Poems by Kevin Le
By Kevin Le ‘22
Preface: Many of these poems were written for the class “Misrepresentation of Native Americans,” and those poems deal with the cultural appropriation of Native American culture, and are meant to serve as self-aware critiques of the practice. However, a lot of them are also personal poems that express some form of political stance that are sometimes contradictory meant to stir up thought.
1.
I crack open a geode and find an amethyst tooth—
This body is carbon coal coated.
2.
Contrasting red and gray, boundaries
Enact violence by forming waves of prejudice;
Contrast, like complements,
Decide to circle around because wars.
3.
Fast fashion is a ruby needle stitching a sparkling A against my bosom.
4.
The new continent was made from earth.
Earth was made of molecules.
Tinier, tinier, the particles bend like strings.
We used to play songs on the guitar.
Music made the strings vibrate:
This was how we changed our world with metal pipes.
5.
Rules bend invisible, like erasers on graphite
That move away the physical spaces of papers.
Creating a blank stroke, am I whitewashed as backspace?
6.
An invisible lightning drops through my skull, to defibrillate.
7.
A boat flutters like a blazed monarch migrating South.
8.
A bottled letter creased into a sailing swan
Sent from the beach reaches me now.
I write back with SOS.
9.
I rub a match against the box, inching it closer to the fuse. Then the bomb detonates: the rocket flies into the sky, shooting like a colorful flare. Glitter falls from the trees, and everything is on fire. My guests eat the barbecue burnt flesh, and the stars in the sky are in the sparklers now. How they wailed like bald eagles!
10.
The Holy Ghost is a broken-neck dove soaring with an olive branch.