By Alex Graham
Category: Issue #15
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Hand Comic
By Lonnie MF Allen
Lonnie MF Allen found his comic-art stride as a high-schooler dabbling in zines and mini-comics, eventually coming up through the ranks in the local comix scene, where he’s long been a regular among Denver’s close-knit cartooning community. An oft-published illustrator, writer and designer in addition to his niche as an award-winning cartoonist, and named one of Westword’s 100 Colorado Creatives, Allen is an organizer for the Denver Drink & Draw meet-up. His work has been published by Dark Horse, Image Comics, and he’s been nominated for an Eisner Award. Find him at lonniemfallen.com. -
30 Miles of Crazy No. 189
By Karl Christian Krumpholz
Award-winning cartoonist Karl Christian Krumpholz’s work has appeared in many different publications and even a documentary. He is currently working on two weekly comics: The Denver Bootleg, which examines local musical history for Denver’s Westword, and 30 Miles of Crazy! – the true-ish tales of the various lives in the city. Karl is always looking for a better place to get a drink. His latest comic, An Introduction to Alcohol, compiles a storyline originally featured in 30 Miles of Crazy! and won Best in Show at the 2017 Denver Comic and Arts Expo (DINK). Karl can always be found at karlchristiankrumpholz.com -
Charles Manson Listens to the White Album
By Jake Fairly
Jake Fairly oozed forth upon the Denver comics scene from the catacombs of the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design. Be it comics about Neil Armstrong’s corpse, or generally being metal AF, Jake is a guy with considerably hefty night moves. He’s had work published in periodicals such as Westword and the Denver Public Library comics newspaper, and has been labeled a “street artist” by Westword magazine. -
For Water Women (the Black bodies that find the river)
By Alyesha Wise
Today,
My good friend posts her pre-chemo picture online.
Today, she is a head full of hair, a text thread of ‘I got you sis’ emojis.
Tomorrow, I imagine her a golden mermaid with a broken tail.
I am tad bit afraid to drown, but I am unafraid to dive in for…Today, the body of a Black female Muslim judge
is found floating in the Hudson river.Today, my friend’s pre-chemo picture is still online.
She says it’s leukemia, or she says it’s lupus.No. Today, two of my friends slip on hospital gowns on opposite coasts –
Black warrior women
in white garb
always extend our wrists and draw blood.Today, no talk about the missing girls anymore.
Today, Sheila Abdus-Salaam’s dead carcass is pulled out of the Hudson River.
I am a tad bit afraid to drown, but I am unafraid to dive in for a dark woman.
Did no one see her flood before the water did?Today, I’ll wash my clothes.
Today, I’ll do my taxes.Today, I contemplate therapy, or scheduling a doctor’s appointment.
I contemplate how this will is birthed out of the wilting.
I contemplate how I still don’t trust white america with our bodies.I think myself an empath
then ask Is this just me naming a Black woman who is able to fix everything more than she is able to to fix herself?Today, all apologies cease for appropriating our lives.
Today,
Do you want to appropriate the dying parts, too?
Do you wish to wrap yourself in our tears and our cunts, fuck & discard of both?Yesterday,
I logged off.
Today, I am hesitant to log on.
I am trying not to do that thing the white world does –
turn a blind eye so I can pretend it is not happening.Yesterday, I logged off.
Today, I realize we are always logged on.We are always this tired. We are always this want.
We are always this unaccounted for.
We are always this urgency to put our own life mask on first.
But, sometimes, you may find us on the bank of the Hudson
or in a hospital bed with our arms outstretched.
And I know better than to claim an ill thing,
but I am trying not to do what the white world does –
turn a blind eye. I can’t pretend we do not feel it.Today, I cooked a great dinner.
cleaned my house.
planned a workshop for a class of mine.
prepared a healing circle in my living room.
chanted for the broken.
even the white ones.
the stubborn Black magic I am.
I wonder,
if God gets this tired, too.
or if They’re just choosing to anoint Their likeness this way –
the dark beings in holy garb, blessing the river.
the ones very few see drowning, until we do.
Alyesha Wise is a poet, teaching artist & TEDx speaker from Camden, N.J. who currently resides in Los Angeles. She is the author of Carnival (not a cult media). -
Body Loves to Gamble
By Ayla Sullivan
body makes wager with mirror
“if I’m not afraid of you by the end of the day, I’ll stop hiding you behind love notes the Internet said would help”
body is groaning
stomach, tight lipped around a secret
the old secret
he has forgotten what breakfast is, what dinner is
starts calling the stranger spending the night “meal”
doesn’t notice how often the stranger is gone
or if it stays, even
hips shrink
ass stays silent
shoulders do what they were taught, bend
body makes wager with men
“if you don’t fuck with me, i won’t fuck with you”
body loses
daily
keeps track of eyes and comments just enough to not start a lawsuit, but eventually support one
catalogues the calling, the touching, the yelling, the following
body keeps losing
body makes wager with night
“If you protect me once, I’ll never ask again.”
