American Night
Cracked evening bells keep ringing
though their muted song rings black and blue.
The craven launch their bannered march,
these times of change prompt stomping feet,
the leather cracked, freedom bent back
toward iron walls of altered fact.
They pull each law loose with their teeth
dig under flesh toward arid bone.
Hot fear and hate encompass light,
they hurtle toward absolute right
their minds a sloppy, browning mist
where words break free like floaters
in their eyes. Fear moves along,
the shouts roll on, salutes ascend
black jackboots march. The world’s aflame
with nature’s cry, the seamy cur, the tangent lies
cover each cage where silver blankets
litter light in frightened people’s eyes
Joani Reese is from North Texas, USA and author of poetry chapbooks Final Notes and Dead Letters. Night Chorus is Reese’s full-length collection. Reese was poetry editor for THIS Magazine and Connotation Press-An Online Artifact, and fiction guest editor for Scissors and Spackle. Reese won the 1st Patricia McFarland Memorial Prize for flash fiction, The Graduate School Creative Writing Award from The University of Memphis, and the Glass Woman Prize for her flash fiction. She also curates the yearly AWP offsite underground reading series Hot Pillow, now in its 13th year.
