Anxious and ancient scratches tore the air
with fingers eager to have their say,
pulling me out of bed, they cast and re-cast
nets of lexicons deep inside the womb
of the river’s roaring belly, hauling up myths
born in Georgia and legends sung in Carolina,
the wind howled visions that burned the night.
Wind of April 15, 2007, screeching like knives on fire.
Wind of April 16, 2007, in Virginia 33 counted dead.
Across the wide shoulders of Tybee Island
with thumbnails of exploding waves the wind
typed furiously remembrances of Buddha;
on the aching spines of weeping pines it carved
the bleeding parables of Christ and
and the pleading hadiths of Muhammad,
oh the wind dreamed a dream that haunted the night.
Winds of the moon coughing lunar dust in my face.
Winds of the sun preaching flame my throat.
What could it be using for ink I wondered,
and opened my window to yell––
“What are you using for ink?!”
A whirlwind of neon alphabets split the dark
wide open and inside its bright fury I saw
one-legged pirates dancing with blind prophets,
I saw kings counting gold and queens telling God.
Wind of dead flowers starving for roots.
Wind of nuclear cockroaches gobbling insanity.
Like a Passover Poet gliding from house to house
and from trembling soul to trembling soul
the wind scribbled sonnets of first time love
and weeping haikus of last hours on earth.
Up and down Broughton Street birds splattered
half-rhymes against windows and over rooftops,
the wind boomed sorrows that raged all night.
Wind of Confederate blood boiling gray miseries.
Wind of black slaves dancing juju jazz charisma.
Snatching me through the window a mighty fist
of air held me and a thousand more upside down
shook our bones like a tambourine of lightning,
wind and thunder and bones rattling cadence
for the sun that had set and the one about to rise,
for hearts pumping life and those about to stop,
the wind wrote a bloodbath too foul to read.
Wind of April 15, 2007, screeching like knives on fire.
Wind of April 16, 2007, in Virginia 33 counted dead.
(from The Bridge of Silver Wings)
CREDITS: Top, in the title frame, Moon over Savannah spire by Jim Wubbena; the 54th Massachussets regiment (colored) taking a Confederate position in Louisiana; bottom, slave woman; the last two are from the American Civil War archives
More notes on getting around our site
Especially now that we're building up issues (we're on our 15th!) and accumulating pages, and for the benefit of contributors and readers wanting to revisit past issues or simply browse around, let me just repeat what we said on the Home Page regarding our new aids to navigation. We have put up prominent signs or tabs on the current and past issues. Near the top of the right column of the Home Page is the Current Issue tab and link list which serves as the table of contents of the issue. The contributors' names or their titles are "clickable" links that will take you to the page where their works are featured. The same tab and links are in the left column of the rest of the pages. Use these links to "turn" the pages, or shift back and forth across the site.
Immediately after the Current Issue links is the Past Issues tab. Click the links under it (under the parenthetical "Past Issues This Page") to view past issues only on the particular page (each page has its own "Past Issues"). Example: to see Page 2 of Issue No. 14, go to page 2 of current issue and click "Issue 14" under the Past Issues tab of Page 2, and so forth down the pages. This process does not apply to Page 1, which is a new page and thus does not yet have its own archive.
Navigating around works like this because we are only a blog masquerading as an ezine, and each page is actually another blog with its own address and updated separately. Thus the issues aren't "stitched" like a magazine or a website with pages within the site itself. Our pages are sites of their own. But our magazine goes on, thanks to you, the contributors, and our tolerant hosts, Bloggers, one of the originals, and perhaps the most user-friendly and generous blog hosting site around. Happy browsing and reading!
The Editor
