Five poets stepping out of the Bronx, NYC—the birthplace of lyrical contenders—enter the stream of artists who are keeping it real by keeping it local. Featured in the chapbook Shout Out, these pieces reflect the borough’s new vocal vibrancy.
JOHN RODRIGUEZ
Spidermanizm
Dedicated to my first hero
who taught that with great power
comes great responsibility
who, after decades battling
vultures and scorpions, never
lost his sense of humor
and who showed me that
when you get to the end of your rope
the least you can do is swing, baby
VICTORIA SAMMARTINO
For Jocelyn (b.1982)
What I knew was knowledge enough
to keep me from spending the night
and that was enough to keep you listening
locked down behind bars and a silence
louder than the neighborhood you claimed to miss so much.
Less than a year later
I watch you walk down naked streets
wearing thin shiny pants, a see through shirt
no jacket and it’s almost Christmas.
I imagine the times I chanted affirmations in circles
around your head
listen for the truth that whispers itself inside you
Now ‘free’ you sip coffee (with cream and lots of sugar)
and tell stories that make me cross my legs
close my eyes and later, tell him not to touch me.
‘I don’t like it or nothing, I don’t get wet you know’
proud that you are not the kind of girl that likes it.
America doesn’t like the girls who like it.
‘I’m tired,’ you say crying ‘I don’t wanna do this no more,
but I can’t leave, he’ll kill me,’ you don’t scream ‘he’ll kill me’
and you beg me to change the choices you’ve made
sometimes the truth is scarier than the lies we’re living
There is nothing to say
and there will be nothing but silence
until you can’t take the cold
there will be black eyes and broken ribs
prayers and promises
there will be rumors and rearrests
threats and ‘make me three hundred dollars bitch
and you can come back’
and you will come back again and again and
‘I’m his favorite ho, he doesn’t beat me as bad
as the other girls’
if you believe lies they become you
CARIDAD DE LA LUZ/LA BRUJA
New Yorker
I love New York
I’m a New Yorker
I LOVE NEW YORK
Busy town
Above and underground
I emerge from the Six train
51st and Lex
Walk across to the West Side
As I pass Radio City
I dream of performing there
And Carnegie Hall
Comes to mind too Yeah
All those places
Winter Garden had CATS
Now it’s THE WITCH on Broadway
Twisted Musical
I dance a cabaret number
That turns to a furious flamenco
And disappear into gypsy dust
I resurrect in St. Patrick’s Cathedral
And Sing the highest note
My vocal cord can release
AMEN
Times Square
Still has some 25cent peep shows
But the booths are sticky
“You got change for this?”
I pull out a ball of lint
Had to ask
Cause some people feel like giving
If you catch them at the right time
Like the time I was on the two train
This lady limped in on a twisted foot
Holding a cup in a twisted hand
Begging for money through a twisted mouth
I pulled out a twisted dollar and gave it to her
She drooled out a “God Bless You”
I felt Good
Got off at Simpson Street
And so did she
She jumped over the turnstile
Ran down the steps and
There she went
With my last dollar
NEW YORK
I’m a New Yorker
I LOVE NEW YORK
JESSICA ROMAN
Cutie Baby
The last breath between our sentences fits in his hands
Used phone calls and old promises.
I will be the one you can run to as soon as I can run to myself
Baby,
before then though
you can cry on my words
lean on the shoulders that carry you piggy-back
scream through my fingers
the same ones that fed you
and I’ll be your Mami
Mami Jessie is not supposed to fall
But believe me Baby
One day I will.
That will be when I need you most
I’ll need you to carry me in your arms
Rock me to sleep even,
Love me
More than u ever have.
I’ll treasure each blink of your eyelashes.
And when the minutes run out on the phone calls
I’ll talk to you with my mind
Hold you in my arms through dream sequences
You’ll never be alone.
I promise.
You are my Cutie Baby.
I am your Mami Jessie.
Forever and for always.
ANITA GARCIA/ROKAFELLA
Unspoken Concrete
There is no other poem quite like the one with no lyrics,
no sound no breath, no one can hear it, but
we know it’s there.
Its evidence is like dew
in the morning on my windshield,
or the crust in my eyes,
the who when the why’s.
This is the rival. The nemesis,
this is the force the poem has to counter
and re-encounter,
but i am down to release the poem from the letters,
the bedwetters,
those with the rhyme that is better,
the consonants , the vowels,
the tone, the pitch, the vibratos.
Release the poem from the scrutiny, the mutiny,
provin we are not ready for
the unspoken word in poetry.
Not ready.
Caught up in the sauce, the fork, the spaghetti.
Someone said hip hop is dead
and i said is that something you read?
As long as my blood flows red
Hip-Hop lives
it’s inbred,
just like boricuas growing food instead
of buyin beans and eggs.
Heads are buggin
cuz buildings get knocked down
and new ones immediately get put up.
I could’ve
freaked
but confidence leaked
out my lungs when i saw the ones
that will stand long after we have been laid down,
six feet to the ground,
the foundations stand up against
the new the next, who?
The projects.
.unspoken concrete.