TENDERLOIN ANTHOLOGY January 2009

TRACKS
WINTER 2008 – 09
LEAVENWORTH STREET ANTHOLOGY #5
LINOLEUM CUT BY MARSHA CAMPBELL


WAITING by Marsha Campbell

A woman lay in her small bed.
It was hardly big enough to contain her.
Her feet stuck out at the bottom edge.

She looked out the window
but the window looked out
on little piles of trash.

No light came in. It was morning
but it could have been midnight.
She closed her eyes but her mind opened them.

She knew she had to get up.
She had to take a pill or she would be nervous.
She had to dress and look presentable

Because she was going to the Center.
The Center where old people like herself would show up.
Lucky, she caught a bus right away.

She sat uneasily at the Center
coloring pictures of flowers and of Isis
wife of the god Osiris.

She thought of a man far away
who had, like Odysseus
left Penelope behind--

a woman who weaved a work every day
and every night tore it apart.
She was like that woman.

She would wait.


A POET RAINED ON
AFTER THE WAR
by Charles Blackwell

Tip toe
bare footed hungry
pioneer of dreams deferred.

Roll on in, massage
our feeble fickle minds
with arched over words
Heaven bound.

I see you stepping
over to the neighboring
planet, larger than life.




Causeway to the New American Pyramid
by Ray Valdez

After all Alpine glaciers
and polar mountains of ice,
veritable Bach cathedral fuges,
decrescendo
into a collapsing world,
flames exploding at the edges;

And after rearing-up,
ever-rising seas,
incessant cyclones
level whole cities;

And the air is swollen
with non-Biblical lotus swarms:
oil-black pollution;

And after seasons
switch sequences;

And knarled rotted roots
of upside-down trees
swim a neon-pink sky
to the bloated sun;

And honey bees
are giving up their ghosts
in their own little Ghost Dance,
no longer pollinate
what is a boiling hot,
hurricane swept planet;

CARNIVAL STRANGERS DANCE
by Dominique Leslie
With a mocha flavored kiss
And a hand on my big ass
He danced up to me
Like a boat pulling into her berth
Lively carnival dancers in
Flesh and flashing sequins
Boogied past marching
Marimba musicians
My African print handkerchief skirt
Whirled loosely around me
He pulled me closer in the dance
I could see his gold teeth
In the flickering light
The crowd of dancers and
Drummers separated us
Like an ocean sweeping sand from the beach out to sea
Before long I was blocks away
In the Zona Verde
Where I ate a tamale
And a strawberry fresco.