Authors
Responding
 to Artists

Alena
Guest 

Don
Kirkpatrick

Emily
Inwood

Fauna
Perkins

Jewels
Marcus

Karen
Lewis

Marylyn
Motherbear
Scott

Maureen
Eppstein


Authors Writing 
for Artists

Alena
Deerwater

Chet
Boddy

Fran
Schwartz

Henri
Bensussen

Jan
Edwards

Janet
Ashford

Katherine
Heimann
Brown

Orah
Young

Jewels Marcus 
"The Next Coming" 

I’m not who you think I am.
Days of lush lazy lawns pregnant
with carefree laughing children
are long gone.
I’m your daughter’s daughter.
The new messiah.
The coroner.
The next coming.
I’m walking on the backs of discarded plastic bottles,
across seas, in search of salvation and clean drinking water.
I’m sifting through un-majestic purple mountains of trash,
for the tainted treasure of tasteless scraps    
to fill my aching    empty    guts.
I’m roaming radiated deserts for evidence of my inheritance.
I’m your judge      your jury      your coroner
stuffing the giant cracks you left in the scorched earth
with the putrid, swollen bodies of my kin.
I’m your daughter’s daughter
needing to grow new lungs to filter the filthy air
new hands to claw over continents of blackened concrete.
I’m the one left after the last holocaust.
The one you didn’t want to notice, too busy
entertaining  yourselves          for one third of your lives.
I’m not who you think I am.    
I’m the minister       the preacher        the teacher.
My hopes and prayers like wolves sent out to devour our fears.
I’m the new messiah.    Walking on water.
The coroner.     Burying your future.
The next coming.

Ahulani McAdam 
"World According to Thought"

click to enlarge