"Putin's Eyes," "A Gentle Flip," and "Ode to the Bronx"
Putin’s Eyes
Russia is cold
and Putin’s eyes are blank
like so much of the landscape
A little Siberia unto himself
reaching out through encryption
and hard returns
A Gentle Flip
What will it be in the end
What will take you /me down
I try not to think of it
Palm up palm down
Both hands a gentle flip—dead
A Gentle Flip incorporates American Sign Language in the imagery. The author is currently working on a collection of poems that contain ASL where the signs/movements are captured into words.
Ode to the Bronx
The Bronx is music
beats buried in rhythm
twists and scratches
of the turntable
the hook of a song
The Bronx is alley
views and polar bears
Christmas trains
and summer trolleys
Poe House
beside poor house
The Bronx is fenced –
in fields and caged dreams
Hip-Hop and horticulture
Bodega beauties
And African queens
The Bronx is high
art and high crime
home runs and hallelujahs
greenways stretched
into another time
The Bronx is Congo drums
and merengue moods
beaches and barbecues
bullet-proof glass
on candy stores
tagged up
but not washed up
Regina Jamison is a writer and educator who lives in Brooklyn, New York. Her poetry has appeared in Sinister Wisdom: Black Lesbian Revolution, Mom Egg Review, Five Two One Magazine, Magma Literary Journal, The Americas Poetry Festival of New York Anthology 2016, Promethean Literary Journal, Off the Rocks: An Anthology of GLBT Writing Vols. 14 & 15, and Poetry in Performance Journal Vol. 43. Online, her poetry has appeared on Indolent Press HIV Here & Now Series, Silver Birch Press – Me as a Child Series, and Promethean eZine. She received her MFA in Creative Writing at City College in New York. Regina recommends the Human Rights Campaign Foundation.
