FOLIO No.5
Summer 2020
From the Issue Editor
I came across a quote from legendary singer Nina Simone recently on social media:
We will shape and mold this country or it will not be molded and shaped at all anymore.
So I don’t think you have a choice. How can you be an artist and not reflect the time?
After reading through all the submissions for this issue, it was fascinating to me that I could literally use Simone’s quote to guide me in selecting pieces and organizing the issue. The writing and art in the July Folio you’re about to read literally reflects our current changing, evolving, and revolutionary times.
Here's just a brief selection from the work in this issue:
From artist Darrell Black:
A church rises in the middle of the city. A boastingly large cross. A vibrant yellow background. Silhouettes of buildings with colored windows like stained glass.
From poet Jason Pambuena:
It has come to my attention that I have developed a primitive fear.
From poet Annabel Haddid:
I want to be seen.
From poet Kofi Antwi:
and dare to love – solitude
From prose writer Juan Rodriguez:
Can you hear the sound of good intentions; of the accidental othering of the innocent? It sounds like a ball going through a basket without a net. It sounds like the divine promise of the rainbow in the clouds
All of the writing and artwork in this issue signals destruction and breaking things down. In the middle of reading submissions, our streets exploded around the world. Throughout this pandemic most of us have had to sit and wait. Now, we stand because we have realized that what we have been doing to support each other is not enough. We need to unlearn racism; we need to fight unearned white privilege; we need to unlearn our prejudices. We’re in revolutionary times and it is necessary to do this work. Doing nothing is not an option.
The weight on the backs of those who are oppressed just keeps getting heavier and that can’t continue any longer. What we hope you find in this issue is that voices that can show us all how we each can apply our own kind of pressure to put on notice those who continue to oppress the marginalized: your time is up.
What we need now more than ever is a world in which oppressors cannot stomp on the lives and the freedoms of others. Imagine being forgotten; consider the nightmares that people can’t tell -- nightmares about their run-ins with racist police or having to listen to bigoted world leaders and out of touch politicians. As contributor Jason Pambuena says, Humans are like tanks. We can make ourselves unmovable in the face of oppression. When the oppressors around us wield their own weapons for war, and in this frenzy of not knowing what will come next, those who fight for justice can stand our ground. This can be a different kind of war. We don’t need guns – it is our words, our connectivity, and our communication that will carry us through.
We need art and language now, more than ever. The writers and artists in this issue are proof of how powerful words can be.This issue is about facing what stands in the way of true social justice and freedom for all, but it is also about healing and providing a space for those who are unable to speak for themselves. We want to provide a space for those who have been silenced forever. We ask you to listen to these voices calling out to us all and hope you will join us in rebuilding stronger communities -- stronger than before.
Let’s stand together, side by side in survival and in resistance, to achieve change and progress.
Ticking Time Bombs
I’ve heard us referred to as
ticking time bombs bursting
or shattering noisily
as a result of rapid
combustion and dangerous
decomposition we
mostly scattered fragments wide
So maybe we did explode
It wasn’t random
It was necessary
It happened just in time
Karina Diaz
Issue Editor
Ticking Time Bombs by Karina Diaz
We will shape and mold this country or it will not be molded and shaped at all anymore.
So I don’t think you have a choice. How can you be an artist and not reflect the time?
After reading through all the submissions for this issue, it was fascinating to me that I could literally use Simone’s quote to guide me in selecting pieces and organizing the issue. The writing and art in the July Folio you’re about to read literally reflects our current changing, evolving, and revolutionary times.
Here's just a brief selection from the work in this issue:
From artist Darrell Black:
A church rises in the middle of the city. A boastingly large cross. A vibrant yellow background. Silhouettes of buildings with colored windows like stained glass.
From poet Jason Pambuena:
It has come to my attention that I have developed a primitive fear.
From poet Annabel Haddid:
I want to be seen.
