The ALL Review is pleased to announce that Charles Payne has won our inaugural ALL Originals Prize for his poems "Dead End" and "Dinner with a Pig." This is his first national publication. In the next weeks, we are pleased to be publishing work by our two runners-up, Christine Holm and Rachel K. Martin.
Dead End
When I break down the word passion
I get: pass (or give) i (or myself) on (or endlessly)
I won't give my body away to a Dodge Challenger
hell-bent on running over protesters
won't give my sight away to roadblocks
shattering police car windows
eyes burning like tear gas
I won't give myself away to a Black woman
whose body will be used as a target practice
as she rests in her home
Martyrs go extinct like panthers that are Black
I must ignore my darkness in the mirror
forget it's an ugly projection of coded language
written to destroy Looters like me
Is it because I have
a face that's dark and smooth
nostrils that snarl with so much attitude
a tongue too silver and slick for conservative speed
lips too wide for whiteness to kiss with any comfort
cheeks that blush red as cherry blossoms do during morning dew
eyes powerful and dark like two crystallized coals
with a motor-city mind that assembly lines every time
a piston misfires and breaks another Black body
like fragile statues that look blue in the moonlight
No one will help me run underground from where a rickety slave ship brought me
I can't find a railroad where it is safe enough for me to jog
My life is a never-ending pursuit of giving myself away
Dinner with a Pig
Before the birds and bees, my father
tells me one day pigs will sting
and when they do, avert
your gaze from their snouts
watch their hooves, remember
your words have power
a tongue may build or destroy
Black boi’s look blue
on the camera missing
from the pigs’ bodies
Everything goes unseen
Listen to what those pigs are snorting
Avoid the blue water in their eyes
Ignore the smell of rotting Black bodies
All lives do not matter
When a pig’s tongue suggests
you’ve shown your teeth, mouth agape
and wide, ready for a feast
Remember your real estate value, boy
Don’t fail this inspection, son.
