Cincy Word of Mouth
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WORD OF MOUTH VIRTUAL
Cincinnati

A feature/open virtual poetry reading emanating  from Cincinnati. As ever, an intentional arc of both past and future utterance, inspired by our most revered (and missed) voice with a nod to her Athens, GA compatriots, the last Tuesday of every month 7 p.m. EDT 

February 23


Ray McNiece

 

register for the Zoom reading at:

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMkduGurzsvGtDCkc96COWvHI9OSRr7ZB4b
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RAY MCNIECE is the author of nine books of poems and monologues, most recently Love Song for Cleveland, a collaboration with photographer Tim Lachina. The Orland Sentinel, reporting on Ray’s solo theater piece : “Us—Talking Across America” at the Fringe Festival called him a “modern day descendant of Wood Guthrie. He has a way with words and a wry sense of humor.” He toured Russia with Yevgeny Yevtushenko, appear on Good Morning, Russia and performed at the Moscow Polytech, the Russia Poets Hall of Fame, where he was dubbed “the American Mayakovski.” He has toured Italy twice with Lawrence Ferlinghetti. He is the three-time Cleveland Haiku Slam Champion. 

 O Say Can You See

O say can you see
this country free
of bigotry, hostility, incivility
from sea to shining tv?

The tribes are picking up sides 
from Ferguson to Charlotte
from Minneapolis to Cleveland
and there’s nowhere left to hide
for the children of the dream
walking hand in hand
down the black and white wound
running across this land.

What’s wrong with this picture?
Can you find the human 
being beaten on this screen?
Being beaten on that screen?
He deserved it. “Payback happens.”
What goes around, comes around,
said the eye for an eye blind men.
But the rioting is on the wall.
“Mr. President, you have a call
on the white courtesy phone.”

It’s the BLANKS’ fault.  The BLANKS
started it.  You know how they are.
They don’t really belong here.
So we sell ourselves on talk shows
like bugs shaken in a jar.
And the finger of blame points around
in an angry trigger circle.
We’re all living in the same hood now,
buying into Babylonian hype.
Mad. Ave. went to bed with Holly Would
and raised a little family of stereotypes.

Say, hey can you see
somebody who looks just like me,
somebody who looks just like you,
peering out from the leaves
of our family tree
rooted in Mother Africa?
We are the children of the dream
who wandered our separate ways
along time gone, gathered together
here again today.  Remember?
Can we call ourselves brothers and sisters?

What color was the hand 
Cain raised against Abel
after it fell?  How will we ever
wipe the slate clean
when the powers that be
sell us whitewash and blackball
so we can paint ourselves
into our own corners,
the mirrors of our monsters?
Can you see the eyes 
of a sister, a brother, 
a mother, a father
behind the masks
of your worst nightmares?

O say can you see
through the lies
that we are not us?
That we are us versus?
And where is Justice?
Or is it just us?

We are the children of the dream
wandering the desert of America
through the smokescreen
from the fire next time come home,
walking hand in hand 
down the black and white wound
running across this land
healed over with each step
together and together again.
O say can you see the person
walking next to you now? 


Launched by poets Mark Flanigan and Jim Palmarini in 2014, Word of Mouth  was inspired by the late Cincinnati poet Aralee Strange. Poets of all stripes are welcome to show up, listen, and mouth off.