body keeps asking anyway
knows faith is the only thing that can protect us
knows it is dying every night or in broad daylight just in different bodies
body knows this version ain’t on a list yet, far enough from it to still be scared but not ready
knows that staying here, without transition, makes it easier to avoid beatings
body makes a wager with you
“if you can go years without asking for evidence it happened and believe me, maybe I’ll stop telling you. I’ll stop writing. I’ll stop filming. I’ll stop screaming. I’ll stop begging. I’ll stop. I’ll stop. Stop. Stop. Please.”
body forgets how to say stop
body don’t know how to say no
body is winning the bet
body tired of you seeing the signs, seeing the facebook live videos, the dash cam, the hearings, the recordings, the wrong place/wrong time, the hands, the blood, the gun, the blood, the fight, the cut, the blood, the blood, the death, the young, the dead young, the blood, the child, the gun, the mother, the blood, the blood
body asks
“aren’t you tired of losing? I am.”
Ayla Sullivan is the Denver Youth Poet Laureate and proud lifelong resident of Denver. They are studying Theatre and Secondary English Education at CU Boulder, where this summer they are in the acting company for the Colorado Shakespeare Festival. -
Fingertips
By Charly Fasano
Illustration by Charly Fasano Going to get to know himself better
by studying his fingerprints.
Wondering what got him here in the third place.
Going to get caught up in places
most people go to unwind.
Out of all the times he’s died
this one hurts the most.Partly cloudy
There’s cages hanging from cranes building New Denver.
He picked a pretty good day to start huffing markers.
He sits on a cooler drinking can beer in a parking lot overlooking a parking lot,
with a cheap view of a country club.
Golfers graze children in the heavy rough
while they drink brunch down the fairway.
He’ll never figure out if it’s members only to play
or members only to watch.He thinks of himself as a prophetic epileptic
all the waking ghost rides
tasting smells with a numb tongue
almost enjoys when tingles creep prepositional.Startled asleep
still living
still partly cloudy but bright enough to wear sunglasses
the kind of day when he has to choose
between buying toilet paper and eating his cat.A waffle and a cup of coffee hold hands and skip across a diner window.
Slow suicide sits in a booth sipping decaf
staring at a glass of whole milk
bacon
the cash register
a preacher’s wife
a chain smokerany and every
things he can’t have.
Studying his fingertips
Trying to figure out what got him here in the first place.
Charly Fasano is a poet, performer, filmmaker and block printer, as well as a Westword-voted Colorado Creative. Fasano has read his poems with and shared the stage with bands like Lucero, Drag the River, Crime in Stereo, Madson Jones, Land Lines and The Queers. He is the founder of Fast Geek Press, Pretend You Can Reab audio zine, and As Well As Magazine. Fasano’s poems have appeared in Yellow Rake, Lubricated Magazine, Syntax Magazine, MovingPoems.com and Growing Strange Magazine. His book of poems, Next Analog Broadcast (2011) was published by Sunnyoutside Press, and was followed by a multimedia book and 7 inch called RETROSPECT/ED featuring the music of Lucero, released on Fast Geek Press in 2014. -
Doors
By Jesse Parent
My daughter tells me she wants to date
and I shrug.
She tells me the name of her girlfriend
and I shrug again.
She tells me I have to be careful
because her girlfriend’s parents don’t know she’s gay.
And I pause.My daughter tells me her parents are religious
and I want to tell her “so am I” and “that shouldn’t matter”
But I can’t deny that while religion doesn’t build the closet door
it does tend to supply the lumber.
To plane it straight.
After all, Jesus was a carpenter’s son
and knows the many uses of wood.
How to hang plumb.And here I reach the point of parental dilemma
I am at the crossroad where
I need to be honest with this girl’s parents
and where she needs to survive.
My daughter praying to crossed timber
on an atheist’s rosary that the door
will open and her girlfriend will be
where she last saw her,
alive and well hidden under a heap of clothes
that her parents bought for her.I live a thousand lifetimes in this decade of Hail Marys
where my daughter does not go to prom
because her girlfriend has to go with a boy
where she is called an “aunt” or “special friend”
where she is pulled inside the door of someone else’s closet.
Applies another coat of varnish and lacquer
until she blurs a little more every day.And when I meet the parents,
I smile like a stack of toothpicks,
choose her survival over truth,
shake their hands and feel for splinters and callouses.
But I say a silent prayer, a vow,
to put every door in my own home into a wood chipper
until my daughter feels safe
until she falls in love with the smell of sawdust.
