Len Lawson
The Black Body Is a Wind Chime
Perfect for whistling bullets through
Singing discordant yet delicious screams
Symphonic scent of burning flesh
Climbing Kilimanjaro leaving trails of blood
The black body is a piccolo
Blown into but never kissed
Blistering white lips race to apply breath to it
But never desire real intimacy
Muscular music makes men mad
With black notes filling their nostrils
String the black bare skin bamboo together
And call them bones of holy ghosts
Sold on the auction block to the highest sinner
A chanting wind whips resistance through them
Len Lawson is the author of the debut collection Chime (Get Fresh Books, 2019), the chapbook Before the Night Wakes You (Finishing Line Press, 2017), and co-editor of Hand in Hand: Poets Respond to Race (Muddy Ford Press, 2017). He is a Ph.D. student in English Literature and Criticism at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. His poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. He received a Callaloo fellowship and a residency at Vermont Studio Center. His poems have appeared in The Baltimore Review, Verse Daily, [PANK], Winter Tangerine Review, Mississippi Review, and elsewhere. Len is a Poetry Reader and Book Reviewer for Up the Staircase Quarterly. He currently teaches English at the University of South Carolina Sumter. Read more at: www.lenlawson.com
Return to July 2018 Edition
Perfect for whistling bullets through
Singing discordant yet delicious screams
Symphonic scent of burning flesh
Climbing Kilimanjaro leaving trails of blood
The black body is a piccolo
Blown into but never kissed
Blistering white lips race to apply breath to it
But never desire real intimacy
Muscular music makes men mad
With black notes filling their nostrils
String the black bare skin bamboo together
And call them bones of holy ghosts
Sold on the auction block to the highest sinner
A chanting wind whips resistance through them
Len Lawson is the author of the debut collection Chime (Get Fresh Books, 2019), the chapbook Before the Night Wakes You (Finishing Line Press, 2017), and co-editor of Hand in Hand: Poets Respond to Race (Muddy Ford Press, 2017). He is a Ph.D. student in English Literature and Criticism at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. His poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. He received a Callaloo fellowship and a residency at Vermont Studio Center. His poems have appeared in The Baltimore Review, Verse Daily, [PANK], Winter Tangerine Review, Mississippi Review, and elsewhere. Len is a Poetry Reader and Book Reviewer for Up the Staircase Quarterly. He currently teaches English at the University of South Carolina Sumter. Read more at: www.lenlawson.com
Return to July 2018 Edition