From poet Kofi Antwi:
and dare to love – solitude
From prose writer Juan Rodriguez:
Can you hear the sound of good intentions; of the accidental othering of the innocent? It sounds like a ball going through a basket without a net. It sounds like the divine promise of the rainbow in the clouds
All of the writing and artwork in this issue signals destruction and breaking things down. In the middle of reading submissions, our streets exploded around the world. Throughout this pandemic most of us have had to sit and wait. Now, we stand because we have realized that what we have been doing to support each other is not enough. We need to unlearn racism; we need to fight unearned white privilege; we need to unlearn our prejudices. We’re in revolutionary times and it is necessary to do this work. Doing nothing is not an option.
The weight on the backs of those who are oppressed just keeps getting heavier and that can’t continue any longer. What we hope you find in this issue is that voices that can show us all how we each can apply our own kind of pressure to put on notice those who continue to oppress the marginalized: your time is up.
What we need now more than ever is a world in which oppressors cannot stomp on the lives and the freedoms of others. Imagine being forgotten; consider the nightmares that people can’t tell -- nightmares about their run-ins with racist police or having to listen to bigoted world leaders and out of touch politicians. As contributor Jason Pambuena says, Humans are like tanks. We can make ourselves unmovable in the face of oppression. When the oppressors around us wield their own weapons for war, and in this frenzy of not knowing what will come next, those who fight for justice can stand our ground. This can be a different kind of war. We don’t need guns – it is our words, our connectivity, and our communication that will carry us through.
We need art and language now, more than ever. The writers and artists in this issue are proof of how powerful words can be.This issue is about facing what stands in the way of true social justice and freedom for all, but it is also about healing and providing a space for those who are unable to speak for themselves. We want to provide a space for those who have been silenced forever. We ask you to listen to these voices calling out to us all and hope you will join us in rebuilding stronger communities -- stronger than before.
Let’s stand together, side by side in survival and in resistance, to achieve change and progress.
Ticking Time Bombs
I’ve heard us referred to as
ticking time bombs bursting
or shattering noisily
as a result of rapid
combustion and dangerous
decomposition we
mostly scattered fragments wide
So maybe we did explode
It wasn’t random
It was necessary
It happened just in time
Karina Diaz
Issue Editor
Ticking Time Bombs by Karina Diaz
FOLIO NO.5 - Summer 2020
City of Redemption -- Cover Image and Header Image by Darrell Black
Contents |
|
Çağatay Dörtyıldız - Roof
Jason Pambuena - Ce que je ne peux pas dire -What I Cannot Say
Kofi Antwi - Impressionism (Udala’s Tree)
Darrell Black - The Forgotten People
Jason Pambuena - -Le gens sont comme les chars-People Are Like Tanks
Darrell Black - The Face of Destitution
Annabel Haddad - Salt
Darrell Black - The Search for Empathy
Juan Rodriguez - Rainbow in the Clouds
Ikechukwu Obiorah - Knock Socks Off the Giant
Roof
Çağatay Dörtyıldız
And people lived under a roof
On reptiles, close to god
Time spread like a deadly virus
Prophets falsified prophecies
Today, sun rose again
And us, under a plane tree
Became isolated like our shadows
Some of us rose to the sky, on a concrete
Descended on concrete
Furnaces of the camps stand still
Merry friends and poems on our table
Written like yesterday, in the palms of the moment
No one remembers, the names of the ones who died
In love with love, hunger and romance
Most of the times with loneliness
We got used to the ones who live in a few square meters
To the endless flow
To the ones who simply walked away
Under a roof
On the claw of the earth
We are like a rotten corpse on the bones
We wrote history on the star that died out
To the remembered and to the existed
We searched for love in the everything of nothingness
We came from eternity and started over
On reptiles, close to god
Time spread like a deadly virus
Prophets falsified prophecies
Today, sun rose again
And us, under a plane tree
Became isolated like our shadows
Some of us rose to the sky, on a concrete
Descended on concrete
Furnaces of the camps stand still
Merry friends and poems on our table
Written like yesterday, in the palms of the moment
No one remembers, the names of the ones who died
In love with love, hunger and romance
Most of the times with loneliness
We got used to the ones who live in a few square meters
To the endless flow
To the ones who simply walked away
Under a roof
On the claw of the earth
We are like a rotten corpse on the bones
We wrote history on the star that died out
To the remembered and to the existed
We searched for love in the everything of nothingness
We came from eternity and started over
Bio
Çağatay Dörtyıldız was born in İstanbul in 1994. He majored in media and communication at the Istanbul University and studied acting. His book “İç” where his poems compiled was published in 2015 and his first novel “Profesyonel Hayat Figuranı” was published in 2017. Since 2012, Many of his short stories and poems were also published in multiple magazines. Also, ‘’Fikri Bey İçin Yazılmış En İyi Son’’ (2013) ‘’Par’’ (2015) ‘’Sesime Gel’’ (2018) ‘’Lekeli Ağaç’’ (2018). “Kaçırır Mıyız?” (2019) are his written plays. He is currently directing and scriptwriting at the Cineguru Studios that he also cofounded.
