by Stephen Jarrell Williams
Pittsburgh, 1940, Jack Delano, Library of Congress
LABORING
Poor men
working
the streets,
their silence
singing
like gods
under a hidden sky.
—
STREET NURSE
Let me
sleep all night
in your fold
of blankets
feeling your
breath above me
keeping
away death
juice
running down my hip
never dreaming
you’d squeeze so hard.
—
Stephen Jarrell Williams loves to write, listen to his music, and dance late into the night. He was born in Fort Belvoir, Virginia. His parents are native Texans. He has lived most of his life in California. His poetry has appeared in Aoife’s Kiss, Aphelion, Blue Collar Review, The Broome Review, Camroc Press Review, Censored Poets, Chronogram Magazine, Deuce Coupe, Fissure Magazine, Freefall, Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, Hawaii Review, Heroin Love Songs, Hungur, Is This Reality, Kalkion, Liquid Imagination, Mad Swirl, Metazen, Mirror Dance, Neonbeam, Nerve Cowboy, Nomad’s Choir, POEM, Poesia, Posey, protestpoems.org, Purpose, REAL, Rusty Truck, Scifaikuest, Sex And Murder, Shoots And Vines, Tales from the Moonlit Path, Thieves Jargon, Zygote In My Coffee, and others.
1 response so far ↓
1 Franchesica Bassaw // Oct 14, 2010 at 1:51 pm
I liked both of the pieces. I especially liked the piece entitled “Laboring”. What I thought was interesting about the piece was the images that were created while I was reading it. I thought that you used such a great simile and comparison when you stated,
“their silence
singing
like gods
under a hidden sky.”
I thought that it really captured both the airiness and the powerful impact that the workers silence had. It left an impressionable image within my mind of how angelic yet provoking their silence was. It was almost as if the silence spoke for itself. I thought that the piece was one that was illuminated by mythology when you referenced the gods and even that comparison in itself suggested that they were “godlike” man who were poor. While that may seem contradictory, it some how often seemed redemptive as well. I also liked the piece “Street Nurse” just because of how it flowed. I thought that it was rich and made me want to read more.
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