Charleston Currents – Palmetto Poem

FOCUS: Love letter to Charleston

By Derek Berry, special to Charleston Currents

Charleston’s got a spine worthy of worship.
Her teeth are corner-stores, crooked
and jammed. A fluorescent light is buried in her throat
beckoning us down from second-story porches.
She wants us to hold her hand,
to slip into something less comfortable,
a cotton shawl in the sultry shudder of summer night.
There is beauty in how she undresses
us with her humid tongue, how we return
to childlike abandon in her mouth.

by Palmetto Poem · 11/07/2016 · 2 comments · Features, Focus, Palmetto Poem

PALMETTO POEM: I Wish You Black Sons

after Lucille Clifton | For people who believe: # Black Lives Don’t Matter

By Glenis Redmond, special to Charleston Currents

I wish you the ability to bear only black fruit
I wish you only sons
I wish them black
spilled from your loins like black ink
I wish you code words like: inner city urban hip-hop
I wish you Baltimore, DC, Newark, Philly, Ferguson, Charleston, Charlotte
and Greenville and so on…

by Palmetto Poem · 10/03/2016 · Comments are Disabled · Features, Palmetto Poem

PALMETTO POEM: Charleston childhood montage

By Jacqueline Johnson

Your garden is as wild as one
of Bearden’s conjure women’s.
Lush with collards, roses, lilies,
hydrangea, figs and japonica.
One summer found me walking
concrete, dusty path to your front steps.

by Palmetto Poem · 09/12/2016 · 3 comments · Features, Palmetto Poem

PALMETTO POEM: Three by Kimberly Simms

Brother’s Mess of Crosses

Converted at 16, when the dummy train
derailed to tip across his pregnant wife.
A holy roller, a Carolina spinner,
a brush arbor caller, an off-key gospel singer.

He took scarlet paint to moonshine jars, boulders,
pine trees, fences, and the neighbor’s pig.
His front plot, he planted a mess of crosses
and built his own monolith with river rocks.

He didn’t pay no mind to section leaders,
howled his only boss was the man in heaven.
He sent 10,000 message bottles down the Reedy
River, dreamed of taking Jesus to Mars and Jupiter.

by Charleston Currents · 08/15/2016 · Comments are Disabled · Features, Palmetto Poem

PALMETTO POEM: Autumn Sunday

A poem by Pushcart nominee Katherine Williams of Charleston and Los Angeles. She has authored three chap books and given readings on both coasts. She has poems in Measure, Diagram, Spillway, Poemeleon, Rappahannock Review, and various anthologies. A community arts activist and surfer, she works in biomedical research and lives on James Island with her husband, poet Richard Garcia.

by Palmetto Poem · 07/04/2016 · Comments are Disabled · Features, Palmetto Poem

FOCUS: Music of doves ascending

A poem by Marjory Wentworth, poet laureate of South Carolina:

Yellow crime tape tied to the rod iron fence
weaves through bouquets of flowers
and wreaths made of white ribbons,
like rivers of bright pain flowing through the hours.

Weaving through bouquets of flowers,
lines of strangers bearing offerings
like rivers of bright pain flowing through the hours.
One week later; the funeral bells ring;

lines of strangers still bring offerings.
Nine doves tossed toward the sun.
One week later; the funeral bells ring,
while churches in small towns are burning.

Nine doves tossed toward the sun.
Because there are no words to sing,
while churches in small towns are burning,
a blur of white wings, ascends like music.

by Palmetto Poem · 06/06/2016 · Comments are Disabled · Focus, Good news, Palmetto Poem

POEMS: Three from nationally-known poet Richard Garcia

Enjoy three short poems by award-winning poet Richard Garcia, who won the 2016 Press 53 award for Porridge. He is the author of six books or poetry, recently The Other Odyssey, from Dream Horse Press, and The Chair, from BOA, both published in 2014. His poems have appeared in many journals, including The Georgia Review and Spillway, and in anthologies such as The Pushcart Prize and Best American Poetry. He lives in Charleston, S.C., with his wife Katherine and their dog Max. He is on the staff of the Antioch Low Residency MFA in Los Angeles.

by Palmetto Poem · 05/01/2016 · Comments are Disabled · Features, Palmetto Poem

PALMETTO POEM: Charcoal

Palmetto Poem by Vera Gómez

Charcoal can be found almost anywhere
there has been fire. Among the ash,
dust to dust, among the embers set aglow.
Almost anywhere: in the streak
of teared-lace mascara, in the remnant
of a striked match, in the man cremated.

by Palmetto Poem · 04/04/2016 · Comments are Disabled · Features, Palmetto Poem

PALMETTO POEM: Down South

By Len Lawson
Five-and-dime. Antique store. Cash and
Carry. Drug store. Barber shop. Shoe shop.
Record store. Bridal boutique. Dive bar.

by Palmetto Poem · 03/07/2016 · Comments are Disabled · Features, Palmetto Poem

PALMETTO POEM: “Reimagining History”

Though Charleston is a shrine to the past,
where every alleyway and weather-worn road
tells the story of a city resurrected;
time is never standing still.
Running beneath the surface
are fault lines of our own making,
reshaping memory brick by brick.