FEATURED POET: Rachelle Linda Escamilla is the winner of multiple poetry
awards including: The Academy of American
Poets, The Dorritt Sibley Poetry Prize, and The James Phelan Literary Awards. She has an MFA in Poetry from The University of Pittsburgh and is a
founding member of The Poets and Writers
Coalition of SJSU. Her poetry can be found at Cave Moon Press, Hinchas de Poesia, A Joint Called Pauline, La Bloga,
Occupoetry, The Villiage Pariah, 580 Split, 99poemsforthe99percent, Two Thirds
North: An International Anthology,
and Shadowed, Unheard Voices an Anthology
of Women. She lives Guangzhou, China where she is faculty for the Creative
Writing program in the School of Foreign
Languages at Sun Yat-sen University.
CALIFORNIA HWY
Driving the 101, her brother stations his chin just
above the locked, quarter high window. Flustered
with his height, the thin of his neck crinkles pushing
his face into a scowl as they round the bend.
The sideways of San Jose blur against his inky
eyes his mud skin. She pulls away from the speedway
behind a train of cars, a pool of police and people.
Here, slammed not two feet from the tires of traffic
heads, dark hair melting into the asphalt curls
sizzled straight on this July day. Her brother’s hands
ball. They pass the primered Hondas, the dust colored
Toyotas. They pass the moms and sons, all brown
faces seeding the asphalt. Arms zip-tied behind backs,
her brother’s fingers number the bodies, practicing
arithmetic.
PEOPLE OCEAN
How do you write People
Ocean my students ask
what is the word in English?
I say I have no clue.
Babylon takes the stage and says its when the world
around you moves in waves and the bodies beside
you sway and you are part of it too.
I was in a gulf of people at the Macau Immigration station.
In the Foreigner Queue
there were multi colored faces,
hair and dress an equally distributed rainbow
like a PBS afternoon special,
but over the cement precipice
a mass of black hair and sand colored faces
lurch as the officers steady the gates
at the swell of uniform hair
and women tottering on coral feet.
Lotus Dream by Christina Michaels Tremblay
WRITE YOUR POEM
Delayed on the Szechuan Road
Chang Yueh
A traveler races the sun and moon
coming and going according to plan
but autumn wind doesn't wait
it reaches Loyang before me
So as you race the moon in our global village what autumn winds do you chase? It is easy to scurry and forget that the scraps of paper you use for your poems hold import. They hold value to those most important. Don't forget to write.
Lotus Dream by Christina Michaels Tremblay
WRITE YOUR POEM
Delayed on the Szechuan Road
Chang Yueh
A traveler races the sun and moon
coming and going according to plan
but autumn wind doesn't wait
it reaches Loyang before me
So as you race the moon in our global village what autumn winds do you chase? It is easy to scurry and forget that the scraps of paper you use for your poems hold import. They hold value to those most important. Don't forget to write.
