Blog | Mid-Atlantic Review | published by Day Eight

Three Poems by Dominic “Nerd” McDonald

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October 19, 2022

Editor’s Note: We present three poems from the upcoming book, I’d Rather Be Called a Nerd, by Dominic “Nerd” McDonald, winner of Day Eight’s 2022 DC Poet Project.

Friends With Privileges

I want friends with privileges like
the benefit of the doubt
benefactors, with formulas to increase Benjamins.
The kids with both parents,
even if they divorced, had four parents.
Supportive steps.
In two-story houses,
family rooms with expensive couches
dusted and vacuumed by maids and
pictures from holidays with them
all wearing similar outfits.
Pool room overlooking the jacuzzi and
wait, does that pool have a fountain?
Vacation home on the beach.
Vacation cabin in the mountains.
Vacation yacht on the sea.
A vacation every season.
So they throw parties at their house
every time they parents are leaving.
Who grew up, wanting the best
doing the best, and
having the best.
The ones you studied with because
you knew they would pass the test.
Friends who stay in 5-star hotels
eat at 5-star restaurants, after checking
5-star reviews on Yelp.
Don’t even check on the check when it comes,
just slap down a Platinum Rewards credit card
because “It practically pays for itself!”
When you ask them,
“Hey I’m moving and I’m in need of some help,”
they call in the help. And when it’s your birthday
they bring more than themselves!
Show up ON TIME
because they factor in travel time AND parking,
make sure you get home safe,
and invite you out to do a themed marathon race.
(Even though I won’t be doing any of that but I’ll gladly cheer you on.)
Or friends who go on hikes.
Or friends who like to ride bikes.
I wish I could say this more polite,
BUT I WANT FRIENDS WHO ARE
recipients of the “American Dream.”
Why do we attach a color to opportunities
that we all should receive?

Those who look like me
rarely get what they want
and barely take care of their needs.
I want to know how it feels to be
of the franchised population.

Let me find some comrades and confidants
who talk of Trusts and Bonds and sip Dom Pérignon
and don’t worry about
systematic poverty,
institutionalized racism,
low-income prejudice,
mass incarceration,
underserved education access,
police harassment,
corporate microaggression,
racial profiling,
parole limitations,
political misrepresentation,
and cultural appropriation.
Show me how this nation is great
by anyone, being able to be great
in this nation.

LAX LAX Land

Spanish and Mexican influence,
white domination disguised as liberal,
servitude in exchange for slavery merely because of labor laws.
A bountiful county with mountains and valleys,
homes in the alley and in the back,
from the Ports of Long Beach to the outskirts of Lancaster,
we might be bigger than a few states,
famous beaches though not the cleanest,
don’t confuse us with the Inland Empire
or even the O.C., why leave this paradise
of beach bums, money parasites, and druggies.
Those hungry are fed attention for 15 seconds
hoe strolls, on streets with liquor stores two doors from churches.
Hold on a second, an airplane is passing.
The youth gangbang by habit and by fashion.
Every kid at the park hooping for that ’scholly,
wishing they’ll be the one to bring the Lakers another ring.
Chinese-owned Louisiana chicken wings slash
doughnut shop, Sunrise and Sunsets at Roscoe’s,
while down Sunset celebrities make attempts at recreation,
gentrifying the poor from the South Bay and Westside
to South Central where they are left to die.
10.5 million people occupying the 110, 105, and 405,
Half a million dollar homes that can’t be owned
until you’re about 65 but you say it’s worth a try.
Multicultural, multisexual, multi-opportunities
to fall in line amongst cities with racial divides.
The Santa Monica, Torrance, Rancho Palos Verdes,
Rolling Hills, Marina Del Rey, Playa Del Rey,
Beverly Hills, Westwood, Brentwood,
Redondo Beach, Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach,
Venice, and El Segundo privileges.
You moved out here with dreams when you really needed a plan.
Welcome to the city we call
LAX LAX land.

Now Loading

Escape is on the other side
being in a new place while in place is on the other side
In plain sight but found somewhere to hide
I’m welcomed by voices other than mine
Giving more choices and can be my own guide
they said books did it, but it’s better this time
I’m allowed to run, jump, and fight
I’m allowed to build, drive, and kill … bad guys
Cause I’m the good guy,
I’ve been any type of guy actually
whatever I feel I have to be
nothing is mapped for me.
Casually I was here, after homework
and after chores
And whenever I wanted
After I was allowed to close the door
I stayed up late to beat enemies and scores
My brain felt ways like being on rollercoaster rides
and play fights or arguments or being chased
it’s a state of feeling that I’ve never been able
to replace – a state of feeling by simply
staying in place
it’s an escape
that they
keep trying
to recreate.

Dominic “Nerd” McDonald is the 2022 winner of the DC Poet Project, an annual open-to-all poetry competition created by the non-profit Day Eight. An entrepreneur and spoken word artist from various cities in Los Angeles, California, Dominic has put his views into poetry, screen plays, and magazine articles. His passion is serving the community and he hopes to be a “change agent” for the unheard. His journey led him to the DC Metro in 2016 where he spreads influential messages and supports others who walk the same path.

