Spring 2004

WE WAIT
Writing from the Hall and Rogers Park Branch Libraries; Deborah's Place and the Inspiration Café

This brand-new issue of JOT features:

• Photos by John Brooks
• Work from 48 JOT writers

Read work from the magazine! For more information on how to receive a copy of the magazine for $10 or to receive a year of JOT for $25, please call the NWA office at (773) 684-2742

WAITING
Mayi Ojisua

Dark silver paint of blood
smears left over from
a soldier’s footsteps
mothers wait for bodybags.

In the desert
the boogeyman rages
feeds on a camel
left over

This is the dream
of a “great” nation
children wait
brothers are waiting
for bodybags

why they kill and die
lost letters are told
sisters wait for body counts

The flag is wrapped round the waist
to prove a point

Matter dies, freedom dies
we wait for bodybags

LOOKING FOR GREENS
Nancy Thomas

One day I decided I wanted to eat something healthy and I thought greens would be perfect because they were healthy for cleaning negative particles out of my body. So I started on a horrible journey from one store to the next, about eight stores to be exact. I went from California and Jackson past Pulaski and Madison. I was getting very angry. I couldn’t understand why there weren’t any fresh vegetables in these stores. Was it because it was a predominantly Black area, or was it because the community didn’t care enough to demand that the stores supply the essential goods they needed?

I couldn’t believe it. I finally did get the greens from a very dumpy and very smelly little store right off Pulaski. This is a shame, I thought. I came from a community where you could get fresh vegetables at almost every corner store, and it was predominantly Black. The question arose in my mind again: Why? What’s the difference?

THE TRUCK HAIKU
Vanessa Ellis

The look on your face
Flaming like your cherished truck
Stalled on Lake Shore Drive

“It’s just a gas leak,
Even a moron could fix.”
Of course you’ve repaired

But I smell the gas
While we’re driving down the street
Trailing smoke behind

“Oh, the smell will leave.”
“It’s a little thing,” you say.
I’m so paranoid

But then you yell, “Jump!”
Leap out of the moving truck
While it is in flames

Your accomplishment
The skill you just knew you had
As fixer of cars

Admit when you’re licked
As flames engulfing your truck
Illustrate for you

A good mechanic
Is exactly what you need
I’ll help you find one

Oh, but wait a sec
You’re the one who has no ride
Better luck next truck

O.K. I’ll shut up
I’ll wipe the grin off my face
With your bruised ego

UP AND DOWN
Tasha Johnson

I feel like I am going up and down, up and down like a roller coaster. Up and down like an escalator. Up and down like my weight. One day I amconfident and happy. The next I am close to tears. Another day I am goal-oriented and running around the place. The day after that I stay in bed. I am fed up with feeling like a freak and acting like one as well. I wish that I could be normal like everyone else so I would not have to take lithium, Risperdal, and other psychiatric medications so I can be sane.

But I know that I have no alternative, so I have to try to realize that this is forever and I will have to take some kind of medication on a permanent basis in order to survive.

© 2004 Neighborhood Writing Alliance