Respect for the teacher
Thank you so much, teacher,
You have worked hard.
Always be respectful,
There is no time for fatigue.
Let your hard work be justified,
Let us protect you.
Always smile,
Push the era.
Let us remember you,
Let us enjoy the lessons.
When asked, “Who is your teacher?”,
Let us think of you in our minds.
I have boundless respect for you,
I have not disrespected you.
You who taught us,
Thank you, teacher.
The Dark Night of the Soul
[Originally published in Spare Change News and in Fleury’s book: “It’s Always Sunrise Somewhere and Other Stories”]
Benny stares through his basement window and he can feel his heart rejoicing once again by the absence of the sun. The sun has become his worst enemy since his parents died, his wife left him and his only son has been officially declared MIA (missing in action) while fighting the war in Iraq. These days, he hardly leaves his apartment. He closes all the shades, draws all the curtains and turns off all the lights while he just lies on his back with his hands clasped behind his head and his eyes transfixed at the white ceiling. Sometimes he lays with his back to all the stuff he has accumulated over the years. Stuff that he can’t seem to bring himself to get rid of. He likes to rummage through other people’s trash and bring various things to his already cramped space. There is so much stuff in his place that there’s hardly any room for himself.
Clothes carpet his floors; empty take-out boxes are all piled up in one corner of his bedroom next to the TV and there are a number of shopping bags filled with trash rotting in the kitchen and maggots have taken residence under them. His window overlooks the sky and he often feels like God is looking down on him. The phone lately has been ringing with a sort of desperate urgency, yet Benny remains completely still as if he hasn’t heard it at all and just lets the machine deal with the incessant calls. His friends, or at least the few he has managed to hold on to, must be wondering about where he is. He has once before tried to end it all by starving himself of food and water for nearly two weeks. But at the last minute changed his mind and decided to have a can of coke and a slice of pizza.
He has ceased to maintain any sort of personal care and he is beginning to smell. His apartment has a stale order of decay swirling lazily around the air. The smell is akin to rat and mice droppings, if you’ve ever had the misfortune to smell that particular odor. There are litters of unwashed dishes in the sink, mold all over his bathroom walls, a mailbox full of unopened mail and a mass of newspapers piled up in front of his door. From an outsider’s point of view, it would seem as if no one lives there at all. Day after day, Benny just lies there, living a death in life with nothing to look forward to or get up out of bed for. “What a waste,” he thinks to himself. “Just taking up space.” Death seems to be constantly tip-toeing around him, waiting for the right time to finish him off.
He remembers happier times when his wife Lola sat in the sand on the beach on Martha’s Vineyard building a sandcastle with their son, little Jimmy. Her long straight Brown hair flirting and twirling in the summer wind while Little Jimmy screeches with joy and laughter “Daddy look! Look Daddy. I made a castle! I made a castle!” He remembers looking on and smiling with an open book on his lap and thinking how complete his life is finally, as the summer wind gently lifts his blond hair off his forehead. He remembers feeling the joy of a man who constantly keeps winning the lottery repeatedly every time he thinks about his life with his beloved family. His parents were still alive back then and they used to go visit them on the cape where they all lived. But his bouts with depression and psychosis have driven his wife away. She could no longer tolerate his bouts of rage and paranoia that plagued him when he was ill. She begged and pleaded with him to seek treatment, but he refused to admit that he is even sick at all.
Eventually, his denial and the ensuing consequences drove her away. She feared that had she not left him, she would start hating him and she could not contend with that possibility. So in spite of herself, she left and took little Jimmy with her. That exacerbated his already declining mental health. She had custody and he had the weekends. His visitations became less and less regular as his life careened out of control due to his untreated mental condition. Before he knew it, Little Jimmy turned eighteen and joined the army. He had an on again and off again relationship with Lola. On when he was well, off when he was not.
