anthem

30poemsin5days

Would you damn risk digging out from behind

somewhere tall like a lighthouse, then spew

the poems you've wrote to the Atlantic

as if each ghostly grave was a tuna casserole

or a relative you lost, wet and shaking?

At the June pride-fest, the whales in the river,

if it had any, would be done in by air holes

and nostrils full of Chloe Narcisse; into daylight

two women trying not to hold hands but

holding hands, then catch a discerning eye,

then on cue, give that "call me" sign that we

gave in the 80's when the wall phone was

a thing you wound with an index finger until it

hit a landing place, as if to speak is a humorless

conversation you have with a blurred, bottomless soul.

It's ok if the lesbians cry out from each and every

kissing booth. A drag queen fully made up in

daylight is a spell worth keeping. Every speaker

started every speech with someone signing that

couldn't keep up. It's the way the wind does a

complex soul. Dives at it like a cement bird with

a beak the size of Adrianne Rich. I praise her

for her clarity and vision. For her tender joyful

nuanced songs of togetherness /

Reviews

[Chris D.]

Your words are like a surgeons knife, giving my mind a little nip tuck.. Thanks for tightening the wrinkles around our thoughts.. Nice write!!

[writing mojo]

a fast ever lasting gaze, which you pick up and put to the page like tunnel vision
has a trained eye awaiting the light to roll off tract confinement
changing with each under belly pass stationary..excellent piece

[Lydia Shutter]

WOW, Dana, there is so much to drink in here. The imagery of spewing poems into the sea is incredible! It is a shame that even today people have to hide their sexuality because there are those who are so judgmental. The detailed emotive lines are striking...powerful! Incredible work here, Dana. Lydi**

[AmjadPenboyoflight]

not read anything like this
very different and good

[Rewel Acosta Rivera]

Mind and soul have it war on the understanding of a chaotic world around. So the reality of each one is the way each one search happiness. Sometimes we close eyes, lay down and just let the soul do the best to describe the inner world. So this poem a beauty journey of feelings and ideas.

I will be following you. Thanks for share your talent.

[m.s.early]

You could write for the Saturday Evening Post if it were as classy as you

[Olivia]

your writing motivates me to keep writing and reading. i love everything about this piece

[W.k.kortas]

You can't (well shouldn't, anyway) ignore the title and what that suggests--something big, sweeping, the hallmark of something akin to a movement, and certainly there is that aspect of that here, in the way you might find it in Ginsberg's "Howl", but there is the personal here as well, the wonderfully life-affirming stuff of the final stanza (come to think of it, there's Ginsberg again, but...) I admire, and am indeed more than a little jealous of, the narrative in this piece. It's not linear storytelling, but it has the richness of detail, the underlying core of belief that any tale worth its salt has. Top-shelf writing, no less.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

nothing like "taking a walk on the wild side"

i can feel myself dialing that wall phone and hear that sound...dododo dodododo....
this poem is a spell...and i am still in it.
i'll comment once i get off this blurred street of remembering where i went in the 80's---