Çağatay Dörtyıldız was born in İstanbul in 1994. He majored in media and communication at the Istanbul University and studied acting. His book “İç” where his poems compiled was published in 2015 and his first novel “Profesyonel Hayat Figuranı” was published in 2017. Since 2012, Many of his short stories and poems were also published in multiple magazines. Also, ‘’Fikri Bey İçin Yazılmış En İyi Son’’ (2013) ‘’Par’’ (2015) ‘’Sesime Gel’’ (2018) ‘’Lekeli Ağaç’’ (2018). “Kaçırır Mıyız?” (2019) are his written plays. He is currently directing and scriptwriting at the Cineguru Studios that he also cofounded.
Ce que je ne peux pas dire -What I Cannot Say
Jason Pambuena
I cannot say
That things are hard
Without someone starting to laugh
From thinking about erections
--------[A pause]----------
Nor can I say
Someone to come
Without becoming a joke
That talks about ejaculation
--------[A pause]----------
I cannot fill out
My gender on a sheet
Without receiving ridicule
Akin to condemnation
--------[A pause]---------
I cannot say
Anything sincere
Without someone from behind
Making my words
Into a fabrication
That things are hard
Without someone starting to laugh
From thinking about erections
--------[A pause]----------
Nor can I say
Someone to come
Without becoming a joke
That talks about ejaculation
--------[A pause]----------
I cannot fill out
My gender on a sheet
Without receiving ridicule
Akin to condemnation
--------[A pause]---------
I cannot say
Anything sincere
Without someone from behind
Making my words
Into a fabrication
Bio
It still amazes PCC student Jason Pambuena how he got through high school without any solid acquaintance with another student at all. He became a “recluse” when he got into a deep depression in Freshman year shortly after his grandfather passed away, once he realized how quickly humanity can have incentive to disregard one another -- through a letter grade. Such was his research paper about his grandpa, a kid captured as a POW in Japanese-occupied Philippines. It affected him so much to the point where he got up from bed restless and began to sit down in front of a hotel window looking down seeing two flashlights near a stream, crying at the thought that in the city of sin, he was the only one who was seeing this picture of two souls under a gorgeous view of city lights that most take for granted. Life. Like his grandfather’s. Jason is currently studying to become a video game developer with a major in Computer Science for video games.
It still amazes PCC student Jason Pambuena how he got through high school without any solid acquaintance with another student at all. He became a “recluse” when he got into a deep depression in Freshman year shortly after his grandfather passed away, once he realized how quickly humanity can have incentive to disregard one another -- through a letter grade. Such was his research paper about his grandpa, a kid captured as a POW in Japanese-occupied Philippines. It affected him so much to the point where he got up from bed restless and began to sit down in front of a hotel window looking down seeing two flashlights near a stream, crying at the thought that in the city of sin, he was the only one who was seeing this picture of two souls under a gorgeous view of city lights that most take for granted. Life. Like his grandfather’s. Jason is currently studying to become a video game developer with a major in Computer Science for video games.
