - but it is too late

I am not a deer, but I know I need to be more aware
of my surroundings, see, while others ignore the signs

I can’t be one of them. Mom raised
me to be strong--

I was once a sapling, now I'm a tree,
rooted in the earth

Shading the sapling that is my son,
I know, what he is to become & I want to him to grow strong

Standing tall against the coming storms. To be somebody, anybody,
for himself, for me, for his grandmother,
gone now - except for her legacy

Bio: Shirley Jones-Luke is a poet and a writer. Ms. Luke lives and works in Boston, Massachusetts.  She has an MFA from Emerson College.  In addition, Ms. Luke is a teacher for the Boston Public Schools. Her work has been published in Adelaide, Damfino, Deluge, ENUF, Fire Poetry and Mass Poetry.
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