Image by Vic Brincat from Keswick, Ontario, Canada, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

For more information about the 2022 DC Poet Project and to buy the book:

https://dayeight.org/announcing-the-2022-d-c-poet-project-winner-dominic-nerd-mcdonald/
https://day-eight-books.myshopify.com/products/id-rather-be-called-a-nerd-by-dominic-nerd-mcdonald

Two Poems by Eve Burton

Serena Agusto-Cox

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October 14, 2022

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puddling

late summer sunbeams 
fall through forest leaves 
wet with recent rain

my path beside the creek
slippery with puddles
mud and round wet stones

without warning 
a cloud of swallowtails
startle from sipping 

the nectar of soil
I am surrounded
wrapt in golden wings

-puddling is when butterflies gather - sometimes in the hundreds - to sip nutrients from mud


butterflies

walking a meadow
filled with goldenrod and thistles
blanketed with moths and bees and butterflies

gorgeous golden swallowtails
sip from thistles
flap and sip again
and flutter

drinking nectar
copulating
laying eggs
dying when it's time

what more do we
accomplish in our human lives
with all our complications
computers

    calendars

        clocks
            
            loose     change

    cars
        

cages


        wars


- we are decorations on God’s earth like flowers blooming in the fields Jonathan (9 yrs)

eve is a Voices In The Glen storyteller and sometime poet who shares her work with Poetry Evenings, formerly of the Quince Orchard Library; The Summer Poetry Workshop; and at the Hyattstown Mill Arts Project Open Mike. She maintains a library of Local Poets at the Quince Orchard Library (any local author who donates a book may have it included in our circulating collection). She has a husband, four adult children, a good dog, a bad cat, and a backyard full of her husband’s bees.

Image: Eastern tiger swallowtails in the Allegheny National Forest from IvoShandor under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Two Poems by Sara Burnett

Gregory Luce

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October 13, 2022

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Afterward, in Waves

I’m no longer afraid of not doing
the right thing.

I leave clothes on the drying rack
for days.

Reading, I eat chocolate,
smear the page.

It’s not that I’m lazy or decadent;
I’m shamelessly alive.

Or if I’m afraid, it’s that I’ll forget
exactly

the blue-grey carpet, water stain
on the wood table.

If I’ve learned anything
from your accident,

it’s how to tend
a half-dead lawn.

*

The bedroom we shared was blue.
The walls, the sheets, the pillows, icy blue.

And the ground cracked and froze for half a year
as your bones mended in another state.

I’d drive 12-14 hours
to visit you in the dark blue cold.

Home, one evening I dug into your closet,
clawed though your things

like a madwoman in a gothic
novel you’d never read.

I was looking for a secret life
that I could blame.

*

Your father carried the blame
for your fall,

berated himself silently
for not securing

the scaffolding that buckled
under your weight.

The roof unrepaired
for years.

While you were hooked to machines,
he visited in-

frequently. We stood in the kitchen’s blue
morning light as he sobbed

into my shoulder and said something
inarticulately.

*

On the phone, you’d ask about the mail, bills,
did I remember to turn down the heat?

I rubbed my fingers round the water stain
left from a vase as we talked.

In spring, I mowed circles on the lawn.
It was important to you that the grass

was cut into perpendicular lines,
woven like a thatched roof.

*

In the house we shared,

stacks of new doors were propped
facing a wall. Window frames stood

upright with the windows punched out
like perfectly missing teeth.

I’m convinced you’ve never finished replacing them.

The paint on the deck was peeling again.
Years ago, just after the dog died,

we painted it in silence. I imagine
the lawn is still unflawed except

for that sandy spot.

*

Your mother told me a story
of when you were young. Angry,

you cut holes in a paper bag
for your eyes, wore it over your head

at dinner, and wordlessly forked food
underneath its serrated edge.

*

Once I motioned to the instructor
on our dive “no air”
though I could breathe fine.

I fitted the secondary yellow respirator
to my mouth, just to see if I could,
save myself in case of real emergency.

I still hate diving in deep water,
can’t stand the rubber suit, gauges
to measure oxygen, depth,

can’t feel my green sponge lung,
bronchioles, aureoles. The places
you’d never go fill with salt.

*

Before we even met, I taped
a card with a waterlogged image

of a couple facing each other
on a beach to my wall.
The inside left blank.

I was waiting to write it,
to have it written.

*

I no longer remember your face,
only a vague sketch and daubs of blue

for your eyes. I fill the gaps
by tracing pictures in sand.

When I press down, the water
rushes over. What dissolves,

dissolves in waves. You’re walking now
further and further away.

*

It’s like this: happening upon
an abandoned crab shell

or this: writing a poem
in a silent room.

How churned debris
of the sea blue-deep

in the quiescent half-light
floats up.