Now lonely and bereft of emotion, he lies motionless on his disheveled bed staring at the ceiling of his sinister apartment waiting for something, anything to happen to make him feel alive again. He used to be a man who made things happen; now he has become a man who waits for things to happen. He used to walk around with a half-smile on his face, a twinkle of joy and mischief in his eyes and a restless eagerness in his steps. He used to be the life of anywhere he happens to be, always ready to crack a joke or laugh at someone else’s. He used to pretend to walk around like a sad man with his head hanging over his chest, and then suddenly perk right back up again laughing at himself. Now, he feels that his fire has been snuffed out by a giant bright red hand that has descended directly from hell.
The phone is ringing again and it goes directly to the machine. “Hey Benny. It’s George. What’s goin’ man? I haven’t heard from you in days. I’m starting to worry. Call me.” He lies still unresponsive. He decides that tomorrow he will do something, anything, even though he does not know what it is. He’ll find out when he actually does it.
The next day, a streak of sunlight slices his bedroom floor and for the first time in months, he does not mind its shiny glare. “Today’s forecast is expected to be sunny and temperatures are expected to reach record high for March.” He listens to his clock radio as he gets out of bed. For the first time in months, he has decided to clean himself up. He showers, shaves, puts on clean clothes and even cleans his dirty apartment. He opens his nightstand and grabs his rosary beads. He makes the sign of the cross using his middle finger first on his forehead, then chest then his left and right shoulders. He then says a quiet prayer then leaves the apartment. He passes in front of the mirror and smiles at himself as he heads out. He gets on the train and heads and finds himself getting off at the stop near the beach, the same beach he used to spend time with his family. He spends all day at the beach, watching happy families, seagulls and listening to the soothing sounds of the waves. He is waiting for darkness to fall and soon, the sun descends into the belly of the sea and everyone has left the beach. He lies in the sand on his back with his hands clasped behind his head as he stares into the dark skies, which he feels promises him nothing.
At midnight, he gets up and walks toward the sea. The voices of his wife and son echo in his ears from that perfect summer day he remembers so well— “Daddy look! Look Daddy!”—as he enters the sea until he is completely submerged to dwell forever in its abyss. Just then, back home his wife left him a message about possibly getting back together if he’s willing to go into treatment, his son is leaving him a message announcing his homecoming and the moon emerges to hover over the sea and diminish the darkness. His soul wishes he was there to come and see.
Jacques Fleury is a Boston Globe featured Haitian American Poet, Educator, Author of four books and a literary arts student at Harvard University online. His latest publication “You Are Enough: The Journey to Accepting Your Authentic Self” & other titles are available at all Boston Public Libraries, the University of Massachusetts Healey Library, University of Wyoming, Askews and Holts Library Services in the United Kingdom, The Harvard Book Store, The Grolier Poetry Bookshop, Amazon etc… He has been published in prestigious publications such as Wilderness House Literary Review, Muddy River Poetry Review, Litterateur Redefining World anthologies out of India, Poets Reading the News, the Cornell University Press anthology Class Lives: Stories from Our Economic Divide, Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene among others…Visit him at: http://www.authorsden.com/jacquesfleury.
Big Check
A big check weighs us down –
till deposited. Then it disappears
into the realm of business
the business we did before
that big check weighed on us.
But from the bank’s parking lot
through the door, through that
line, lined up to the teller, it still
was part of our mystery of money
heavy in our pocket. We try to look
causal about it all, want the teller
to think that we are used to big checks
earning, carrying, and depositing them.
She takes it, looks it over, checking things
we can only guess at. She never looks our
way. She clicks away, and our big check
even as heavy as we thought it was, disappears.
Photo
It saves that moment, one of the many
we pass through every day, every hour,
but this one is caught, frozen and will
never change. The photo captures
a street scene, one we all live through
holds it. The couple at the curb, about
to cross will never cross. They have gone
this far and no farther. We don’t know if
they are happy or sad. They are just this
couple in this moment. What are they
thinking? What did they just say to each
other? Will this action, this about to go
across this street, make a difference in
their lives? Will they look back and say
that this made all the difference? We don’t
know, will never know, but that moment
for them has become part of us, part of
us if we hold this picture and watch it go
through the things the photographer was
trying to convey to us about time and its
mystery, the way we are in the midst of it
and never know what is next for us and for
the people around us – or even that couple
who he or she stopped in the midpoint of
their day out together and made it stay fixed
one foot off the curb, the other about to
follow.