Impressionism (Udala’s Tree)
Kofi Antwi
the creator observes if
one is capable of foreseeing
fury’s crimson – flames
ignite a harvest exterior
a majestic garden, children
unite under Udala’s Tree –
proclaiming laws assured by
war conquerors, war shall recon
mother’s continent, dividing
families, accelerate the devil’s
duty, dancing delightfully.
fixated on beauty’s
dusk, acute strokes of
oil proceed it’s silhouette,
one is capable of foreseeing
fury’s crimson – flames
ignite a harvest exterior
a majestic garden, children
unite under Udala’s Tree –
proclaiming laws assured by
war conquerors, war shall recon
mother’s continent, dividing
families, accelerate the devil’s
duty, dancing delightfully.
fixated on beauty’s
dusk, acute strokes of
oil proceed it’s silhouette,
Bio
Kofi Antwi is a graduate of St. Joseph's MFA program. "With my writing I seek to find a home for readers who find refuge in poetry. When I’m able to connect with the reader through resemblances of self, fragments of those who I oppose, and episodes of love, I believe my duty as a poet has been served. In my poetry there is a conscious placement on blurring lines and breaking conventional forms."
Kofi Antwi is a graduate of St. Joseph's MFA program. "With my writing I seek to find a home for readers who find refuge in poetry. When I’m able to connect with the reader through resemblances of self, fragments of those who I oppose, and episodes of love, I believe my duty as a poet has been served. In my poetry there is a conscious placement on blurring lines and breaking conventional forms."
The Forgotten People
Darrell Black
Bio
Darrell Urban Black was born March 25,1964 in Brooklyn, New York. He is an American visual artist presently living in Frankfurt, Germany. He works in a variety of formats that include Pen and Ink drawings acrylic paintings on canvas wood and Mixed media objects. His creative process is a mixture of works on paper, acrylic paint, found objects and non toxic hot glue, "my technique creates a three-dimensional effect on any surface that gives a sense of realism and presence in my artwork". He refers to this optical artistic illusion as ''Definism''. "In my opinion, Definism, portrays various differences in human nature from life's everyday dramas to humankind's quest to under-standing self. My artworks transport viewers from the doldrums of their daily reality to a visual interpretation of another reality". Black has been nominated by the German government as a "candidate of the year's prize for promising young artists" for his artwork titled "The Invasion" in the exhibition "The Zeppelin in Art, Design, and Advertisement", shown between May and July 30, 2000, in the Frankfurt International Airport .
People are like Tanks
Jason Pambuena (translations by the author)
People Are Like Tanks
It has come to my attention
That I have developed a primitive fear
That whenever I talk to someone,
Of a fault of my own,
It’s as if,
I am face-to-face,
With a tank.
The arms and legs
Are like the muzzles of a gun,
Or rather spikes,
Since only the mouth
Could shoot me
Right through my heart
While the other parts
Of the human body
Could hurl towards me
Until I die.
I look straight at its muzzle,
With its powerful and indifferent eyes.
No one can see
The human inside a tank.
Bio
It still amazes PCC student Jason Pambuena how he got through high school without any solid acquaintance with another student at all. He became a “recluse” when he got into a deep depression in Freshman year shortly after his grandfather passed away, once he realized how quickly humanity can have incentive to disregard one another -- through a letter grade. Such was his research paper about his grandpa, a kid captured as a POW in Japanese-occupied Philippines. It affected him so much to the point where he got up from bed restless and began to sit down in front of a hotel window looking down seeing two flashlights near a stream, crying at the thought that in the city of sin, he was the only one who was seeing this picture of two souls under a gorgeous view of city lights that most take for granted. Life. Like his grandfather’s. Jason is currently studying to become a video game developer with a major in Computer Science for video games.
The Face of Destitution
Darrell Black
Bio
Darrell Urban Black was born March 25,1964 in Brooklyn, New York. He is an American visual artist presently living in Frankfurt, Germany.
Salt
Annabel Haddad
I want to be seen
I want to be seen.