Before & After

After the phone call about her accident, we were far away at the seashore,
& if we should go back & how (since we couldn’t see her).

after we learned the other driver was maybe drunk or high,
after our children were in bed & only the waves punctuated

the silence between us, I thought this is it, everything will change from here on out,
but for that moment, a week really, we carried on as if,

as if before & after exist simultaneously, & sometimes, even now
a year later, I still catch myself about to send a photo to her or a text

Sara Burnett is the author of Seed Celestial, winner of the 2021 Autumn House Press Poetry Prize, and available in October 2022. She is also the chapbook author of Mother Tongue (Dancing Girl Press, 2018) and has published in Barrow Street, Copper Nickel, Matter, PANK, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA from the University of Maryland, and a MA in English Literature from the University of Vermont. Previously, Sara worked as a public high school English teacher. In addition to writing poetry and essays, she also writes picture books. She lives in Maryland with her family. Her website is: www.sararburnett.com.

Image: Sailing Hirondelle, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Two Poems by Peter Witt

Poetry

Gregory Luce

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October 7, 2022

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Nighttime on the cusp of madness

Nighttime ghosts cackle,
eyes shut, painful gut,
in a rut of another sleepless hour,
no power to shutoff thoughts, delay
solutions, resolutions, absolutions,
passing hours wind down the clock
in a whir of restless, feckless recriminations,
until dawn creeps through the curtains,
again, and again, and again.

Rise exhausted, unready, unsteady
to greet the day while a grackle cackles
as if to say, nevermore, which is the story,
understory of my whiplashed life, good luck
staying awake, as I fake another day
of work, eyes half shut, ears a buzzing,
vision fuzzing, until day is done,
homeward bound, where sound of clock
ticking, drives one to madness, sadness
until I lie down at eleven and repeat the pattern
again, and again, and again.

Delicate as a feather in the palm of my hand

She was my day, night, and
all that lies between. Her every breath:
sycamore and lavender. Each touch
a floating feather in the air, every smile
the full-phase moon’s perfection
rising on a clear autumn evening,
her laugh, chirp of bluebirds
swarming a just-filled feeder,
each swirl of her glowing hair,
flowing orb of the sun.

Peter A. Witt is a Texas poet and a recovering academic, who lost his adjectives in the doldrums of academic writing. Poetry has helped him recover his ability to see and describe the inner and outer world he inhabits. He also writes family history, with a book about his aunt published by the Texas A&M Press, and is an avid birder and wildlife photographer.

Image: Gb89.2, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Three Poems by Tara Campbell

Serena Agusto-Cox

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October 7, 2022

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Abortion Sonnet

When I have fears that I may cease to be
before my pen can punctuate the brains
of all those smug-ass pricks who only see
the world beneath their thumbs; the ones who say

all lives are precious, valued, even though
they fail to give one solitary fuck
about us, who oppress us with their faux
compassion; those who pluck at psalms to suck

the mercy out of their own god, then spit
on us for not obeying their demands;
if their theocracy can only sit
in unreflecting power—then understand

I’ll rage against their sanctimonious shit
and drag their raggedy-ass empire to bits.

W/apologies to Keats


Rage Sonnet #12

When I do count the clock that tells the time
and see all reason battered by the Right,
when trash judicial dockets toe the line
with silver-haired oppressors in the night;
when lofty ideals I see barren of fruit
which erst created opportunity,
and Liberty’s all tangled in lawsuits
and borne with books into a burning spree;
then of our nation’s future I do ask:
will we among the wasted empires go
or will we set upon a brighter task?
We could decay in fear, or choose to grow.
And nothing but compassion can forestall
our pride from shambling into our downfall.

w/apologies to Shakespeare


When thistles war

When thistles war, anathematizing God
and briars break and nettles split their pods,
the clandestine apostles hide their pricks
and Job waits up to catalog the tricks
while stalwart nuns direct the thunderclaps
and garish pollen sanctifies the lapse
of reason when a solitary brood
of passions rise to demonize the nude.

And if I tremble, if I question fate
when flowers rumble and reciprocate
with ghoulish laughter, can you wonder why
I’ve lost my faith? Who would decry 
the crass deportment of an errant weed
or criticize the mutinous behavior of a seed 
in transit? Do I have to quantify
how many dancing angels have ere died 
by pinprick? Can I possibly excuse 
the tendency of rosaries to lose?

I cannot. No, I simply can’t explain
how thickets thrive where furrows only gain.

Tara Campbell is a writer, teacher, Kimbilio Fellow, fiction co-editor at Barrelhouse, and graduate of American University’s MFA in Creative Writing. Her publication credits include SmokeLong Quarterly, Masters Review, Wigleaf, Booth, and CRAFT Literary. She’s the author of a novel and four multi-genre collections including her newest, Cabinet of Wrath: A Doll Collection. Connect with her on Twitter at @TaraCampbellCom

Image: Thistledown a method of seed dispersal by wind from Pollinator under GNU Free Documentation License