Side-Effects
Of course, they warn us about side-effects.
the unintended consequences of taking
whatever it is we’re taking or are thinking
about taking. They’re the stuff of small print.
You could end up with “swelling of ankles or
feet.” How about “confusion, difficulty breathing”
Along with such things as “dizziness, faintness
or lightheadedness.” The things we take come
with their own litany of possible side effects.
Imagine “black, tarry stools” or “bleeding gums”
as you take a daily dose of what they’re selling.
Even TV ads touting the latest meds for public
consumption are weighed down with side-effects
both mentioned by the voice-over and in print
at the bottom of the screen. They give us a group
dancing and singing followed by their warnings.
It’s as if the cure or whatever we’re taking to try
To cure or at least curtail one thing brings on an
Assortment of other candidates for our undoing.
As Travis Chi Wing Lau says, Noelia Cerna writes with care about even the smaller bits of our existences in her new collection Las Piedrecitas (Pebbles). In this collection, it is those “pebbles ”that make up a full life, where a person can not only survive, but thrive.
Music emerges as a motif, from a father’s Spanish guitar to Latino pop tunes in a restaurant kitchen. The pieces have a kind of internal musicality to them, expressed through rhythm, word choice, and the placement of text on the page.
Food and drink serve as expressions of nourishment offered by family and heritage. But they also become a way to poke fun at arrogant tourists who won’t listen to local wisdom “Tourism and Soda” and a commentary on people who enjoy Latino cultural offerings but don’t treat Latino people with respect “Taco Tuesday.”
Las Piedrecitas celebrates and honors many women with whom Cerna feels a connection. Maria, an immigrant janitor, Karen, an older woman with intense confidence and presence, and her own mother, Alna,in the joint poem “A Kyrie for Dreams.”
Fathers and fatherhood come up several times in Las Piedrecitas. Cerna pays tribute to hardworking and loyal dads “An Ode to Brown Fathers.”
In the title poem, the speaker’s father gently plays with her in a park while staying vigilant against any stranger with ill intentions.
He protects his family from political violence in Nicaragua by immigrating to the United States and later teaches her not only boxing, but internal strength and perseverance. She uses that strength to navigate life as an immigrant and an abuse survivor, but also, poignantly, to separate from him and find her own way in the world, as in “Moving Away” and “Estrangement in Three Steps.” As pointed out in the last few lines of the title poem, the statues in the park see a larger world beyond his current imagination.
Learning to love oneself and live on one’s own terms is a major theme in Las Piedrecitas. That can mean vowing not to run from love because of religiously based homophobia “Theaters in the Fall” or accepting one’s righteous anger at explicit and implicit racist and anti-immigrant sentiment “When my white colleague calls me angry” or reclaiming the narrative around past sexual abuse “Sugar.”
Yet, charting their own destiny does not leave the narrator rootless. Las Piedrecitas contains many images of sturdy objects planted in the soil: stone statues in Nicaragua, to which she returns as an adult, and trees with solid trunks and roots deep in the dirt.
Religion is another aspect of the narrator’s roots and heritage. Cerna draws on the language of faith to assert the dignity and value of her body, her loved ones, and her homeland, as we see in “Volcano,” “Holy” and “Cathedral.” Yet, she also subverts the language of faith to tell her own story of personal growth, as in “Most Holy,” where she reaches the point of spiritual maturity where she can reject judgement and abuse from those who misuse religion to hold onto power.
Religion can be beautiful and can ground you in something deep and beyond yourself, but it can also be a source of trauma and danger. By using religious metaphors for romantic love, Cerna extends that dual nature to romance. We see intimate partner abuse in a few pieces: “Estrangement in Three Steps” and Advice To My College Self” and men’s sexist treatment of women in “Rust” and the cowardly abandonment of a partner in “Ghoster.”
Cerna’s narrator has survived much. Like the tree by the overpass in one of her later poems, she asserts through her writing that she is more than a “survivor” but a person living a full and complete life.
Noelia Cerna’s Las Piedrecitas can be ordered here from Black Lawrence Press.