I speak with condemnation and yet
I feel only longing
It sits inside me reaching out for another’s understanding
But I refuse to admit that I am reaching
Insisting instead that your eyes can only be fixed upon me
They cannot look inside me
They cannot fill me
I try to pull back the hand
That instinctively reaches towards external validation
The need for which
I claim should not exist
Not for me
It’s not real
It will only deepen the hole I seek to fill
Just salt in my wounds
They themselves hidden forever
From the light of day
I want to be seen.
It is nothing if it is only me.
Bio
Annabel Haddad grew up studying creative writing as an elective during middle and high school before taking a gap year after graduation to write a feature length screenplay entitled "The Girls On Madison". Her screenplay has since placed as a finalist in WeScreenplay's Diverse Voice Competition, partnered with activist filmmaker Ava Duvernay, and has received positive feedback from industry professionals. She has been studying English and Creative Writing at PCC since Fall 2018. Her short story "Yellow Flower" was published in the Fall 2019 issue of PCCInscape.
The Search for Empathy
Darrell Black
Bio
Darrell Urban Black was born March 25,1964 in Brooklyn, New York. He is an American visual artist presently living in Frankfurt, Germany.
Rainbow in the Clouds
Juan Rodriguez
“A civilization is not destroyed by wicked people; it is not necessary that people be wicked but only that they be spineless.” -James Baldwin
Dear Carmen,
When I was eight years old your son was my only friend. I think you may have sensed that. I wanted you to know that it made me sad the day they carried you away to that awful place with small glass windows and white belted coats. Your son said you were depressed. I found this hard to believe, you were always smiling and quoting scripture. You would spontaneously blurt out passages, I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. I didn’t understand then.
I personally have never been horizontal on a professional’s couch. The concept never appealed to me. To have to pay… it all seems so very shameful. The space between diagnosis and treatment, from where I stand appears grey. Grey, somewhere between black and white; confusing. What was it you told me, Brown is between black and white? As the son of Mexican nationals, that in between space is much like the world I was trying to adapt to. I felt angry, confused, sad, and at times I felt hopeless, but I was not depressed.
Your specialty was spaghetti with meat sauce and dialing the impossible to forget numbers for pizza delivery; 323-222-3333. I can still see you standing over the pot stirring the pasta occasionally tossing a strand against the ceiling to see if it would stick. You would look over to us as we sat at the dinner table anticipating the meal and say, If it sticks its ready, if it falls it is not! Always with an air of didactic professionalism and always as if it were the first time you’d said this to us. It was not. All I could think was, But what of the times only half the strand gets stuck? Is it in between being ready and not ready? In between here and there? Who’s going to clean that up? There has to be a better way, right? Of course, I never asked.
When the meal was complete you would set garlic bread at the table. Thick and seasoned on both sides with a whole lot of blandness in the middle. Next to that, a ceramic dish specially designed to hold butter that was bookended by two oversized grinders. One for salt, the other for pepper. Savory and spicy. The butter was not sweet. In the center of the table lay a napkin holder filled with floral print napkins. On the far side of the table was a large glass bowl filled with red flavored Jell-O. Its actual flavor remains a mystery. A case as cold as the dessert itself. I remember telling you simply, It’s like Thanksgiving! Your eyes welled up as your smile slowly diminished. You patted me on the shoulder and with a low and trembling voice said, My, what good English you speak. I responded with silence. Perhaps you just wanted to move attention away from the meal; away from your eyes, but you said this to me often. You would repeat this to me as a reply to my greetings up until you were no longer here. My thought then was, No mames! Isn’t that the language we speak here? Still, I said nothing.
When you complemented my English it always reminded me of how you would sometimes, from a moment of silence, randomly launch into an etymological lineage dissertation that began with dear old octo-great grandfather that was some Spanish governor, or other, charged with overseeing the Queen’s territory in Mexico. The empire on which the sun never sets, you would say, I am Spanish you see! My family is nobility, was your claim. That was to say that you were not Mexican despite your ancestors having technically been. What makes one Mexican anyhow? Having been born there? Having been descended from there? The color of your skin, or the language you speak? Your son looked at me and smiled every time you made this claim. It was a nervous smile, but a smile nonetheless. Like he was raised somehow. We all need to be raised, but I think he was lifted. He was so young. I never forgot that smile. It was as if to say he was absolved somehow, but from what? Do the young need absolution?
