by Gabriella Duncan
As I walked the winding path,
My breath was shallow
And anger was at times
My only friend… Continue reading Sunday Stew: The Narrow Path
Tag Archives: Sunday Stew
Sunday Stew: Who I Am
by Matt Sedillo
Plato
In a cave
Shakespeare
At the Globe
Napoleon
On the Rhine
All roads
Lead to Rome
Jefferson
In his study
Alexander
Cried
Lincoln
Freed the slaves
And history
Would not lie
Washington
On the Delaware
Take time
To learn
Your forebears
They
Are you
Though
You
Are not
You are
Nowhere
Born
Of nothing
History
Is written
To keep
Its victims
Learn
To think
English
Swarthy horde
Barbarian at the gate
Even in insult
Color
Erased
From the soil
Roots
To be razed
You
Of burn codice
You
Without legacy
Skin
Without myth
Blood
Without legend
You bastard children
Never
Seem to learn
Your lesson
The academy
Is no game
Of call
And response
It is the smoke rising
Of burning village
Europe
More construct
Than continent
Less land mass
Than concept
More west
Than civilization
More land grab
Than destination
White
Something
I was taught
When I was young
I was not
A place
Where the census
Now tells me
To check
A box
Of Hispanic
Descent
Burned down the past
Now back for the rest
Claw
All that
Indigenous
From my chest
Born stateless
Heir to every injustice
Every pen
Every blade
Every cannon
Every burnt page
Born of 1846
Or was it 1538
1519
1492
Or of nothing
Of no one
The unsung ballad
Of history’s
Forgotten son
Tell me again
Who it is
That I am not
For some
Old world hardships
Crashed
Against new shores
Newfoundland
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New York
Plymouth Rock
For others
Pushed off
Turtle Island
Atzlan
Do not call this brown
Skin immigrant
Child of the sun
Son of the conquest
Mestizo blood
Born of the streets
Of South Seattle
Who draws his breath
From different winds
Learns the past
In a different skin
Do not tell him
In what native tongue
His song would best
Be sung
Do not tell me
Who I am
Sunday Stew: Democracy
by Matt Sedillo
If a tree falls in the forest
And no one is there to hear it
Does it make a sound
If a ballot falls in a box
And no one knows
What they are voting for
Does it really count
What happens to a dream deferred
To justice deterred
To life
When it becomes impossible to live it
I don’t want to know
Because I want more than a vote
I want to be a participant
See
I want to live in a free country
A democracy
Where hate speech
Doesn’t pass for freedom
Where
No one has to turn to crime
To feed their children
If you were to put
A measure on a ballot
I would vote for democracy
I want the same things as anyone
And i want them for everyone
I want to live in a free country
A democracy
Not with over two million
Locked in cages
Or millions more
Pushed into the street
Where as Ferguson shows
You cant even surrender
To police
One nation
Under ghetto birds
And terror copters
Locking down children
At the border
Cutting off
Families
From their water
While cutting lunch programs
To drop bombs on Iraq
I dont want to live like that
I want to live in a free country
A democracy
What happens to a dream deferred
To justice deterred
To life
When it becomes impossible
To live it
If you don’t know who you are
You can never know your power
You dont know who you are
But you will soon find out
Let your voice be heard
And may it finally count
Sunday Stew: The Voice That Rose The Dead
by Andrew James
I remember the first day I heard her voice… it was sweeter than honey laced licorice. I was on the corner of Rainier Avenue and Henderson waiting at the bus stop for the perpetually late number 42 bus. The August sun scorched my charcoal skin, and my eyes seemed so heavy my neck strained to keep my head from tearing away from it. My arms and legs were merely limp appendages under the command of whatever swoop of air the cars that passed by were generous enough to grant us pedestrians dependent on King County’s unwieldy chariots . The bones of my bones roared with pain. To lay down forever on the concrete beneath me littered in fast food wrappers stained with grease, and lacquered with stalled condiments and the urine of drunks seemed a fortunate fate. Such a feeling is the consequence of 15 non stop hours of moving the furniture of the well to do from McMansion to Mega Mansion.
My spirit broken, body bruised, and mind benumbed, I could no longer stand as gravity failed my slumping corpse, but then a voice erupted from a siren made me float… “Please wait!” she crooned to the number 106 as it left her in hot pursuit of its next destination. That voice that sighed with grief at the thought of waiting another 30 minutes to be on her journey home. That voice that spoke to me to ask the time, and then my name, and then where I lived, and… That day it belonged to a stranger, who I still suspect was Zeus’ daughter. That voice… it now belongs to my wife.