Jesse Parent placed 2nd at both the 2010 and 2011 Individual World Poetry Slams and has served on the executive council for Poetry Slam, Inc. His poetry has been featured on Huffington Post, UpWorthy, TheBlaze.com, and WorldStarHipHop.com. In his personal life, he has a very tolerant wife and three adorable kids. You can find out more about him at www.JesseParent.com. -
Dear, Wakanda
By Theo “Lucifury” Wilson
This poem is entitled, “Why I’m naming my daughter Wakanda.”
Or, “Is it possible to have a vibranium boner? Thank you Lupita N’Yongo!”
Or, “Dear T’Challa, you’re more of a hero than you know,Signed…Chi-Raq.”
When is a story more than a story?
Answer: when the story itself is a super-suit.
Put it on and defy gravity in the holodeck of heart.
To those wonder why a mere movie trailer made black folks act crazy.
Consider our stories thus far.Consider the war on drugs felon reading Marvel Comics in his cell.
Consider Angela Davis and Assata Shakur the real-life Dora Milaje.
Lady warriors who faced the beast with so much cat-like ferocity
They forgot about their reflex to flinch.Did Huey P. Newton dream of the waterfalls and the Cat-God
Serving time, as the world chanted his slave-name to set him free?The courage it took to fight the power without a bulletproof suit
Lets you know he’d be a hell of an Avenger.All black student history saw the drawings of Wakanda, and wondered
“Is this what we would have been?
Had Africa been cursed with vibranium instead of diamonds?
Had plunder not reset the clock on our advancement?
Had Stan Lee been God and not the dude on the cross,
Could I apply for dual citizenship in Wakanda?”If Zimmerman pulled down the hoodie, and revealed T’Challa,
A mighty round-house kick launching him through the rainy night,
Slashing the pistol into pieces with one slice of his claws,
Would the courts rule that “Panthers” could again be on neighborhood watch?Maybe then, I could fight with stronger weapons than a hashtag.
Would Wakanda offer amnesty to refugees of the drug war,
And bail out nonviolent offenders from mass incarceration?Would they send water engineers for Flint, Michigan’s pipes?
Or would they be stopped in customs by Trump’s travel ban?
Would The Panther issue trade sanctions on precious metals
Until they freed Mumia,
Or would he funnel supplies to protestors in Ferguson?It’s kind of weird how bad we want this place to be real…but, not…
Not when I rehearse my speech to the cops in the mirror like a monologue.
Hoping if I’m as good as Chadwick Boseman, I can win a trip home like an Oscar.So, until I live in the Marvel Universe…I’m naming my daughter, “Wakanda.”
And she’s gonna be a badass
A kung fu master, computer-hacking toddler
With a sidekick she will know as, “daddy.”And, she’ll be as pretty as Angela Bassett and nice with the nunchucks.
As I wait for life to imitate art.
Theo “Lucifury” Wilson is a poet and performer from Denver’s Park Hill neighborhood. He’s a US National Poetry Slam Champion and member of multiple Slam teams, as well as the founder of Barbershop Talk. He’s also the grandson of a Tuskegee Airman. -
Ethnic Studies by Toluwanimi Obiwole
I’ve been staring down a long hard historical fact for two years now
maybe my whole life
That putting the stories of my people in a bound leather dissertation
Will either pasteurize it
Or get me in trouble
Depending on how much truth I tell
The first ethnographers arranged indigenous people like dolls
In front of a narrative
That would snake around their throats
And choke the oral tradition from their lips
We called grandfather’s stories history
English translated them into myth
I came to snatch them back
Under the midnight glow of library fluorescent lighting
I relearned what the ancestors died discovering
That if you are too loud
Too brown
Insisting upon the right to your own breath
They might just take it from you
Or swallow you up in an institutional lie
But what will they say
Now that I have torn up every story about me or my people that isn’t true
Now that I have taken their blue passport and made a bridge with it
Now that I am delicately crafting self love into a quantifiable form of healing
Rediscovered grandfather’s stories
And how to tell them so loud
So brown
So insistent upon my own necessity
Most days the university will call me idealistic
Cause learning your own history will not make you millions
But detangling history with voices as coarse and
thick with struggling as your own
With the reverb of emiliano zapata marching to fela’s drum
Sure sounds like the end of capitalism
The beginning of reparations
And isn’t that the most expensive thing?
Holding the key to your own freedom
Collecting sovereignty back from the pioneers and conquistadors
that still live
All of you who have survived classes where historical atrocities are the only available histories about a people like yours
Can now rewrite the textbooks
Fill in lost syllables and accents
To tell a more complete narrative on survival
On revitalization
On the joy that exists and must be remembered
In every indigenous song and story
Joy like a rock through
neocolonialism
neo-imperialism
And every other ism
That fashions its mouth against me
I have always had a voice
But now this $60,000 piece of cardstock will amplify it
My feet, blackened on the road to revolution
Now have offices and neighborhoods to go to
But wherever I
Wherever we
End up
Let us rework the spaces we are in
Pull out the hard truths from our back pockets when necessary
And always
be unapologetically
Free
