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January 20, 2017

By Tonee Mae Moll

After Adrienne Rich & Bertolt Brecht

We’re looking for that old revolutionary road again
a poet said we’d meet where the grass grows uphill

I couldn’t think of a better way to describe America
torch in one hand, scrolling through her smart phone with the other

Sauced on nostalgia, someone told me Columbia used to look
prettier—but ain’t beauty an idol too imprecise to adore?

.

A bell rings as the smash of trash can against a bank’s façade
asks me to be his wife, but the keepers shake their heads

The yes in me applauds a fascist bit by past-due fist
and every knuckle wonders why it shouldn’t do the same

Elsewhere the volksstrum are shown these scenes on repeat
shaken, sold fustian and magazine-fed pitchforks

.

Remember to grasp your revolution at ten and two
the streets are slick and she pulls slightly to the right

Select character: money-changer, table, prophet
dove, disciple, chief-priest, scribe

Young men in black tell me this isn’t a goddamned game
I sing back half-remembered lyrics from a rebellion adapted for screen
Added: Monday, July 2, 2018  /  Used with permission.
Tonee Mae Moll

Dr. Tonee Mae Moll is a queer & trans poet & essayist. She is the author of Out of Step: A Memoir, which won the Lambda Literary Award in bisexual nonfiction and the Non/Fiction Collection Prize. Their latest book, You Cannot Save Here, won the Jean Feldman Poetry Prize from WWPH. Her poetry has also received the Adele V. Holden award for creative excellence and the Bill Knott Poetry Prize, along with nominations for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Tonee holds an MFA in Creative Writing & Publishing Arts from University of Baltimore and a Ph.D. in English from Morgan State University. She is a Gemini.

Image Description: Tonee Mae Moll, a feminine person with a yellow hat and yellow glasses, looks at the camera. She wears a grey sweater with a denim jacket over it and a brass necklace shaped like a tree. 

Other poems by this author

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