Author Archives: Synnika Chizoba Lofton

State of Mind: No Party Lines

A crooked smile stretches across a busy street. River Birch South yawns and pushes the day’s hungry button. Angry. Capitalism needs its pound of flesh and bone to feel whole. WHOLE. Greed Matters. Lives don’t. Ignore geno- cide, allow brutality to breathe and grow strong. Lethal. An idea worth its weight in tax dollars, wars,Continue reading “State of Mind: No Party Lines”

I Offer this Country Resistance

Studying Daylight. She ain’t been right in decades. Trying to outlast the metal jaws of this machine. This beast is a savage, flaunting patriotic colors, slogans, and catch phrases. In a different headspace, navigating hostile water. I walk a tight- rope, balancing goalsand hate and scars and fears. Numb the skin. Numb the skin. WatchContinue reading “I Offer this Country Resistance”

Suffocating Skin

Scrape knuckles againstfigurative concrete, looking for daylight, tucking earbuds into ears, listening to Fela Kuti. Traffic blurs. To be human is to walk along a tightrope. I levitate, hover above polluted frequencies. Above the fray is wherelesser gods like to find sanctuary. Cool, like jazzy rhythms vibrate beneath my steps. This path is heavy. TheContinue reading “Suffocating Skin”

No Filter Needed

No filter needed. Hostile smile tells the tale. This poem needs no introduction. Anarchy is written on its skin, as well as on liberated sky. Forget the constant panic in this dystopian nightmare with patriotic colors wrapped around eyes that refuse to see value (RESISTANCE), a value that contradicts the crumbs of rancid apple pies,Continue reading “No Filter Needed”

Shape a Dream/ Apply Muscle

Woke up to thismorning hustle. James Brownscreams them proud-like riffs to start another day. The belly of the machine is funky and fatal. Breathe after my own fashion. I saybreathe after my own fashion. Togamble with sun- light, like God owes me a favor. Like the Most Highclutches a black steering wheel and swerves alongContinue reading “Shape a Dream/ Apply Muscle”

I Will Breathe After My Own Fashion

Leaning into Identity–a scarred child break- ing the bars of a colonial cage. Rage is temporary (sometimes). Pleasant, like Jill Scott singing about living a golden life or like Bobby Womack crooning–110th Streeton his mind. No mercy for leaderswho use power, like an eraser, jazz-like, scrubbing surfaces for definitions of power or splashes of theContinue reading “I Will Breathe After My Own Fashion”

Swerving Into Machine

Labor beneath cosmos, trying to transform American ideas, lessons, brutalmoments. Brake lights hum, pulse.We call this thing liberation. Snakes walk upright, like pigs of strange jazz. Balancing their weight on trotters. Snatching them souls for this funky machine. She ain’t wrappedtoo tight! I swerve into relentlessgamble, rolling loaded dice, walking along a tightrope, trying toContinue reading “Swerving Into Machine”