Sunday Stew: The Ecstasy of Now
by Sampson Moore
there’s a glint from a grim corpse you can see as it slithers from the dark grave
in dire search to reprise a role played so long ago that yesterday forgets
its head ascends in silence to glimpse a life it longed to live
if only it owned the courage it had to borrow
if only it possessed the passion it desired to lend
to view a vantage of life it housed in wishes and journeyed to in dreams
its bitter poison willfully swallowed now exchanged for the savory saccharine
and what was long exhaled is breathed in
the dead, the gone, mine ancient carrion so bewildered, can only peer at future yesterdays
to see me smile wide enough to stretch the boundaries of a lifetime, from what was, to what will be, all with the gleam from the exquisite today
Sunday Stew: The Roar of Remembrance
by Marcus Harrison Green
There are times I cry out
To not see your face
or hear your voice
or sense your touch
But to remember
to remember…
Sunday Stew: The Raging Bull
by Drew Sutherland
What more do I have for you than this unworthy little thought in the wee small hours? I can’t hold you and hug away your pain, you’re too far away. I can’t run my fingers through your soft hair. Life forbids us even having the time to take solace in exchanging words on the telephone. But I will stare down the time and space, like a mighty bull. You will see me snort and toss my head, knowing my eye is on you and you alone. You will hear my hooves pounding futilely on the earth- my solitary dance of death, loneliness, and warning. And maybe, just maybe, while you sleep, you will feel my breath fall softly on the nape of your neck, my heart beating- strong and hard but NEVER rushed- through my chest and against your back, my whole self pressed against the thin, thin pane of glass that separates the miles. I may fog the glass, but I will never look away.
Sunday Stew: The Nap
by Drew Sutherland
I woke myself this morning, wound me good and tight,
I wound myself this morning lookin’ for a fight,
I had some things to clear up, some things I had to say,
I was going to stir the pot- make things right my way.
Slippers on, caffeine in hand, I went to the back door,
I do it every morning, to think of peace not war,
and as I opened up the door, saw the sparkling dew,
I felt your presence all around, and then I entered you.
I slept a half an hour and dreamt 100 years,
The changing of the seasons, happiness and tears.
And as I sat by naked trees, the early buds of Spring,
It hit me like a bolt of truth, “I do not know a thing.”
A wash of peace fell on me then unfurrowing my brow,
My plans, my wrath melted away, I remembered an old vow.
I’d spent a year in solace, meditation, and some grace
I spent that time in silence, thoughts slowing in their race.
I’d figured out that being wound was causing misery,
Enslaving all I thought I loved, I caged what should be free.
I slept a half an hour and dreamt 100 years,
The changing of the seasons, happiness and tears.
I went and taught a class at school, forgot about my fight,
I said, “Hello?”, “How are you?” and noticed the sunlight.
I trundled to my office and shed my teaching gear,
My tummy was on “Grumble” and a sandwich shop was near.
Friend in tow I ventured forth to forage for my food,
I needed me a gyro for I was “in the mood”.
As I ate I wondered at springtime on the fringe.
My little gyro sandwich felt like such a binge.
Then back to home at 5:00, my knitting in my lap,
My eyes were dry and my bed called for a little kitty nap.
Up narrow stairs to my large bed, cloaked in downy white,
Window open, snuggled up, a slice of daytime night.
I slept a half an hour and dreamt 100 years,
The changing of the seasons, happiness and tears.
In 30 minutes I had gone across a vast landscape,
Surveying all the beauty, confused by all the hate,
I woke from this extended trip sure I’d overslept,
A half an hour’s all that passed, my cheeks were damp- I’d wept.
Slippers on, caffeine in hand, I went to the back door,
This time it wasn’t morning, evening just off-shore,
And as I opened up the door, I thought of what was true,
Without my seated happiness, I can’t share me with you.
Sunday Stew: Pondering Sky
by Matt Aspin
The sky
Don’t look like it should
At night the light blocks out the scenes of the fight
Between the dark and light
The wrong and the right
Steals away the wonder and the might
Replaced with safe and secure
Hypnotized sparkling nothing allure of the quick and easy obscure.
So empty
Void of the pure
We need a new goal
The soul
A wonder serene
A new scene with questions that mean
We can still wonder at the sky with a few more secrets to share
Unaware with no care of the here and the there
And the why and the where
And the why out there
And the why do we care?
To wonder
To dare
To question unknown
The point of it all
Still not clear
Back to ponder
All night at the sky with just enough light to wonder
And dream
And to write
Matt Aspin is an amiable gent who has made a second home out of South Seattle ale houses.
