FLYPAPER LIT
  • Home
  • ABOUT
    • HISTORY
  • CONTENT
    • POETRY
    • PROSE
    • ARCHIVES
    • MUSIC
    • COLUMNS >
      • TIMEFIGHTERS & UNBELIEVERS
      • unearthly horoscopes from your dreamy, vaguely occult ghost
      • Heartworms
      • Just Sucking
    • INTERVIEWS
    • REVIEWS
  • CONTACT

2 Poems by Khalisa Rae

11/20/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
Khalisa Rae is a poet and journalist in Durham, NC, and author of Real Girls Have Real Problems chapbook. Her poetry can be seen in Crab Fat, Damaged Goods, Hellebore, Terse, Sundog Lit, PANK, Tishman Review, Occulum, the Obsidian, among others. She is the winner of the Bright Wings Poetry contest, the Furious Flower Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Prize, the White Stag Publishing Contest, among others. Currently, she serves as Managing Equity Editor at Carve Magazine and Writing Center Director at Shaw University. Her debut collections, Ghost in a Black Girls Throat are forthcoming from Red Hen Press in April 2021 and White Stag Publishing Summer '21 ​

Belly-Full of Gospel


Each morning my grandma rises to find her Bible
still breathing, belting her favorite aria. A lion,
a well, a sacrifice. Crack-of-dawn, coffee-stained,
scrolls making music at 6am. Each page turn a chord
she knows better than hot water cornbread and collard
greens. Wailing Blessed Assurance, What a Friend to crackling
bacon– all a belly-full of gospel summoning spirit to be there
in the midst. Her back buckle and hand wave awakening
a holy ghost- Bash-sha- Shadrach, Meshach- tongue-speaking
spells cast out the demons haunting this old house. “While
I’m on this tedious journey”— a sovereign song soothing her
aching, calligraphed hands. Walk with Me, she asks,
inviting Him in the room. What a meditation, a ritual
to welcome Holy into a place held together by broken bread.
A sacred invitation to dine with her and the browning
hash. Nothing but the Blood and sunrise slicing sound--
stirring a tent revival lasting ‘til nightfall across
her wobbling kitchen table.






Ode to Uncommon Things
                                    for Pablo


If this world has taught me anything,
it has taught me we are obsessed

with naming, with calling a Ren a
Ren, with deciding the weeping willow

was heavy with grief, with echoing
the words Nightjar and picturing

nocturnal hawk. Maybe it's the god-like
power of it all, the villain of conjuring

titles, calling a thing broken and watching
it fall, then calling it chosen–phoenix,

and watching it rise. Who are we
to be cataloged and filed?

All of us just common things
waiting to be named uncommon,

waiting to go from bird to Nightingale,
from pigeon to white-wing, crest-backed

Long-tailed widow.
The sonnet we hoped
would be written for our raised backs

and color stripes— unwritten.
Instead, we watched while handkerchief

and pitch pipe got 83. Mementos
to things less miracle than we. Time

spent crafting sestinas to penny loafer,
and pocket watch.

But we are not listed--
we, the uncommon, silvery tokens.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Jess Smith-
    Student Evaluations
    ​Jenny Irish- Rusalka
    ​Terri Linn David-
    For the Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits
    Darius Simpson- 2 Poems
    Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach-
    When my son says...

    Kaleigh O'Keefe- Autobiography of Joan of Arc
    Timi Sanni- In This World of Mysteries...
    Anna Attie- We Lose Her Over Facetime
    Ruth Baumann- 2 Poems
    Rob Colgate- Remember These Tulips
    Tasneem Maher- Pilgrimage
    ​Aerik Francis- Bebop
    ​Emily Blair- The best ham...
    Adrienne Novy- 2 Poems
    ​Daniel Garcia- 2 Poems
    Brendan Joyce- moving day
    ​Sanna Wani- 2 Poems
    Raphael Jenkins- 2 Poems
    Daniel Summerhill-
    2 Poems
    Ava Gripp- Your Grandfather Had Secrets
    ​stevie redwood- abolish the dead
    Ariel Clark-Semyck-
    2 Poems
    benedict nguyen- 2 Poems
    Gabrielle Grace Hogan-
    Girls Night at the Saturnine Aquarium

    Devin Kelly- 2 Poems
    Danielle P. Williams-
    Yutu 2018

    Alan Chazaro- In a Vernacular of Speculation
    Deema K. Shehabi-
    ​A Summer's Tale with Fire Birds
    Kayleb Rae Candrilli-
    2 Poems
    ​Julianne Neely- 2 Poems
    Jake Bailey- 2 Poems
    ​Fargo Tbakhi- 2 Poems
    Justin Phillip Reed-
    2 Poems

    Naomi Shihab Nye-
    2 Poems
    Keith Leonard- Jukebox
    ​CAConrad- 3 Poems
    ​Roya Marsh- for (insert name)
    ​Stephanie Kaylor- LONG DISTANCE
    Tongo Eisen Martin-
    A Sketch about Genocide

    ​Despy Boutris- BLOODTEETH
    JinJin Xu- Days of Hourless Mothers
    ​Ashley M. Jones- Flour, Milk & Salt
    Sam Herschel Wein- How To Cook Your Family
    ​Marianne Chan- 2 poems
    Jason Crawford- PReP
    Jee Leong Koh- 2 poems
    Geramee Hensley- Redundancy Limit
    Dustin Pearson- My Brother Outside the House in Hell
    DT McCrea- On occasion of my own death
    Noor Hindi- Unkept
    Lyd Havens- I only misgender myself when Fleetwood Mac comes on
    ​Linda Dove- Mid-Life with Teeth
    Stephen Furlong- I Don't Know About You, but Mostly I Just Want to be Held
    Dorothy Chan- Because You Fall Too Fast Too Hard
    ​Kevin Latimer- MIRAGE
    MJ- Let me be remembered as a mother
    Taylor Byas- Rooftop Monologue
    Matt Mitchell- FINE LINE TRIPTYCH
    ​Todd Dillard- Will
    ​Heidi Seaborn- Under The Bed
    Heather Myers- A Rainbow, Just For A Minute
    Donna Vorreyer- In The Encyclopedia of Human Gestures
    Conor Bracken- THE WORST THING YOU CAN DO TO A MAN
    Ben Purkert- 2 Poems
    Emma Bolden- What Women's Work Is
    ​Chelsea Dingman- Lockdown Drill
    Raych Jackson- Pantoum for Derrion Albert from the Plank
    Elliot Ping- in the eighth grade
    Devin Kelly- POEM FOR MY FRIEND MATT WHO AT THIS MOMENT IS RUNNING 300 MILES ACROSS TENNESSEE​
    Kwame Opoku-Duku-
    ii. dance moves
    D.A. Powell- Sneak
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Home
  • ABOUT
    • HISTORY
  • CONTENT
    • POETRY
    • PROSE
    • ARCHIVES
    • MUSIC
    • COLUMNS >
      • TIMEFIGHTERS & UNBELIEVERS
      • unearthly horoscopes from your dreamy, vaguely occult ghost
      • Heartworms
      • Just Sucking
    • INTERVIEWS
    • REVIEWS
  • CONTACT