October 2024
Akiva Israel
symphonie2025@gmail.com
symphonie2025@gmail.com
Bio Note: I'm an incarcerated artist. I wrote these poems in solitary confinement. I'm transgender. I believe in reincarnation.
Editor's Note: When I asked Akiva how exactly he heard about Verse-Virtual inside the prison, he explained that "My friend, ****, learned about your publication from an old edition of Fulcrum: an annual of poetry and aesthetics. He, in turn, learned about that publication when it fell on his feet from a library shelf." Poetry has no boundries.
Editor's Note: When I asked Akiva how exactly he heard about Verse-Virtual inside the prison, he explained that "My friend, ****, learned about your publication from an old edition of Fulcrum: an annual of poetry and aesthetics. He, in turn, learned about that publication when it fell on his feet from a library shelf." Poetry has no boundries.
IN
What prison puts in me surprises me.
Yet bodies in jail do as free bodies.
What synagogue put in him surprised him.
But minds indoctrinated act different than free minds.
What family puts in her surprises her.
For hearts loyal to some kill another.
What society puts in them surprises them.
Since money's a monster adults remain children to.
No surgery exists to get these things out.
Still, what links all these systems together
is they put in us something surprising.
All I can do
is be a whisper,
quieter than jails, wombs, cities, or the House of God
stay quiet in that one quiet place:
an ignored hole
I know
alone only
I
will get
IN.
Alive on Goya's Wall
I wake up, after rain,
not in bed.
I feel touched, in all directions,
caught by my love handles, he takes my hand.
Papa stop!
His eyes bulge ... frenetic ... that suspect me?
Papa's beard swings like a tick-tock clock.
This fisherman's hook, then my head chimes loud ...
blood pregnable on lips that kissed me once.
Breath drunk in the dark, how no one and no
flood will clean tonight's sky of black holes. My
breath smells like summer air in dark woods.
Always again, that dream comes ...
always still, in that painting peace comes.
Editor's Note: If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the author (email address above) to say what it is about the poem you like. Writing to the author is what builds the community at Verse Virtual. It is very important. -JL