I wonder if your son ever told you the story of the boys we played ball with that morning before dinner. Your son had talent. He had a good shot. Every Sunday morning, we would walk to the local park to play basketball. There were always people playing there despite the dilapidated condition of the courts. The poorly balanced baskets. The missing nets. The sun-bleached paint. We had heard rumors of a school several miles north in South Pasadena that had immaculate courts. That morning we decided to make the journey there. It was the first time I traveled north. They said it was better there. That the grass was greener. That the water was cleaner. That their drinking fountains functioned. They said it was Thanksgiving there every day.
When we arrived, we found the school surrounded by a tall fence. We jumped it. It felt easier than roaming around this strange place looking for the entrance or asking for permission to enter. There were four boys a few years older than us shooting around. Two were white and two were not. The others may have been of Indian descent, I could not be sure then. Your son asked them if they were interested in putting together a game. Perhaps three on three. They stood in silence for a moment and shrugged their shoulders in acquiescence. Your son, my friend, suggested he join the two white boys and that I join the two other boys. He said, It could be the whites vs. the blacks. They looked at him with something resembling disgust and one boy said, You are not white. You’re just a light skinned Mexican. His enthusiasm evaporated like drops of sweat on the blacktop. We said nothing. We were not brave, and they were cowards.
I only ever felt bad for your son twice and both times were very short lived. This was one of those times. The other was when they took you away. He stood there on the court not presiding but being judged. He looked at me and his eyes told me that this was somehow my fault. That he was Spanish nobility and that I had made him Mexican. Still, we played the game. What choice did we have but to play the game? I can still hear the ball passing through the net. I loved that sound. I love it still. We never went back.
Can you hear it? Its sound is unmistakable. Can you hear the sound of good intentions; of the accidental othering of the innocent? It sounds like a ball going through a basket without a net. It sounds like the divine promise of the rainbow in the clouds; God’s purported oath, whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you... Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life.
I wanted you to know I have a boy now. He is the age now I was then. I am teaching him to play the game. I am teaching him to pass when it is the better option; to be generous, kind, and to shake hands after each game. To communicate well. To never remain silent. To drive when necessary; even when contact is inevitable. To drop his shoulder, lower his center of gravity, and to guard the ball as he drives into the defender. To not worry about the charge if he knows he is right and that never again really means you’d better watch your weak side. He has a good shot. It is certainly better than mine was. I think about that day on the court with your son and about the pasta hanging on ceiling. I think about it and I feel angry, confused, sad, and at times hopeless, but I am not depressed. I do not feel that for me, I feel it for you. For the boys on the court that morning. For their words and for their silence.
Sincerely,
Your son’s friend
Dear Carmen,
When I was eight years old your son was my only friend. I think you may have sensed that. I wanted you to know that it made me sad the day they carried you away to that awful place with small glass windows and white belted coats. Your son said you were depressed. I found this hard to believe, you were always smiling and quoting scripture. You would spontaneously blurt out passages, I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. I didn’t understand then.
I personally have never been horizontal on a professional’s couch. The concept never appealed to me. To have to pay… it all seems so very shameful. The space between diagnosis and treatment, from where I stand appears grey. Grey, somewhere between black and white; confusing. What was it you told me, Brown is between black and white? As the son of Mexican nationals, that in between space is much like the world I was trying to adapt to. I felt angry, confused, sad, and at times I felt hopeless, but I was not depressed.
Your specialty was spaghetti with meat sauce and dialing the impossible to forget numbers for pizza delivery; 323-222-3333. I can still see you standing over the pot stirring the pasta occasionally tossing a strand against the ceiling to see if it would stick. You would look over to us as we sat at the dinner table anticipating the meal and say, If it sticks its ready, if it falls it is not! Always with an air of didactic professionalism and always as if it were the first time you’d said this to us. It was not. All I could think was, But what of the times only half the strand gets stuck? Is it in between being ready and not ready? In between here and there? Who’s going to clean that up? There has to be a better way, right? Of course, I never asked.
