jonathan andrew perez
The Great Society: (n.) to deconstruct the mob consciousness against Latinos marked the violence of the 19th ane early 20th century
The light treatment of dredged circular ecosystems
On xenophobic towns; the Golden Eagle in the dry towns
Soaring the jackrabbits’ resumed its course-beak-steel-pearl
Out in the circular ecosystem, a second darkness, far from gold mines towns,
Emigrant vigilante justice. No one saved us from ourselves,
starving on the racist frontier’s sheens:
Thorndale, Texas, redundant roads, washed ashore
Feathered toes – you have met your match, black
despite no origin: re-patriation, business as usual
dropped off grandpa, great grandmother, at the Border.
Cold pennies and nickels for train fare. Intercepted like balls
Out back in the cut-off-cut-backs without language, tongues dried, scooped
From the nightly dew, a husbanded wild other side
drops are too cold,
Who cherry, oak, and orange groves, a grand
Consortium of globes, charts, and projecting
the instruments of this world, like a treaty broken
the last word, a consortium of workers in evacuation zones.
***
Jonathan Andrew Pérez has published poetry in Collateral, Prelude, The River Heron Review, Blood Tree Literature,The Bookends Review, The Westchester Review, Crack the Spine Quarterly, Silver Needle Press, Projector Magazine, Cape Cod Poetry Review, Rise Up, BARNHOUSE, The Chicago Quarterly Review, Worcester Review, Hiram Poetry Review and Quiddity on NPR. Jonathan is in POETRY in January 2020. Jonathan won the 2019 Poetry Prize from Split Lip Magazine chosen by Chen Chen. Jonathan’s debut chapbook, “The Justice Elegies,” was released in March 2020 by Finishing Line Press. In the January 2020 issue of Poetry Magazine, you will find Perez’s poem “Bobolinks as a Flock of Signifiers.” He has a day job as a trial attorney and teaches poetry at Wesleyan University.