NEW! Poems by Jibade-Khalil Huffman

Jibade-Khalil Huffman

Three poems

GUARANTEED SWAHILI

It was in sleet that he arrived
by another misreading

he was an hour late
for the sentence, “counter

smothered in feathers;” in others
like it no mention of place

was made. The effect only
of girl on seams, in

her own jeans
into margins of the earth

trespassed, into the margins
of the earth--in villanelles

the victim is given
an hour from the town

to complain its distance
upon resorting to the tape

the guaranteed Swahili
his passing unannounced.


REHEARSALS FOR BRITAIN

I have in mind the arch tome, I have
the funnel aimed to sweep in flecks
of paint like those, the fallen

upon inspection, face revealing verdict
by viola’s tune, by the cello tune
closing to applause, to go on for

other schillings, to save a life and
stand the hands as on a myth with
the hand grenade and with the statuette

from Cuneiform he seemed
to have been reading. Through sand to
course and sand to shake

by right I have the wronged, I have
the beach emptied in a drill in
case of their assault.


“THOSE TURNED QUIET BY KNIVES, BY NIGHT ...”

Those turned quiet by knives, by night
in shrill, remained the possibility
of children stove off from sleep
held in her arms. This was so

the blinds might not arrive, carried
in wind from once set in a window
twice to pry
some space from her lap, occupied or

not by the one child, had second
gone pacing; those that held
several brands. Colored and shaken
effect of a rocking horse and

trembling, to mark on walls to
leave on names, on
a landable room that
hawk attacks.