When the meal was complete you would set garlic bread at the table. Thick and seasoned on both sides with a whole lot of blandness in the middle. Next to that, a ceramic dish specially designed to hold butter that was bookended by two oversized grinders. One for salt, the other for pepper. Savory and spicy. The butter was not sweet. In the center of the table lay a napkin holder filled with floral print napkins. On the far side of the table was a large glass bowl filled with red flavored Jell-O. Its actual flavor remains a mystery. A case as cold as the dessert itself. I remember telling you simply, It’s like Thanksgiving! Your eyes welled up as your smile slowly diminished. You patted me on the shoulder and with a low and trembling voice said, My, what good English you speak. I responded with silence. Perhaps you just wanted to move attention away from the meal; away from your eyes, but you said this to me often. You would repeat this to me as a reply to my greetings up until you were no longer here. My thought then was, No mames! Isn’t that the language we speak here? Still, I said nothing.
When you complemented my English it always reminded me of how you would sometimes, from a moment of silence, randomly launch into an etymological lineage dissertation that began with dear old octo-great grandfather that was some Spanish governor, or other, charged with overseeing the Queen’s territory in Mexico. The empire on which the sun never sets, you would say, I am Spanish you see! My family is nobility, was your claim. That was to say that you were not Mexican despite your ancestors having technically been. What makes one Mexican anyhow? Having been born there? Having been descended from there? The color of your skin, or the language you speak? Your son looked at me and smiled every time you made this claim. It was a nervous smile, but a smile nonetheless. Like he was raised somehow. We all need to be raised, but I think he was lifted. He was so young. I never forgot that smile. It was as if to say he was absolved somehow, but from what? Do the young need absolution?
I wonder if your son ever told you the story of the boys we played ball with that morning before dinner. Your son had talent. He had a good shot. Every Sunday morning, we would walk to the local park to play basketball. There were always people playing there despite the dilapidated condition of the courts. The poorly balanced baskets. The missing nets. The sun-bleached paint. We had heard rumors of a school several miles north in South Pasadena that had immaculate courts. That morning we decided to make the journey there. It was the first time I traveled north. They said it was better there. That the grass was greener. That the water was cleaner. That their drinking fountains functioned. They said it was Thanksgiving there every day.
When we arrived, we found the school surrounded by a tall fence. We jumped it. It felt easier than roaming around this strange place looking for the entrance or asking for permission to enter. There were four boys a few years older than us shooting around. Two were white and two were not. The others may have been of Indian descent, I could not be sure then. Your son asked them if they were interested in putting together a game. Perhaps three on three. They stood in silence for a moment and shrugged their shoulders in acquiescence. Your son, my friend, suggested he join the two white boys and that I join the two other boys. He said, It could be the whites vs. the blacks. They looked at him with something resembling disgust and one boy said, You are not white. You’re just a light skinned Mexican. His enthusiasm evaporated like drops of sweat on the blacktop. We said nothing. We were not brave, and they were cowards.
I only ever felt bad for your son twice and both times were very short lived. This was one of those times. The other was when they took you away. He stood there on the court not presiding but being judged. He looked at me and his eyes told me that this was somehow my fault. That he was Spanish nobility and that I had made him Mexican. Still, we played the game. What choice did we have but to play the game? I can still hear the ball passing through the net. I loved that sound. I love it still. We never went back.
Can you hear it? Its sound is unmistakable. Can you hear the sound of good intentions; of the accidental othering of the innocent? It sounds like a ball going through a basket without a net. It sounds like the divine promise of the rainbow in the clouds; God’s purported oath, whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you... Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life.
