by Alaina Hammond
Mining My Millennials
If I were a revolutionary poet my lines would ignite thirsty flames beneath the beds of the grinning Corporados as their insidious greed carves a long trajectory to Hell consigning the old and crippled hands of our blessed elders to that destination when they only want to hold on to their tiny half acre between the new phallic highrise and the boutique wine bar just long enough for a good death.
If I were a revolutionary poet I would remind you that we were beaten down as every promise from the mouths of Medgar Martin and Malcolm shattered in the teeth of Bull Connor as he let loose the dogs of Birmingham and the bodies of the children were blown apart at the 16th Street Baptist Church and James and Michael and Andrew were slaughtered in Mississippi by the Klan who castrated James the Black one.
But I am not a revolutionary poet and I long for the sacred ground to go down on my own knees to beg forgiveness from your generation and to confess that I was wrapped around the axle trying to feed my kid to keep our chins above flooding waters to keep the darkness from thickening into endless night to arm wrestle fate.
I am ashamed and wrecked from thinking we could right all the wrongs even as I conjure Alejandro Murguía ramming a fist up the arse of the predator and Jack Hirschman mourning hopes rapidly rotted and dignities impaled and I am weary of carrying suspicion and blame that means and heals nothing if you don’t rise.
Zoë Christopher is a writer and street photographer. She holds a Masters in transpersonal psychology and spent many years working in crisis intervention. Some of her work has appeared in Zingara Poetry Review, great weather for MEDIA’santhology Suitcase of Chrysanthemums, Shadowplay Journal, the 2023 New Generation Beats Anthology, Tangled Locks Journal, and Under the Gum Tree literary magazine. She lives and loves in San Francisco and is currently completing her memoir.@zoechristopher9.bsky.social facebook.com/zoe.christopher.3/
Alaina Hammond is a poet, playwright, fiction writer, and visual artist. Her poems, plays, short stories, philosophical essays, creative nonfiction, paintings, drawings and photographs have been published both online and in print. Publications include Spinozablue, Paddler Press, Fowl Feathered Review, Synchronized Chaos, Well Read Magazine, Concision Poetry Journal, New World Writing Quarterly, Lowlife Lit Press, Flash Phantoms, New Limestone Review, L’Esprit Literary Review, and Rock Salt Journal. @alainaheidelberger on Instagram.