Noelia Cerna is a Latina poet based in Springdale, AR. She was born in Costa Rica and immigrated to the United States at the age of seven where she received a Bachelor’s degree in English from Westminster College in Missouri. Her poems have been published in audio form in Terse. Journal and in print in the The Revolution [Relaunch], the Girl Gang blog, the Plants and Poetry Journal and The North Meridian Review. Noelia is a book editor for the North Meridian Review and an award winning writing mentor for Pen America’s Prison Writing Mentorship program.
Shared with Public
And it remains amateur power over ere , , , shot
oh no bro quo this toto AI
Wear Speciation. 420: please be conceited
onpSostdre3h9f84735cata1h7g448ca9itfh0giagalm2i61aa1m66h41i3 ·
Shared with Public
Im 2 slick rick to keep om rolling
Hes too big biz to keep on lolling
The surroundings are quiet and peaceful
Inspiration comes to the poet,
He writes poetry slowly,
Even without lying down to sleep.
Inspirational poets
From a beautiful nature.
But this is a poet
Inspiration from the dark.
About beauties
He wanted to write.
But once
He wished he could see them.
Muhabbat Abdurahimova G’ayratbek qizi
Student of “B” grade of 8th creative school named after Erkin Vahidov, Margilan city in Uzbekistan
A Simpler Past
A respite from our Postmodern anxiety, occasionally I require a few recollections from a simpler past, anecdotes like these inherited from my grandparents, Ray and Louise, at the Arnholt Place, down in the Danville holler, sometime in the 30s.
Through a hole cut in the floor for heat, three brothers, my father, Dan, and uncles, Stanton and Wayne, scrawny little boys all in one bed and quarantined for measles, took turns peering from the upstairs to the downstairs. After a great commotion, Grandma Frye called up, “Meet your new baby sister.” Aunt Jane, red-faced, more from first breaths than bashfulness, looked up to them.
A few years earlier or later, Blubaugh cousins from Canton stopped by the farm on a Sunday drive. Finding no one home, all in good fun, they switched all the upstairs beds and dressers with all the downstairs chairs and tables. It didn’t take long as Ray and Louise owned nothing but each other, hard work, back taxes and a few sticks of furniture.
Downstairs in the kitchen, on most Saturday nights, Ray and Louise played Euchre with Ed and Sally Styers, hour after hour, for “Drink or Smell.” If you won a hand, you drank Granddad’s hard cider. If you lost, you only smelled the glass. Too much winning and cider would ensure your losing again.
Badminton
Reality collided with fantasy when I was five or six or seven. I was the oldest and for a while the only grandchild. In this account, do consider that there was a new cousin, Jimmy, on the scene who seemed to be getting far too much attention for a tedious baby. The transgression occurred at a picnic on the Gambier farm, maybe Mothers’ Day, between Sunday dinner, home-churned ice cream and the evening milking chores. Grandma, the center of all my love (And, of course, I was the object of all her doting.), sat on the front stoop watching the young couples play badminton.
With a racquet, I thwacked her on her head. (There it is; there’s no denying it now.) At the time, this seemed a perfectly reasonable attempt at play. On our new color TV, in Saturday morning cartoons, this violence was customary etiquette, a harmless greeting set to zany music. “Hello there! Good day to you, sir. A pleasure to meet you, Miss.” The racquet would be demolished; however, magically, not the noggin. Occasionally, lumps appeared, but these were efficiently tapped down with a mallet that all the characters carried for just such events. Each recipient got right back up again with a witty retort. Animated conversations continued unabated and without consequence.
Uncles helped Grandma to the couch. I recall an excessive amount of unnecessary yelling. I presume, at some point, I cried, though I was puzzled, confused over inquiries as to the why. In my first formal apology, even so small, I was acutely aware that my future within the family hinged upon an Act of Contrition. (I was new to the confessional, but I realized what transpired also had the potential of sin and so demanded a detailed explanation for Father Fortkamp as well an inordinate assignment of Our Fathers or Hail Marys. I had not fully memorized the longer Apostles Creed and dreaded this possibility.) Years later, an aunt informed me: apparently, there was a trip to Mercy Hospital and thirteen stitches.