I wanted you to know I have a boy now. He is the age now I was then. I am teaching him to play the game. I am teaching him to pass when it is the better option; to be generous, kind, and to shake hands after each game. To communicate well. To never remain silent. To drive when necessary; even when contact is inevitable. To drop his shoulder, lower his center of gravity, and to guard the ball as he drives into the defender. To not worry about the charge if he knows he is right and that never again really means you’d better watch your weak side. He has a good shot. It is certainly better than mine was. I think about that day on the court with your son and about the pasta hanging on ceiling. I think about it and I feel angry, confused, sad, and at times hopeless, but I am not depressed. I do not feel that for me, I feel it for you. For the boys on the court that morning. For their words and for their silence.
Sincerely,
Your son’s friend
Bio
Juan Rodriguez is a current student and graduate of PCC. Both his undergrad and graduate majors are Public Policy and Political Science. He says this work is an expression of real events and is an attempt to make clear that immigration and race is not a dichotomous issue.
Knock Socks off the Giant
Ikechukwu Obiorah
Right from the beginning of time,
Serenity of silence rules over this
Deserted boundary of secret self,
And the pragmatic madness on the
Lips of suspended animation makes
The mortals grope through the twilight.
Now, the sun has risen upon our blistered
Souls, and our voices of torments faded like
The fumes of cigarettes dancing Yori-yori,
But our hearts are still making war with the
Past Giant of traumatic stress and shell shock.
If we had sank into the grave, can our dusts
Ponder about the bad old days of rat's nest?
Are you dead of the fact that there has always
Been a superior reason to our own reasoning?
In nothing flat, let's just take the field against
Past exigencies of double trouble, and smile.
There is much to the soul than rumination,
And there is much to breath than death,
Let's give the mind a fire of laughter and quench
The sadness of necrosis in the valley of slaughter,
Knock Socks off the Giant of posttraumatic tension.
Serenity of silence rules over this
Deserted boundary of secret self,
And the pragmatic madness on the
Lips of suspended animation makes
The mortals grope through the twilight.
Now, the sun has risen upon our blistered
Souls, and our voices of torments faded like
The fumes of cigarettes dancing Yori-yori,
But our hearts are still making war with the
Past Giant of traumatic stress and shell shock.
If we had sank into the grave, can our dusts
Ponder about the bad old days of rat's nest?
Are you dead of the fact that there has always
Been a superior reason to our own reasoning?
In nothing flat, let's just take the field against
Past exigencies of double trouble, and smile.
There is much to the soul than rumination,
And there is much to breath than death,
Let's give the mind a fire of laughter and quench
The sadness of necrosis in the valley of slaughter,
Knock Socks off the Giant of posttraumatic tension.
Bio
Ikechukwu Obiorah is a Nigerian Writer, a Prolific Poet and Novelist. He studies B.A (Hons) English at the Benue State University, Makurdi; 400 Level. He is a Student Ambassador of POETS IN NIGERIA (PIN). The Editor in Chief of Writers; League (BSUM) and also a member of Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA Benue Chapter). His poem "The Oracle Bard" has been published in "POETICA 2019" by Clarendon House Publications, England, UK. His poem "The Throne of Truth" published in Ponders Series by Ponder Savant Publications, California, USA. He has been published in several reputable International Journals and Magazines. For a decade Poetry has been his sweet heart.
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Cover Art by Darrell Urban Black
Darrell Urban Black was born March 25,1964 in Brooklyn, New York. He is an American visual artist presently living in Frankfurt, Germany. He works in a variety of formats that include Pen and Ink drawings acrylic paintings on canvas wood and Mixed media objects. His creative process is a mixture of works on paper, acrylic paint, found objects and non toxic hot glue, "my technique creates a three-dimensional effect on any surface that gives a sense of realism and presence in my artwork". He refers to this optical artistic illusion as ''Definism''. "In my opinion, Definism, portrays various differences in human nature from life's everyday dramas to humankind's quest to under-standing self. My artworks transport viewers from the doldrums of their daily reality to a visual interpretation of another reality". Black has been nominated by the German government as a "candidate of the year's prize for promising young artists" for his artwork titled "The Invasion" in the exhibition "The Zeppelin in Art, Design, and Advertisement", shown between May and July 30, 2000, in the Frankfurt International Airport .