DON DONNARKEVIC - POEMS

donnarkevic: Buckhannon, WV. MFA National University. Recent work appears in Street Cake, Neologism Poetry Journal, and Solum Literary Press. FutureCycle Press published, Admissions, a book of poems, in 2013. Many Sparrows, a book of poems was published in 2018 by The Poetry Box.

 We Are Old

​like clay pots
on display in a museum,
usefulness gone,
only to be stared at.
Once you filled me up
with your laughter,
your potato pancakes, you
sprinkling sugar on top,
the sweetness
to satisfy my hunger
your fingers in my mouth.


Once you held my youth,
but it disappeared inside my bones,
your reassuring hands, smooth
as our first kiss,
fragile as glazed teacups
from the local potter's son,
how he took over the business
after his father's death,
how he passes us by
each day on his way,
we, two ignored vessels
the potter might have once fashioned
had he been a kinder god.
 
 

​American Elegy

​I heard shots fired
like the Angel Gabriel blowing
his horn, signaling retreat
to get the fuck outta there.

Then I seen the body
in that alley where I shoot up.
Then I seen the cop, same alley
where he gets blowjobs.
The body black. The cop blue.

Over the fence the body hung.
No trees in this hood,
just burned out buildings
from the '67 riot.
Nobody rebuilt.
Tells all about it in history books
kids can't read
the writing on the billboards
for joining the National Guard.

At the shelter I watched the news.
No one interviewed me,
invisible as a garbage can.
Some lady cried. Mom
warned me, the straight and narrow
alleyways always end
up at dead ends.

The chief of police at the podium.
He could have taken his hat off,
like in church, the confessional box full
of empty words and promises
broken, like the watch I stole.
Dead men tell no time.

The crowd/mob, I never
choose words good/good words,
they pissed off, shouting, cursing.
Read lips, not books.
The battered TV, all black and blue.
I gotta go. You know.
Low, low profile. You know.
At least I know the times.
 

​Would You Mind, Jesus, if I Hang with You?

​You and me, we sort of the same,
both innocent.
To shame us, our enemies
(I know I have to love them),
they parade us through a mob
of people we know
who know better than to lynch.
They strip us of our clothes,
our bodies, spat on, whipped,
and pierced to their delight.
 
Sorrowful that Your momma watches.
A blessing my momma does not
have to bury me. Maybe someone will
fetch what remains of me sometime
after the murderers (I know
I have to bless them) and their children
eat supper, breaking bread
in Your name.
 
You forgive them because they do
not know what they are doing.
My executioners (I know I have
to forgive them) know the ropes,
experiment with variations:
riddling my body with bullets,
perhaps cutting off souvenirs,
ears, fingers, toes, genitals,
perhaps kindling a fire below,
me, a backdrop to the show.

Would you mind, Jesus, if I hang with You?
I hear You say it is finished,
but I have to disagree.
We black folk continue to find our way
to Golgotha, and there never seems an end
for us that does not begin with a tree.